POLICE have confirmed they are investing abusive social media messages sent to Will Quince.

The Colchester MP received the abuse after attacking the Labour Party for claiming “babies would die” if the Tories won the Copeland by-election.

“I was going to ignore it but a few people said to me this would send a bad message to others that this kind of behaviour is acceptable.”

The tweets from someone calling themselves the Horse Respecter stated that "the Tories f***ing with the NHS has probably killed loads of babies already. Glad his Tory baby is dead".

Later messages, using crude and graphic language, claimed that Mr Quince had "savoured" his child's agony and that "Tories enjoy disabled people suffering".

The father-of-two, who lost a son Robert in October 2014, who was stillborn, said such abuse was not about politics.

“We expect a certain debate but it’s only where it crosses the line where it becomes vile and repulsive that these people have to be taken to task.”

The Metropolitan Police told the Gazette: “An allegation of malicious communication regarding abuse made via twitter was reported to police on Thursday, 23 February. An investigation is being carried out by the Parliamentary Liaison and Investigation Team.”

The Met has also announced that a 50-year-old man from Eastbourne has been charged with making threats on Facebook against the town's MP Caroline Ansell, and a 73-year-old man had been arrested in West Sussex over allegations of offensive social media messages to MPs.