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Man arrested for attempting to crowdfund a 'horrifying' campaign to assassinate Gina Miller

Victoria Bell
Updated ·3-min read
Anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller speaks outside the Supreme Court in London, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019 after it made it's decision on the legality of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's five-week suspension of Parliament. In a setback for Johnson, Britain's Supreme Court has ruled that the suspension of Parliament was illegal. The ruling Tuesday is a major blow to the prime minister who had suspended Parliament for five weeks, claiming it was a routine closure. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
A 52-year-old man set up a GoFundMe page with the aim to raise £10,000 to 'hire a contract killer to kill' the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller. (AP)

A man has been arrested after launching a campaign to raise £10,000 to hire a hitman to assassinate Gina Miller.

The 52-year-old man set up a GoFundMe page with the aim to raise £10,000 to 'hire a contract killer to kill Gina Miller: The Traitor of Democracy', using the alias Jeff Blogger.

He was arrested on suspicion of making malicious communications and released pending an investigation, Northumbria Police said.

The GoFundMe page has been deleted after six months online, according to the Sunday Mirror.

Miller, who led a Supreme Court challenge that forced the government to consult Parliament before triggering the Brexit process, told the paper: “This is horrifying. It beggars belief that this can have been allowed to have been put up on this site and stayed there for so long.

Gina Miller, la principal demandante en la batalla legal para que el Parlamento británico vote sobre la salida del país de la Unión Europea, hace declaraciones ante el Supremo en Londres, el martes 24 de enero de 2017. (AP Foto/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Gina Miller, pictured here outside the Supreme Court in 2017, has received death threats and even had a £5,000 bounty on her head. (AP)

“We need to heal our nation and my view is that the only way of doing that is to remember true British values of tolerance, decency, reason, civic duty, common sense and above all else honesty and kindness.”

Read more: Gina Miller calls Boris Johnson’s ‘oven-ready Brexit’ is his worst lie

A Northumbria Police spokesperson told Yahoo News: "We can confirm that a 52-year-old has been arrested for making malicious communications.

“He has been released under investigation pending further enquiries.

“The case was initially picked up by Scotland Yard, before being passed to the Northumbria Police after identifying the man.”

A Met spokesperson said: "Officers from the Met's South West CID team investigated a report of threats to kill against a female aged in her 50's that was reported to police on Wednesday, 23 October 2019.

"Following initial investigation the case was transferred to Northumbria Police to progress."

A GoFundMe spokesman told the Mirror in October: “This campaign has been removed.

FILE - In this Friday, June 17, 2016 file photo, people look at tributes for Jo Cox, the 41-year-old British Member of Parliament shot to death yesterday in northern England, on Parliament Square outside the House of Parliament in London. Thomas Mair goes on trial, Monday Nov. 14, 2016, accused of murdering lawmaker Jo Cox, who was slain in the street a week before Britain's EU referendum in June. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)
Miller has said she feared she would be the "next Jo Cox", referring to the Yorkshire MP who was shot and stabbed to death just days before the EU referendum.(AP)

“We are sorry it got through our otherwise robust procedures. We are particularly sorry for any distress this caused Gina Miller.”

Not only did Miller, 51, who runs an investment company with her husband, defeat the government in the Supreme Court over Brexit in September 2017, but she won again in 2019 when the High Court ruled that Boris Johnson’s Parliament suspension was unlawful.

But she has become a hate figure for many Brexit supporters and has had to employ round-the-clock security after threats to her life.

Rhodri Colwyn Philipps leave following a hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Tuesday, May 2, 2017. Philips also known by his aristocratic title Viscount St Davids is appearing on charges related to sending racially aggravated messages directed at Brexit court campaigner Gina Miller. Philipps is to go to trial in July. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Rhodri Colwyn Philipps, the fourth Viscount St Davids, was convicted of two counts of sending malicious communications after putting a £5,000 'bounty' on Gina Miller. (AP)

In 2017, Rhodri Philipps, an aristocrat, was jailed for 12 weeks after offering money to anyone who would "run over and kill Gina Miller".

Phillipps, the fourth Viscount St Davids, was convicted, of two counts of sending malicious communications.

He wrote on Facebook that he would put up “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first-generation immigrant”, soon after she won her high court case.

Miller previously said she feared she would be the "next Jo Cox", the Yorkshire MP who was shot and stabbed to death by far-right extremist Thomas Mair, 52, on 16 June, 2016, just days before the EU referendum.