Daniel Osula, 36, pictured, has gone on the run from court after leaving Westminster Magistrates' Court during a sentencing hearing when the judge rose to consider his punishment for sending threatening emails to House of Commons staff

A warehouse assistant who threatened to carry out a terror attack at Westminster has gone on the run after fleeing court before he could be sentenced.

Daniel Osula, 36, was set to find out his punishment today after sending emails to staff at the House of Commons claiming he would stab civil servants and run down pedestrians in the street.

A warrant for his arrest has now been issued after he brazenly walked out of a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court this morning.

Osula left the building shortly after district judge Richard Blake had risen to consider the sentence, taking advantage of the break in proceedings.

A previous hearing was told Osula, who holds both an Irish and Nigerian nationality, sent the threatening emails because staff at HM Revenue and Customs had refused to return his passport after he had applied for tax credits.

Osula claimed he was being 'kept prisoner' in the UK and needed it to travel to Ireland for a legal case.

He threatened to 'steal a car and smash as many people as I can', City of London Magistrates' Court heard previously.

Osula also said he would 'get a knife and go through the security at the HMRC building until I get the last one.'

He previously had a £1.6million lawsuit thrown out of the High Court in Belfast last year after he made unfounded assertions that Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had plotted to murder him.

Osula, of Dagenham, east London, was found guilty of four counts of sending a threatening communication after a trial last month.

Prosecutor Sophie Akister said Osula sent his emails to four different departments in Parliament.

Ms Akister said a committee support assistant for the treasury committee, Nicholas Berry, received an emails in which Osula threatened to 'get a knife and go through the security at the HMRC building until I get the last one.'

The email continued, 'I will jump in a car and run everyone over until I get killed. I will spill blood over your country.

'HMRC must return my passport or I will spill blood.'

Ian Bradshaw, the second clerk for the public accounts committee, received threats saying: 'The HMRC is refusing to return my passport. I have a court hearing to attend in Ireland.

'Now I am tempted to steal a car and smash as many people as I can so you do not treat visitors on the UK as a piece of s*** anymore.

'Tomorrow I will contact the EU Commission so that my actions can be distinguished from a terrorist act.

'Take note, I am not willing to live here so return my passport and I will walk away and never return to this hell.'

An arrest warrant has since been issued for Osula after he walked out of Westminster' Magistrates Court, pictured, this morning

Susan Rowe, an inquiries officer for the House of Lords, said in a written statement she received an email which said: 'Sir/Madam, since no one is willing to return my passport I will be forced to enter the street with a knife.

'I cannot be imprisoned in the UK because I am a European - this is a sick country!'

Another email to Fiona Green, a public enquiries manager at the House of Commons, read: 'I have no love for this disunited kingdom, I will go through the British blood for my passport and no one should underestimate my resolve.

'I need my passport now or I will complain to the EU and commit a grave and bloodied crime to bring attention to this matter to the United Nations.'

Osula was arrested soon after he sent the emails on 9 October and told officers that he had sent them from his wife's mobile phone.

The officer asked: 'Apparently you sent an email to someone?'

Olusa replied: 'In regards of my passport.'

The court heard Olusa also smashed up an office in the High Court on September 20 last year when trying to launch a legal claim.

Olusa filled out a claims form for £2,000 but that staff rejected the application because he has a restraining order.

He became angry, picked up a chair, smashed it against the bulletproof glass, then brought it down on two fixed tablets used to help people fill out documents.

Olusa admitted damaging property at the Royal Courts of Justice at court.

District judge Richard Blake said: 'To threaten people in the manner as you did when they work in a place where people have lost their lives as a result of terrorist attacks.

'Personally, if I would have received that, my blood would have run cold given the context. On the very premises of the Houses of Parliament somebody died as a result of a knife attack.

'My starting point is custody.'

But the warrant was issued for his arrest after he walked out of his sentencing hearing.