GUILTY UK - MP Jo Cox, 41, fatally shot & stabbed, Birstall, West Yorks, 16 June 2016

Jo Cox, the MP for Batley and Spen, is in a critical condition after being shot and stabbed multiple times in her West Yorkshire constituency.

Armed officers responded to the attack near a library in Birstall on Thursday afternoon, and a 52-year-old man was arrested in the area, police confirmed.

They added that the Labour politician had suffered “serious injuries and is in a critical condition”. She has been taken by helicopter to Leeds general infirmary.

Police also confirmed a man in his late 40s to early 50s nearby suffered slight injuries in the incident.

Witnesses said the attack was launched after the MP became involved in an altercation involving two men near her weekly advice surgery. A Labour source confirmed Cox was shot and stabbed after she had concluded the drop-in session for constituents at around 1pm.

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A schoolgirl has told how she saw a man hiding in a cemetery following the shooting of MP Jo Cox.

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A local teenager has told the Mirror how she witnessed a man "looking very suspicious" from her bedroom window around 30 minutes after she heard about the shooting this afternoon.

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"I could hear the helicopter circling overhead.

"About 30 minutes later I was looking out of my bedroom window and I saw a man looking very suspicious.
"He was lying down on the floor between two graves.
"He was wearing a black hoodie and he had binoculars.
"He was only about 50metres away and then he saw me and ran off.
"He fled when he realised I had seen him.

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Police also confirmed a man in his late 40s to early 50s nearby suffered slight injuries in the incident. They are also investigating reports that the suspect shouted “Britain first”, a possible reference to the far-right political party of that name, as he launched the attack.

Police are understood to be talking to at least one witness who claimed to have heard the attacker shout the words, and the motivation for the incident will form part of their inquiry.

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Britain's Press Association news agency quoted eyewitness Hithem Ben Abdallah as saying Cox got involved in a scuffle between two men in Birstall, 200 miles (320 kilometres) north of London.

Abdallah said one of the men was fighting with Cox and then a gun went off twice and "she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor."

Clarke Rothwell, who runs a nearby cafe, told the BBC he believed Cox had been shot and stabbed multiple times.

"Three times she was shot, the initial time which then she dropped to the floor and two more times," he said. "The third time he got close proximity he shot her around the head area."

"In the meantime he was stabbing her as well. He was stabbing her with his knife."

Shopkeeper Sanjeev Kumar told the BBC said he saw a woman lying on the ground "bleeding from the mouth and nose," with two women trying to help her.

After around 15 minutes, witnesses said emergency services arrived and tended to her with a drip.

Cox, a former worker for international development charities who is married with two young children, was elected to the House of Commons in the May 2015 general election.

She has been one of the most outspoken lawmakers on the subject of the Syrian civil war, and has been critical of Britain's reluctance to deepen its military involvement against the Islamic State group as part of efforts to end it.

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Eyewitness Hithem Ben Abdallah, 56, was in the cafe next door to the library shortly after 1pm today when he heard screaming and went outside.

He said: ‘There was a guy who was being very brave and another guy with a white baseball cap who he was trying to control and the man in the baseball cap suddenly pulled a gun from his bag.’

He added: ‘He was fighting with her and wrestling with her and then the gun went off twice and then she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor.’

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According to the Labour Party website she has been ‘involved in working all over the world for charities fighting to tackle poverty, suffering and discrimination. She has worked with Oxfam, Save the Children and the NSPCC both here in the UK and in some of the world’s poorest and most war-torn regions.

‘Jo Cox is national chair of Labour Women’s Network and a senior advisor to the anti-slavery charity, the Freedom Fund.

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