Tuesday, May 13, 2014


Twitter troll, 42, who posted sickening messages praising killing of teacher Ann Maguire is JAILED for eight weeks

A Twitter troll who posted abusive messages about the fatal stabbing of teacher Ann Maguire has been jailed for eight weeks.

Robert Riley, 42, of Port Talbot, South Wales, told his followers he would have killed 'all the b****** teachers' at Corpus Christ School, Leeds, where the 61-year-old was fatally stabbed on April 28.

Jobless Riley, a former heroin addict, sent the shocking tweets two days after the teacher's death, showing 'complete disregard' for the tragedy, his sentencing hearing was told.

Swansea Magistrates' Court heard Riley even seemed to revel in his new-found notoriety.

But at the hearing earlier today, Riley begged for leniency.

But chairwoman of the bench Georgina Scannell made no secret of her disgust, telling the defendant she had no choice but to send him straight to jail.

Prosecutor Linda Baker told the court that following a complaint to police, the defendant’s other offensive tweets had come to light.

The court heard that, at the time of the tweets, Riley was subject to an existing community order for an unrelated offence.

SOURCE

He did nobody any harm so should not have been jailed

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe not physical harm, but caused a great deal of unnecessary emotional and psychological harm with such violent and nasty threats.

Anonymous said...

While I believe in free speech, it is hard to feel sorry for him. It would have been better if instead of the government prosecuting him, the family had sued him for emotional distress then we would not have the government suppressing speech.

Stan B said...

A perfect example of thought crime.

Anonymous said...

4:12,

In the United States, you cannot sue for "emotional distress" absent of physical harm.

There was no physical harm here to the family so there could be no suit based on "emotional distress."

I realize that this took place in the UK, so the laws in the US do not apply, but it is relevant on some level.

Bird of Paradise said...

Trolls eat with their fingers and eat their peas with their knives