A British legislator was yesterday sentenced to 10 weeks in prison for punching one of his constituents after a night out, raising the prospect he could be ousted from parliament and trigger an electoral test for the governing Labour Party.
Mike Amesbury was suspended from Labour after CCTV footage showed him throwing a punch at a man in October and repeatedly hitting him after the man was knocked to the ground.
Amesbury, the member of parliament for Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England, initially said he felt threatened on the street.
The 55-year-old appeared at Chester Magistrates’ Court, where prosecutor Alison Storey said a member of the public approached Amesbury at a taxi queue just after 2am on October 26 to remonstrate with him about a local bridge closure.
Amesbury then knocked the man to the floor punching him at least five times when he was on the ground, she said.
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