A Southampton MP is said she is "scared" for those standing in the general election amid hate emails and rape threats. 

Romsey and Southampton North MP, Caroline Nokes said she is "scared" that those standing in the election will come under personal attack. 

Ms Nokes made the comments in an interview with BBC Radio Solent. 

Speaking on Radio Solent, Ms Nokes said: "Every day I receive hate emails and messages from people who despise me just because I am a woman or want to attack me because they disagree with me politically but they do so by making rape threats, by making weird allegations.

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"It's going to be a weird election and I am sure there will be all sorts of very strange people behaving in very odd ways."

She has since urged candidates to be alert adding that she fears the election won't be "conducted with decency and courtesy".

It follows an incident which saw Wajid Shah, from Slough, Berkshire, jailed for emailing Ms Nokes - along with Theresa May, Lord Blunkett, Baroness Lister, MP Tan Dhesi and former MP Mark Lancaster - with death threats.

He was sentenced in November 2020.

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Other MPs have previously spoken out about threats to their safety.

Preet Gill, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, said earlier this year that receiving death threats seems to have become a "norm" and that her job worried her "in a way I've never been worried before".

Nokes' fellow Conservative MP Mike Freer, who represents the London constituency of Finchley and Golders Green, announced in February he would be standing down at this year's election.

Freer, a justice minister, has faced a series of death threats and was targeted by Ali Harbi Ali, the man who stabbed Southend West MP Sir David Amess to death in 2021.

He said the "final straw" was an arson attack o his constituency office in December last year.

Meanwhile, Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in her constituency of Batley and Spen in June 2016, ahead of the Brexit referendum.

The confirmed candidates for Romsey and Southampton North are: Geoff Cooper (Liberal Democrat), Sahrae Cunio (Workers Party), Christie Lambert (Labour), Caroline Nokes (Conservative), Connor Shaw (Green) and Harry Sheffield (Reform UK).