Think of your children, dying MP Jo Cox was urged

Jo Cox, who was killed in Birstall in June.

The manager of MP Jo Cox pleaded with her to think of her children in a desperate bid to keep her alive as she lay dying after the 'cowardly' attack on her in Birstall, a jury was told.

Fazila Aswat was with the murdered mother-of-two and her senior case worker Sandra Major and had been due to take part in a surgery at Birstall Library on the afternoon of June 16.

But, a jury at the Old Bailey was told, the Batley and Spen MP was attacked by 53-year-old gardener Thomas Mair within minutes of her arriving in the town in her car in what prosecutors say was a “dynamic, fast moving and shocking” attack.

Richard Whittam QC, prosecuting, said of the ‘cowardly’ attack in Market Street just before 1pm: “Fazila Aswat saw the defendant approach Mrs Cox from behind. Her recollection is that she saw the defendant stab Jo Cox and then remove a firearm and shoot her, and then take out the knife and stab both Jo Cox and the man who intervened, and shoot Jo Cox again.”

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Thomas Mair.

In the first 999 call to police, witness Shelly Morris described hearing a loud bang and a loud piercing scream, and seeing Mair ‘swing the knife in a stabbing motion’.

She allegedly saw a man with a large steak knife with a jagged blade, which he wielded in a “stabbing motion”. The attacker stood over a figure and fired a gun twice, according to her account. Ms Aswat saw Mair come up behind the MP and stab her, then shoot her with the gun.

He proceeded to attack Mrs Cox and