Man sentenced for harassing MP and her solicitor husband

A man who harassed a Conservative MP for over three years sent more than 300 emails to her husband’s law firm Kingsley Napley, a court heard today.

Michael Bedford sent ‘abusive’ messages to Basingstoke MP Dame Maria Miller as part of a ‘sustained campaign of harassment’ between July 2018 and January this year after first contacting her in relation to a dispute with his former employer Royal Mail.

The 58-year-old, from Basingstoke, also sent ‘a large number of emails to the workplace of Mrs Miller’s husband’, Kingsley Napley partner Iain Miller, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

Prosecutor Luke Staton told the court that ‘approximately 302 emails were sent [to Kingsley Napley] between 1 September and 26 November 2021’, adding: ‘There were a further 40 emails sent between 28 November and 12 January 2022.’

Bedford’s emails to the national firm referred to Maria Miller in ‘abusive and derogatory ways’, Staton said. Kingsley Napley blocked Bedford’s email address, but he then created ‘as many as seven new email addresses in order to make contact with Mr Miller’s workplace’.

Chloe Carvell, representing Bedford, said her client is ‘remorseful’ and that he contacted the firm because he was seeking advice from someone who was ‘legally qualified’ about how to communicate with his MP.

But chief magistrate Paul Goldspring suggested that the emails to Kingsley Napley appeared to be part of an attempt to harass Maria Miller ‘by proxy’ and questioned whether Bedford was truly remorseful.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Maria Miller said that her ‘very real fear’ during the campaign was that she would be ‘confronted by Mr Bedford in person’ and that it ‘could escalate into a physical attack’.

The MP said that the harassment was ‘made even worse’ when Bedford ‘extended his highly abusive activities to my husband and his work colleagues’.

Goldspring imposed an eight-week suspended sentence on Bedford and ordered him to undergo 30 rehabilitation sessions and undertake 200 hours of unpaid work, saying he was suspending the sentence as Bedford is the sole carer for his father and because there was ‘a real prospect of rehabilitation’ with treatment.

Bedford was also made subject to an indefinite restraining order preventing him from contacting the Millers, save for one communication a month with Maria Miller only in relation to constituency matters.