Labour MP Jo Cox 'murdered for a political cause'

Labour MP Jo Cox was killed for a "political and/or ideological cause", the Old Bailey has heard.

Thomas Mair, 53, allegedly murdered Mrs Cox outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, near Leeds, on 16 June.

He shouted "Britain First" as he carried out the attack, and in the weeks beforehand, he accessed "far right" and Nazi material online, as well as information on the Ku Klux Klan, jurors were told.

Mr Mair, from Birstall, denies murder.

Mrs Cox was killed just a week before the EU referendum and had campaigned for the Remain side.

Mr Mair told police officers "I am a political activist" after he was arrested less than a mile from where Mrs Cox was murdered, the court heard.

Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC said: "Thomas Mair clearly held views that provided him with a motive - utterly misplaced of course.

"The prosecution suggests that motive was such that he killed her because she was an MP who did not share his views."

Mrs Cox, 41, was to hold a surgery in a library after visiting a local school and care home when she was attacked,

Mr Whittam told the jury: "As she arrived she was brutally murdered by one of her constituents, this defendant, Thomas Mair.

"It was a cowardly attack by a man armed with a firearm and a knife.

"Jo Cox was shot three times and suffered multiple stab wounds. During the course of the murder Thomas Mair was heard by a number of witnesses to say repeatedly 'Britain First'."

Mrs Cox was killed "in what was a planned and pre-meditated murder for a political and/or ideological cause", he added.

Jurors were told that 77-year-old Bernard Carter-Kenny was also injured as he tried to save Mrs Cox.

Items found at Mr Mair's home showed he had "strong political and ideological interests", Mr Whittam said.

The court heard he had used computers to look up websites at the same library where Mrs Cox was due to hold her surgery.

In May, he accessed the Wikipedia page of an online publication called the Occidental Observer - a "far-right" publication "that covers politics and society from a white nationalist and anti-Semitic perspective", the prosecutor said.

Jurors heard in the days leading up to the killing he also looked at Twitter and Wikipedia pages for Mrs Cox and went on to view information on former Foreign Secretary William Hague.

And he viewed websites on Nazi material, the death penalty in Japan, political prisoners and the human liver and spinal column.

Finally, on the eve of the attack, prosecutors say Mr Mair researched right-wing politicians as well as the Ku Klux Klan and civil rights activists killed by its supporters.

Source: BBC