Boyfriend trained my pet pug to become an ‘evil Nazi monster’
Dog gave ‘Sieg Heil’ salute
THE girlfriend of a man who trained her dog to give a Nazi salute in response to the words ‘Sieg Heil’ told a court yesterday how he had turned her ‘cute, wee squishy’ dog into a ‘monster’.
Suzanne Kelly, 29, said her partner Mark Meechan had filmed the pug called Buddha responding to statements such as ‘gas the Jews’ and ‘Sieg Heil’ and posted the video on YouTube.
After complaints were made about the content, police were called in and he was arrested for allegedly committing a hate crime by uploading the ‘M8 Yer Dugs a Nazi’ video in April last year.
Miss Kelly was giving evidence at Airis drie Sheriff Court where Meechan, 29, of Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, has denied any wrongdoing and insisted he only did it to annoy his girlfriend of three years.
Giving evidence at his trial, Miss Kelly, a customer service adviser, said: ‘I came home from work one day and he said: “Don’t freak out, this video I have made has went viral.” I was just annoyed that he had made my dog look like something evil because he is a lovely little dog.
‘It did not make me feel anything towards Mark himself because I know what kind of person he is. It just not a very nice thing to say, obviously. I didn’t think about it being anything other than him annoying me, I didn’t think it would have the effect that it did.
‘Mark has been unable to work because of it. People are offended by what they are offended by. I did not want anyone to be offended.
‘My dog is just this wee fat, squishy dog. I’m so used to him being cute and I carry him about like a baby, and Mark was using it in the video to look like a monster.’
Earlier the trial heard evidence from Ephraim Borowski, 66, director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, whose website was hit by abusive comments after the video appeared.
Mr Borowski said the dog’s ‘Sieg Heil’ salute was ‘the marching signal of the Nazi stormtroopers who contributed to and supported the murder of six million Jews including members of my own family and I take this slightly personally.
‘Material of this kind goes to normalise the anti-Semitic views that frankly we thought we had seen the last of. The Holocaust is not a subject for jocular content.’
Prosecutors allege Meechan communicated material that would cause fear and alarm and stir up hatred on religious grounds by posting a clip which was ‘antiSemitic in nature’ on YouTube. He also faces an alternative charge that the video was ‘anti-Semitic and racist in nature’ and aggravated by religious prejudice.
At the start of the clip he says: ‘My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi.’
In the video which has been viewed more than three million times, the dog is seen perking up when it hears the statements and appears to lift its paw to the ‘Sieg Heil’ command. It is also filmed watching Hitler at a 1936 Olympic Games rally in Berlin.
The court has also seen a second video of Meechan apologising for any offence the clips caused.
Under questioning, Miss Kelly said Meechan was not a racist and the dog responded to other commands because it knew it would get a treat as a result: ‘We shout random food words like cheese and ham at him and he’ll lift his paw. Mark was just using it, but he has never expressed any antiJewish or anti-Semitic views.’
The trial has been adjourned until November.