SCOTLAND Yard is investigating a“credible threat” made against the gay SNP MP who complained to police over an Ulster Unionist peer referring to her as a “queer”
Earlier this month Hannah Bardell reported the independent unionist Lord Maginnis to police after he called her a “queer” following a dispute over his treatment of parliamentary staff.
After the MP spoke out she received screeds of abuse including one threat that worried her office so much they called in the police.
Officers have now launched an investigation.
READ MORE: Hannah Bardell to call police over Unionist peer's 'queer' attack
News of the threat comes as Bardell is set to file a complaint about the peer to the Commissioner of Standards in the House of Lords.
The row stems from an incident, when the Lord Maginnis allegedly “verbally abused” security staff on the parliamentary estate after forgetting his security pass.
He is said to have shouted at two members of staff, calling them “crooked” and asking them: "Do you not know who I am? I’ve been here 46 years".
Bardell, the MP for Livingston, outlined the incident in a point of order in the Commons describing it as “one of the worst cases of abuse of security staff” she had witnessed as an MP.
When asked to respond. Maginnis told HuffPost: “Queers like Ms Bardell don’t particularly annoy me.
“Okay, she’s got her cheap publicity out of it.”
Bardell later told MPs: "I’m sorry to say that the member from the other place (the House of Lords) who I have complained about has now launched a homophobic attack on me in the press.
“This will be reported to the police and I know that I and others consider this to be a hate crime.”
READ MORE: Peer says Hannah Bardell raised his abuse of staff because she is 'queer'
Bardell told The National: “The stuff that happened with Lord Maginnis has been horrible, both personally and professionally.
“I’ve had great support from the house authorities and the police and public. Unfortunately I have now faced a threat, what the police consider quite a credible threat, as a result of what’s happened and that’s now being investigated."
But, she added, people from all over the UK had been in touch to thank her for taking the time to stand up to Maginnis.
“It’s been tough, to be honest, not the return to work I expected,” the MP said.
“The irony of him suggesting that I was challenging him because I was a queer when I didn’t know who he was and what his views were. Well I certainly know what his views are now.
Bardell said the threats would not stop her from speaking up.
“I’m not going to let it go,” she told The National.
Maginnis has denied calling the SNP politician a queer.
He was formerly an Ulster Unionist Party MP and later represented the party in the Lords.
However, in 2012, he left the party after he fell out with the leadership.
They had criticised him for referring to gay marriage as “unnatural and deviant behaviour” and comparing homosexuality to bestiality.
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