Sussex Man Jailed for Posting Anti-Muslim Comments on Facebook


Nigel Pelham is being charged with 8 counts of “publishing” threatening hateful content designed to incite animosity against Muslims and faces over a year in prison. Authorities apparently now consider posting on your private Facebook page to constitute “publishing”. The charges brought against Pelham are extremely serious and rarely prosecuted as they must be personally evaluated and determined by the Attorney General to officially be ruled hate speech.

On June 16 he was sentenced at Blackfriars Crown Court in London to 20 months for each of the eight counts to run concurrently. He also has to pay £100 victim surcharge and has had two hard drives and his tower computer confiscated.

Pelham will be spending over a year in prison for publishing content to his private Facebook page deemed hate speech by the Attorney General.

Sussex Police Hate Crime Sergeant, Peter Allan thinks prosecuting people for hateful rhetoric, be it spoken or published, stated publicly or in private behind closed doors, is long overdue.

Many people see social media as a harmless and sometimes faceless place to air their opinions, however I hope this shows we will not tolerate this type of behaviour and will act when someone reports their concern about what someone is posting.

“I hope the sentence handed down by the court on Friday acts as a deterrent to others and sends a reassuring message to those who may be directly targeted or are more widely affected by people’s use of social media to spread messages of fear and hate.

“I encourage people who witness such content, to report it to the provider of the social media platform, but such reports can also be made to us online.”

Maybe Peter Allan is just trying to ensure that police continue to fund his important job on stalking people’s social media profiles. But, to most people, this speaks to a terrifying imminent future where everything you say or do is being monitored.

Source: Sussex Police 



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