MP for North West Hampshire Kit Malthouse has taken his concerns about crime in Andover to the Conservative leadership frontrunner.

Mr Malthouse expressed his fears to his former mayoral colleague Boris Johnson following the Suffolk Road ‘murder’ in which mother Lucy-Anne Rushton was found injured and later pronounced dead on June 23.

The housing minister said that in a recent poll constituents said that crime was one of their biggest concerns.

Mr Malthouse said: “When I read about the awful recent murder in the Advertiser it seemed only right that I bring it to Boris’s attention given his pledge to increase police numbers by 20,000.

"I will be campaigning to make sure some of them come to our part of Hampshire, making it even safer.”

Andover man Shaun Dyson, who gave his address in court as Suffolk Road, has been charged with the murder of 30-year-old Lucy but has yet to enter a plea.