The family of MP Sir David Amess has called for a public investigation into his murder, but the home secretary has turned them down.
It was “hard to see how an inquiry would be able to go beyond” the prosecution of terrorist Ali Harbi Ali and the newly released Prevent learning evaluation, according to Yvette Cooper, who wrote to Lady Julia Amess and Katie Amess.
Cooper’s remarks, according to Katie Amess, daughter of Sir David, were “adding salt on to an open wound” and were “unacceptable” and “insulting.”
On October 15, 2021, Ali, a supporter of the so-called Islamic State, fatally stabbed Sir David, the Conservative MP for Southend West, at a constituency surgery.
Lady Amess, his widow, suggested that Sir Keir Starmer “go away and reconsider the government’s position” before the family meets with the home secretary and prime minister on Wednesday.
Katie Amess described how she felt “sadness, betrayal, pain and just heartbreak, really” after reading the letter. The prime minister was urged by Sir David’s family to think about incorporating his murder into the public investigation into the Southport murders.
Seven years prior to his 20-stabbed murder of Sir David at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Ali had been reported to Prevent.
The terrorist was sentenced to a whole-life order at the Old Bailey in 2022.
