An MP says he will wear a stab vest and a panic alarm when meeting members of the public after he was targeted by the killer of Sir David Amess.
Mike Freer, the MP for Finchley and Golders Green, said he was “much more mindful” of people around him after it emerged Ali Harbi Ali carried out reconnaissance at a location where he was due to meet constituents last year.
A month later Ali, an Islamic State fanatic, murdered veteran MP Sir David at his constituency surgery in Essex.
In a victim impact statement read at Ali’s sentencing on Wednesday, Mr Freer said it was only a “last minute” change of plan that meant he did not attend his surgery on the day Ali visited.
The Tory MP, 61, said he had now changed the way he ran community surgeries in supermarkets, libraries and on the street.
“I and my staff will now wear stab vests and wear mobile panic alarms,” he said.
Since Sir David’s murder, Mr Freer said his husband was “anxious” about him walking alone or using the Tube or bus.
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“Due to this he feels that he always has to be with me when outside and won’t allow me to be on my own,” he said.
“If he knows I am travelling he needs to know where I am, how I’m travelling and when I will arrive.
“Both my husband and I are now acutely aware of anyone hanging around by my home or at the office.”
Mr Freer said it was clear from the information provided by police that he had been “a potential target” of Ali.
He told the court: “Since the news of the attack and the subsequent visit by police, I have been much more mindful of people around me and keeping distance from people.
“I have been very aware that I was potentially at risk from the individual responsible for the attack and this has played on my mind on occasion.”
Mr Freer said he had introduced new security measures due to the risk posed to him and his staff.
“We have stopped all public engagement since the attack unless the meetings are at secure sites,” he said.
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“My staff are now wary of opening the door to the constituency office to the public and so we are therefore having an additional internal door installed to create a small secure area for anyone attending.”
Mr Freer said his staff had become “more heightened when receiving threatening calls” and he’d had to close his office on at least one occasion because his colleagues felt “vulnerable”.
The MP said he had stopped advice surgeries and, in the future, anyone attending must have ID and proof of their address in the constituency.
He had used an old mobile home as an advice surgery for some years but he will no longer speak to constituents inside it because “there is no safe escape route from the vehicle”.
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“In the future, I will be restricting advice surgeries to venues that have a clear escape route in the room being used for the surgery,” he added.
Sir David was stabbed more than 20 times by Ali, who duped the MP’s office into arranging a meeting in Leigh-on-Sea in October last year.
The terrorist claimed he was a healthcare worker moving to the area who wished to discuss local matters.
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After the killing of Sir David, the sister of Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered by a far-right extremist in her constituency in 2016, called for compulsory security training for members of parliament.
Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, her sister’s old seat, told Sky News: “All my team have had counterterrorism training and I will make sure that we keep up to date and keep up to speed on that.”
