Lancashire teenager sentenced to three months in prison after posting ‘abhorrent’ jokes about missing girl on Facebook
Steven Morris and Dan Sabbagh
The Guardian
A teenager who posted explicit comments and jokes about April Jones on his Facebook page has been jailed for 12 weeks.
Matthew Woods, 19, from Chorley, Lancashire, made comments about April and Madeleine McCann, the three-year-old who went missing during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007.
Woods was arrested for his own safety after about 50 people descended on his home. He pleaded guilty at Chorley magistrates court to sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive. The chairman of the bench, Bill Hudson, said Woods’s comments were so “abhorrent” he deserved the longest sentence the court could hand down.
Hudson added: “The reason for the sentence is the seriousness of the offence, the public outrage that has been caused and we felt there was no other sentence this court could have passed which conveys to you the abhorrence that many in society feel this crime should receive.”
The court was told Woods’s Facebook page was available to a large number of people.
Martina Jay, prosecuting, said: “He started this idea when he was at a friend’s house , saw a joke on Sickipedia [an online database devoted to sick jokes] and changed it slightly.”
In mitigation David Edwards, defending said: “In one moment of drunken stupidity he places himself as public enemy number two – behind only the person who carried out this crime.”
Among Woods’s comments were: “Who in their right mind would abduct a ginger kid?” In another he said: “I woke up this morning in the back of a transit van with two beautiful little girls, I found April in a hopeless place.” He also wrote: “Could have just started the greatest Facebook argument EVER. April fools, who wants Maddie? I love April Jones.” Also posted were comments of a more sexually explicit nature.The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed it reviewed the file on Monday morning and was content with the prosecution going ahead.
Woods’s sentence comes as the CPS reviews how to treat social media and electronic communication in the light of several cases where substantial sentences have been handed down after people have posted offensive remarks on Twitter and Facebook or sent them directly via email.
Liam Stacey, 21, received a 56-day jail term after tweeting “LOL” [“laugh out loud”] in response to the on-pitch collapse of the footballer Fabrice Muamba and subsequently posting racist and offensive comments when other users criticised him.
Although his remarks were tasteless and he did need some protection from a mob, his jailing goes to show the lack of freedom of speech in his country. We MUST guard against this ever happening in the USSA and when it does fight until the foe of freedom are beaten to dust.