- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Keerthi Mohan
A “nationalist” who sent abusive and racist messages to home secretary Priti Patel and DUP leader Arlene Foster was on Thursday (25) jailed for 22 months.
Gerard Traynor, 53, was arrested in January after he called Patel a “dirty, Indian Ugandan, black P*** n****r” in a post on her Facebook page.
In another post on Patel’s page, Traynor said: “Send dirty P*ki back in Asian countries where they belong.
“Muslim women should be banned from wearing burkha and show faces look like wailing banshee. Muslim policemen have beards like suicide bombers.”
Manchester Crown Court heard that Traynor, who has “high functioning autism”, was brought up by adoptive parents who held “strong nationalist views.”
Messages sent to Foster read: “You will be killed and ten DUPP (sic) to the Irish Embassy and kill you all and chop your bodies up and put your head Tower of London.”
“Arlene Foster you worse [than] Ian Paisley and all your loyalties (sic) politicians should be shot in heads.”
Both politicians said they felt intimidated by Traynor’s messages.
In a statement to police Patel said: “I converse with the public on a daily basis this can provoke debate and I am faced with criticism.
“This incident has taken acceptable behaviour to serious criminality, the content was shocking and disgusting in its nature and the messages were racist, grossly offensive, hugely upsetting and caused me to feel intimidated.
“It had a huge impact on both my personal and professional life, I am a lot more wary of my surroundings when I am in public.”
Foster said Traynor’s messages overstep the mark of free speech.
Traynor has a history of sending abusive and racist communications stretching back to 2004.
Sentencing, Justice Bryan told Traynor: “This was not the exercise of the democratic right to free speech or the type of critical commentary that all politicians face on a day-to-day basis.
“On the contrary, the messages are deeply offensive and threatening.”
