The daughter of murdered MP Sir David Amess has questioned how much the Government “cares about the safety of MPs” after the Home Secretary rejected her calls for a public inquiry.
Katie Amess told the PA news agency she would try to plead with the Prime Minister and Yvette Cooper “on a human basis” during a meeting in Downing Street on Wednesday.
So-called Islamic State fanatic Ali Harbi Ali stabbed the veteran MP at his constituency surgery in Essex and was sentenced to a whole-life order in 2022.
Ms Cooper rejected the Amess family’s calls for a public inquiry despite the killer being referred to Prevent seven years before the murder.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (Aaron Chown/PA)
Addressing what her reaction to the letter was, Ms Amess told PA: “I would say complete and utter disbelief.
“It is extremely upsetting – I read it in the middle of the night and I just started shaking. I could not believe that I was actually reading this.
“I felt so, so angry that this was how they felt this should be dealt with and such sadness at the betrayal of people that are claiming to be my dad’s friends just fobbing us off again and again and brushing us under the carpet.
“I felt so sad on my dad’s behalf – he isn’t here any more to stick up for himself so I am trying to do that as much as I can, but I’m just absolutely heartbroken that Yvette Cooper could write this letter to my mother and I and think that we’re just going to go away and accept this.
“It’s adding salt onto an open wound – that’s how I see it. Sadness, betrayal, pain and just heartbreak really.”
Ms Amess said she would “plead my case and pray to God they’ll have a change of heart” ahead of her meeting with the Prime Minister and Home Secretary.
She said: “I just need to remind him of who my dad was and what my dad stood for.
“He stood for democracy, he stood up for people’s rights even if they weren’t the same religion, same belief, the same economic status – he stood up for everybody.
“I’m going to plead with Sir Keir and Yvette Cooper to think of my dad and the kind of politician he was – can you not be more like him and give us this basic right of finding out what happened and why and try and help it not happen to other people?
“So I’m just going to plead my case and pray to God they’ll have a change of heart and realise that my dad was a human being, he isn’t just a political figure in a game of chess, he’s a human being.
“He was a husband, a father, a son, a friend – he should still be here with us now if it wasn’t for completely preventable actions or the actions that weren’t taken.
“So I’m just going to try and speak with them on a human basis and hope that they can see the point of view of his family and not just a political game.”
Sir David Amess (Chris McAndrew/PA)
Ms Amess continued: “When this happened to my father, we were six weeks away from my wedding – so my dad had been planning my wedding with me and we had just chosen the song I was going to walk down the aisle to, and the next time I heard that song was when his coffin was being brought into his funeral.
“He had just chosen the suit he was going to wear for my wedding – the next time I saw that suit it was hanging up, pressed, fresh, for him to wear in his coffin.
“Nobody should have to go through that, and I think it’s only fair that we are given some answers and some accountability is taken because the guy was being followed, he was known to the authorities.
“Please, Sir Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper, just have the decency of helping us answer why and how, and try and prevent this from happening to any other person because the pain and the torment and the torture that we are in right now is just unbearable.”
Ms Amess said the Government’s decision not to commission an inquiry made her question its approach to MP safety.
She told PA: “The Government needs to think, what kind of message is it sending to other potential terrorists that are planning attacks right now if you won’t even do an inquiry into a member of parliament’s death who had served for 40 years, who you’re saying is your friend and your beloved colleague.
“If you can’t even be bothered to do an inquiry into that, then how much do you really care about the safety of MPs?”
Ms Amess said her family had not had chance to properly grieve following her father’s death and still felt she was “begging people to give me some answers”.
She said: “It’s just mixed emotions because you’re just trying to grieve but then you have to be strong because you’re still trying to fight for the answers.
“And it being on such a public stage you don’t get the privacy that you need to grieve.
“So it’s basically just destroyed my life and I’m still sitting here three-and-a-half years later begging people to give me some answers.
“It just feels like it’s picking at a wound over and over again – it’s just like, can’t they just give us the answers so that we can come to terms with what happened and know that people have been held accountable and this won’t happen again and then I can focus on healing.
“It’s absolutely destroyed my life – I get nightmares, I suffer from PTSD, I have to be on medication, I had to take time off from work – it’s just soul-destroying.
“The public have been great, but I feel like people just think it’s a news story – but it’s my dad and I loved him so much and he’ll never meet his grandchildren, he never saw me walk down the aisle.
“It’s just like, how are you meant to get over that if you’re not being given the answers and making sure this doesn’t happen to anybody else?”