Joseph Kelly, of Castlemilk, Glasgow, Scotland, was found guilty of tweeting a “grossly offensive” message about Captain Sir Tom Moore, a British Army commander who donated money to the NHS during the pandemic. He has now been convicted of 150 hours of community service following a trial at Lanark Sheriff Court.
Moore became a household name in the UK after completing 100 laps of his yard before turning 100. The Queen knighted him later on. It wasn’t long until the 36-year-old Kelly tweeted, “the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn.”
Kelly’s defence contended that he had a small number of Twitter followers at the time of the tweet, that he had been drinking before he wrote the “grossly offensive” message, and that he erased the tweet just 20 minutes after it was sent. The National’s report says, “Kelly quickly took steps to take down the tweet, which was only live for 20 minutes, and has since expressed regret and remorse.”
“He accepts he was wrong. He did not anticipate what would happen. He took steps almost immediately to delete the tweet but the genie was out of the bottle by then,” said Kelly’s defence agent Tony Callahan. “His level of criminality was a drunken post, at a time when he was struggling emotionally, which he regretted and almost instantly removed.”
The court sentenced Kelly to a community payback order (CPO) comprising 18 months of supervision and 150 hours of unpaid work and said the punishment should act as a deterrence to others.
Adrian Cottam, who sentenced Kelly, said, “My view is, having heard the evidence, that this was a grossly offensive tweet. The deterrence is really to show people that despite the steps you took to try and recall matters, as soon as you press the blue button that’s it. It’s important for other people to realise how quickly things can get out of control. You are a good example of that, not having many followers.”
Kelly was convicted of violating the UK’s Communications Act, Section 127, by a jury. The law was originally designed to prosecute people who say nasty things over the phone, but it has subsequently been used to regulate “grossly offensive” remarks on social media. Under Section 127, hundreds of British residents have been found guilty of insulting, abusing and harassing public figures such as athletes, journalists and MPs.
Section 127 is likely to be replaced by the UK’s comprehensive Online Safety Bill, although critics suspect that the new law would allow for prosecutions similar to Kelly’s, in which citizens are judged guilty of sending “harmful” messages based on ill-defined conceptions of public morality and punished accordingly.
