‘Acid threat MP’s lover was having affair with woman she targeted’

AN MP who allegedly threatened to throw acid at a woman she thought was having an affair with her boyfriend was told yesterday that her suspicions were correct.

Claudia Webbe was handed a tenweek suspended jail sentence last year after being convicted of harassing Michelle Merritt with abusive phone calls, accusing her of ‘slagging around with my boyfriend’.

Webbe, 57, was ordered to pay £1,000 in compensation to Miss Merritt who said she had been left fearing for her life.

But Southwark Crown Court heard yesterday that the MP’s suspicions were warranted after Miss Merritt admitted that she had been having sex with Lester Thomas for years.

The extraordinary twist emerged during an appeal brought by the former Labour MP for Leicester East, who hopes to have her conviction overturned. Yesterday Webbe sat stonyfaced in court as it emerged that Mr Thomas had given Miss Merritt a £120 sex toy and frequently sent her pornography.

When the trial was heard at Westminster Magistrates Court last year, 59-year-old executive assistant Miss Merritt insisted that they were just ‘good friends’.

Yesterday Helen Law, representing Webbe, suggested there was a ‘glaring omission’ in her evidence.

But Miss Merritt said: ‘I had not lied about having sex with Mr Thomas. No-one asked me in the magistrates’ court.

‘Had the QC said to me, “Were you having sex with Mr Thomas on X date etc,” I was under oath and I would have had to have said yes.’ She told the appeal that ‘it was more often a friendconvicted ship, going to the cinema, theatre, for lunch... more than sex’.

But she admitted the pair ‘occasionally’ had sex between March 2017 and July 2020, describing Mr Thomas, a Chelsea FC scout, as a ‘narcissist who likes attention’.

The pair had dated 15 years previously, but the court heard that they had continued to meet for sex after he began a relationship with Webbe. The MP, who stands as an independent after being kicked out of the Labour Party, was in October of a campaign of harassment between September 1, 2018 and April 26, 2020.

Miss Merritt told police that Webbe had called her on Mother’s Day in 2019 threatening to throw acid on her. Yesterday Webbe said: ‘There was no call and there was no threat of anything to do with acid.’

Mr Thomas accompanied Webbe during her trial, but their relationship broke down after she learnt of his infidelity. The appeal continues.