British Lawmaker Amesbury Jailed for 10 Weeks for Punching Passerby

British lawmaker Amesbury jailed for 10 weeks for punching passerby

LONDON (Reuters) - A British lawmaker was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison on Monday for punching one of his constituents after a night out, raising the prospect he could be ousted from parliament and trigger an electoral test for the governing Labour Party.

Mike Amesbury was suspended from Labour after CCTV and video footage showed him throwing a punch at a man in October and repeatedly hitting him after the man was knocked to the ground.

Amesbury, the member of parliament for Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England, said he felt threatened on the street after an evening out with friends.

The 55-year-old appeared at Chester Magistrates' Court on Monday, where he was sentenced to 10 weeks for a single count of common assault, having pleaded guilty last month. Judge Tan Ikram said he would serve 40% of the sentence in custody.

Lawmakers convicted of an offence and given a jail sentence or a suspended jail sentence can potentially be removed from office if enough constituents support a petition calling for a new election for their parliamentary seat.

Any such vote would put pressure on Labour, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, following the party's landslide national election win in July.

Amesbury won the seat comfortably for Labour last year but since then the right-wing Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage, has overtaken Labour in some national opinion polls.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin in London and Phil Noble in Chester; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)