A former Brexit Party candidate has avoided jail after being found guilty of sending a threatening Tweet about a Labour MP.

Stephen Peddie, 61, from Edenbridge, posted the message in February last year in which he referred to Dawn Butler, saying: "Egregious theft in time of national emergency. Someone please explain to me why a bullet to the back of the head is anything but justified and wholly deserved."

Although his Tweet didn't name Ms Butler, he was responding to a Tweet by social commentator Toby Young who had alleged that the Brent MP had been using taxpayer cash to fund a jacuzzi in a north London property, while claiming her main home was in east London.

Ms Butler has denied the jacuzzi claims.

Peddie - who twice stood for election to Sevenoaks council for Ukip and was the Brexit Party's candidate for Tonbridge and Malling in the 2019 General Election before withdrawing - was found guilty last month at Westminster Magistrates' Court of sending a public communication of a menacing nature.

At his sentence hearing last week, he was given eight weeks in prison, suspended for a year.

He was also ordered to undertake 180 hours of community work, pay £200 compensation to Ms Butler, and £500 court costs and a £128 victim surcharge.

Peddie stood as a Ukip candidate in the Edenbridge South and West Ward in 2015, and stood again as an Independent in May 2019.

That year, he was also selected as a Brexit Party candidate for Tonbridge and Malling in the General Election, but withdrew before the poll after falling out with the party's leadership.

After the case, Ms Butler said: "To read his Tweet was terrifying. Even more chilling was the fact that Mr Peddie legally owned firearms at the time, which I’m told were confiscated after his arrest.

"I therefore considered his Tweet to be a genuine and public death threat against me.

"After taking some time to come to terms with the sentencing, I feel let down. This man should have gone to prison for what he did, a suspended sentence is not good enough and I am worried by the message this sends." '

'We must never become desensitised to the abuse that we receive online'

She said: "These incidents must be taken more seriously."

She said: "I was shocked by his claim in court: 'I could not have reasonably expected Dawn Butler to have seen my Tweet on Young’s account and she didn’t. She was sent the Tweet by a third party.'

"It is wrong to assume I don’t see Tweets about me on a public platform, especially as his comment was in response to someone who has a large number of followers.

"If he is suggesting that it’s OK to make threats or abuse people online if they might not see it, that would be an extremely dangerous precedent – not least because it risks inciting others. We must never become desensitised to the abuse that we face online."

The MP said: "I am glad this went to court but I am deeply disappointed by this outcome, but no matter what I will never be silenced."