A man has admitted sending Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch threatening emails, including one in which he said "when I was in the IRA I would have shot you f****** dead".

Kieran Kyle wrote to Ms Badenoch's parliamentary email address three times on 2 May this year.

He had made racist references in two earlier emails, writing: "I'm ex-IRA, so Bloody Sunday references from you are going to give you trouble," prosecutor Jennifer Dannhauser said.

Thirteen unarmed civilians were shot dead on what became known as Bloody Sunday in January 1972 after members of the Army's Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside area of Derry/Londonderry.

After pleading guilty to two counts of sending indecent or offensive communications, Kyle was told by chief magistrate Paul Goldspring that a custodial sentence was "a real option".

The messages were sent on the day the Tory leader apologised after video of Bloody Sunday appeared by mistake in a party social media clip criticising a government bill addressing historical issues in Northern Ireland.

She did not sign off on the video, she said, adding that it was sent out by "very young people".

In the video posted to her social media channels on 28 April, the North West Essex MP condemned the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, saying the Labour measure would "drag" Troubles veterans back to court.

The following day, Kyle, from Gillingham in Kent, sent an email to Ms Badenoch's husband, Hamish, which used a racist term and said she had a "big mouth" and he should "put a leash on her", the court heard.

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The defendant wrote again days later, using a racist term and saying "misusing Bloody Sunday is a new low, pray she never ends up in Belfast cos she'll be left face down in a ditch with a bullet in her head".

Ms Dannhauser said the couple were left "distressed" and "very upset", particularly by the "racist language and threats of violence towards them".

Kyle will be sentenced at the same court next month.