Man avoids jail for website 'sick jokes'
By Kate Devlin
Last Updated: 2:57am BST 17/07/2007
An economics graduate was sentenced to 160 hours of community service yesterday for making "sick jokes" about ethnic groups and people with disabilities on a website.
Andrew Love, 22, who was working as a shelf stacker at the time of the offences, mocked blacks, Muslims, homosexuals, disabled people, and other minority groups on the site intended "to shock".
Falkirk Sheriff Court heard that he was working in a supermarket when he set up the website, which he invited colleagues to view.
At first it contained harmless jokes but when the tone changed a staff member became concerned and contacted the police.
Alistair McSporran, prosecuting, said officers found "numerous" items on the website "that had gone beyond the realms of bad taste". These included a phoney Islamic jihad group and a picture which showed an American police officer being offensive to a young black child in a toy car.
Love, who lives with his parents in Falkirk, in central Scotland, also made fun of Simon Weston, the Falklands War veteran.
The site contained a picture of Mr Weston published next to a photograph of someone throwing a bomb.
Love pleaded guilty to committing a racially aggravated breach of the peace by producing and managing the website, between June 2005 and January 16 last year.
His not guilty pleas to two charges that he had published information about bomb making and explosives and two of downloading and possessing child porn were accepted.
David McLeod, defending, said the views on the site were not Love's own, but had been intended to shock.
His client had shown "gross misjudgment" and was now "remorseful", he said.
Sentencing Love to carry out 160 hours of community service and forfeit more than a dozen items of computer equipment. Sheriff William Gallacher said the offence was "disgraceful conduct, very serious and unpleasant" and that he had "reached the stage of considering a custodial sentence".
He said he was only swayed by the fact that Love had no previous convictions, had pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and had a positive background at work and at home.
"It was racially aggravated and the impact was very distressing. There was no doubt in my mind that I could have considered a custodial sentence would have been appropriate. But balancing all the facts I proceed to the direct alternative which is community service."
Love has also apologised to a former work colleague who was featured on the site.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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5 comments:
Is that Hitch? Sounds like it. Shelf stacker eh?
Chris: Ronskneesrantsandraves also saw the likeness to the hitch and noticed that he has now moderated his blog posts. Ron thinks that he got a warning that he was under investigation.
Ron thinks, RON KNOWS. I got that screen up, pity I never thought to get a screenshot of it.
Don't be too hard on the poor ol' git though, you know the story of dogs that bark the loudest having no bite etc.
Just below the seemingly hard and bigotted surface of the bloke who calls himself "hitch" is a normal "ooman being" who also gets the shits up when his antics attract the attention of higher powers, although his mis-placed pride would never allow him to say words to that effect. I do think that he knows how people think about him. He says that he doesn't care what others say in answer to his past posts but I know that he does get the shits up when somebody is on his case. I wouldn't mind, but half of what he posted about I agreed with although he has a fekkin one eyed way of expressing his feelings.
Some of his posts were spot on, if you could wind the clock back 20 years and ignore the "politically correct" agenda.
Many thanks to JHL for his great advice some two months or so ago. Rilly appreciated. Here, on this blog sits a bloke with some great empirical knowledge.
On a different note, The cu*t is already starting to post some outrageous shit. Oh dear. Some thick fat-headed bast++ds just won't learn, will they?
I noticed that he had posted some racially objectionable material.
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