November 04, 2011

Grimsby man jailed over Facebook race-hate posts

A father-of-two who used Facebook to encourage attacks on the Asian community has been jailed.

Martin Hartshorn, of McCauley Street, Grimsby, posted messages on the social networking site on 9 August as rioting broke out in several English cities.

He admitted charges of intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence and publishing written material intended to stir up racial hatred.

Hartshorn, 22, was jailed for three years at Grimsby Crown Court.

Web warning

A judge heard that the comments went beyond simply encouraging others to riot in his home town, and including inciting potential rioters to target the Asian community.

He posted the comment: "Let's do our riot different. Let's burn all the Paki shops and takeaways."

Another post said: "And the Islamic Centre, we can't forget that."

After the sentencing Det Sgt Dave Pattison, of Humberside Police, said: "We have seen incidents in our area recently which have led to the general public viewing certain material and taking matters into their own hands.

"This could lead to whoever posted the material facing charges for inciting that activity even if the outcome was not as they intended it to be.

BBC News

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

The EDL will probably make him a life member!

Anonymous said...

Compare and contrast this jail sentence with the kid-glove treatment handed out to Yaxley-Lennon yesterday.

Anonymous said...

"Compare and contrast this jail sentence with the kid-glove treatment handed out to Yaxley-Lennon yesterday."

You're not comparing like with like. Lennon headbutted someone but this bloke was calling for riots and racist attacks which is a lot more serious.

Anonymous said...

Had there been no connection to the riots he'd probably never have been sentenced.

Anonymous said...

Looks like the EDL and various other red poppy enforcement extremists are going to be adding FIFA to their hate list. Stay tuned to @everythingedl for further developments, I assume (apologies for BNPBC link):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15606557.stm

DS said...

I posted a reply but it was either censored or there was a technical problem.

As much as I support this sentence, I reported a foreign resident in this country for posting offensive anti British comments on a public forum in a vile hate campaign, nothing was done about it, is that equality?

Anonymous said...

What I can't understand after reading through the original article is that he blamed Asians for the riots, so presumably he was against the riots yet was trying to encourage others to do something he claimed to be against.

Anonymous said...

Has this page died?

Anonymous said...

Do "poppy burners" get jailed?

Antifascist said...

'Has this page died?'

No, sickness intervened.

'Do "poppy burners" get jailed?'

You're comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't work. If you're asking if poppy burners should be jailed, that's a different issue entirely and nothing to do with this thread.

Anonymous said...

The red poppy is a political symbol, so to burn it would just be legitimate political protest.