THREATS against MPs and other public figures in County Durham related to Brexit have gone ‘through the roof’ in recent years, according to one of the region’s police chiefs.

Among the issues police had to deal with last year was two men convicted of throwing bricks through the window of former Bishop Auckland MP Helen Goodman.

And both of those were later found to have previous links to ‘right wing activity’, another issue forces across the country have found themselves having to adapt to.

“Last year threats to MPs and other elected representatives went through the roof,” said Detective Inspector Alfie Keane, of Durham Constabulary’s Special Branch.

“Because of the number of threats around Brexit and the severity, the government chose to treat them as an attack on the democratic process.

“The government asked counter-terrorism policing to make sure MPs’ security was effectively managed and we engaged with all our MPs to make sure they had the right level of security.

“We did, unfortunately, get a lot of threats, so we were trying to provide advice to people getting close to the line, telling them although they might disagree with an MP and their stance on Brexit not to cross that line and commit an offence.

“It’s so easy on social media to throw threats around.”

DI Keane was speaking at a meeting of the Police and Crime Panel for County Durham and Darlington.

It was the first meeting of the panel following the funeral of previous Police, Crime and Victims’ Commissioner Ron Hogg, on Tuesday, January 7.

Before his death from motor neurone disease Mr Hogg had been an advocate of ‘restorative justice’, through which offenders are encouraged to engage directly with their victims.

DI Keane confirmed this approach had been used with ‘several persons’ linked with ‘malicious communications offences’.

At Sunderland’s general election count in December, Sunderland Central MP Julie Elliott thanked officers from Northumbria Police following threats against her, which included the windows of her constituency office being smashed.

Ms Elliott said at the time: “People can have political debates with me that’s absolutely fine – but this is not the way to behave in politics or in life.”