Facing prison, lord guilty of death threat to Gina Miller
A VISCOUNT who offered money on Facebook for someone to kill Brexit campaigner Gina Miller faces jail after he was convicted of sending menacing messages yesterday.
Rhodri Philipps, 50, the 4th Viscount St Davids, posted a message four days after Mrs Miller won a landmark High Court challenge against the Government last year.
He wrote: ‘£5,000 for the first person to “accidentally” run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant.’ He called Mrs Miller a ‘boat jumper’, adding: ‘If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles.’
Philipps, of Knightsbridge, central London, was convicted of two counts of sending menacing messages on a public electronic communications network and cleared of one count after a trial at Westminster magistrates’ court. Senior district judge Emma Arbuthnot said: ‘I had no doubt the first post was menacing … You were offering money to have her killed. Looking at the language … ‘f****** jumper’. That is not political debate.’
She found the post about Mrs Miller to be racially aggravated and told Philipps – also known as Lord St Davids – he faces a prison sentence.
Mrs Miller, 52, said she found his comments about her ‘genuinely shocking’ and felt ‘violated’. She said she was ‘very scared for the safety of herself and her family’ in a statement read to the court on Monday.
Philip Stott, prosecuting, said: ‘In addition to finding it offensive, racist and hateful, she was extremely concerned that someone would threaten to have her run over for a bounty.
‘She took the threat seriously, and it contributed to her employing professional security for her protection.’
Mrs Miller, a Guyana-born mother of three, received a torrent of abuse and threats after launching the legal challenge that forced Theresa May to con- sult Parliament before beginning the formal process of leaving the EU.
Philipps was also convicted for a post responding to news of a migrant who turned down a five-bedroom council house. He wrote: ‘£2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces. Piece of s***.’
The district judge said the posts would ‘ cause apprehension in a reasonable person reading them in this multi-racial country we live in’.
Philipps accepted writing the messages but said they were not publicly visible and were not menacing.
He insisted he is not racist and told the court: ‘I know a number of Muslims who are dear friends. My own mother is an immigrant from the very same continent [as Mrs Miller].’
Philipps, who represented himself, admitted he was ‘incandescent’ after Mrs Miller’s legal challenge, adding: ‘It’s not for first-generation immigrants to behave the way Gina Miller did.’
He claimed his posts were meant as ‘an opening for debate’, adding: ‘It’s how I express myself, not for everyone’s taste or liking. If you’re in the public eye, people are going to say nasty things about you. It’s the rough and tumble of public life.’
Kate Mulholland, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said after the case: ‘This threat caused extreme concern to Gina Miller … No one should have these kind of menacing comments made to them or about them.’ Philipps will be sentenced tomorrow.
‘Not political debate’