A man who sent deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner an email telling her to “watch your back and your kids” has been spared jail.

Benjamin Iliffe, 36, sent the email from his personal account on October 16 and was arrested on Wednesday, Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court heard.

The defendant, who appeared by video-link from Thorpe Wood police station in Peterborough, in Cambridgeshire, admitted to sending the threatening email.

He also admitted to possessing a quantity of cannabis on Wednesday, when he was arrested.

Iliffe, of Chatteris in Cambridgeshire, was sentenced to 15 weeks in prison suspended for 18 months.

He was made subject of a two-year restraining order not to contact Ms Rayner directly or indirectly, not to talk about her on social media and not to go to her office in Ashton-under-Lyne in Manchester.