CANINE NEIN NEIN!
‘Joker’ slammed by sheriff for making ‘grossly offensive and menacing’ video
A MAN whose video of a dog giving Nazi salutes went viral online has been found guilty of posting an offensive message.
Mark Meechan, 30, taught his girlfriend’s pet pug to react to the words “gas the Jews” and filmed it for his YouTube channel.
The dog, Buddha, was also seen raising a paw to fascist chant “Sieg Heil” in the video titled M8 Yur Dug’s a Nazi.
The footage provoked outrage after it was posted on YouTube, where it’s had more than three million views.
Meechan, of Coatbridge, was arrested for allegedly committing a hate crime by sharing the footage in April 2016.
He claimed the video was made to annoy his girlfriend, Suzanne Kelly, 29, and that he only intended it to be seen by a handful of friends. He said he had lost eight jobs since posting the video and insisted it was “extraordinary bad luck” it went viral.
However, Airdrie sheriff Derek O’Carroll yesterday found him guilty of sending by “means of a public electronic communications network a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.
Meechan admitted in evidence that he “likes offensive comedy” and the sheriff said he “knew what he was doing”, adding: “It is self-evident that the material is anti-Semitic.”
Ross Brown, defending, said Meechan only intended for the eight subscribers to his YouTube channel – all friends who “share his sense of humour” – to see the video.
He added: “One of those friends leaked the material.”
But the sheriff did not believe Meechan’s defence that the video was made as a private joke, because he had “not taken any steps to prevent the video being shared publicly”.
Sentence was deferred.