The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Sheriff fines man £800 over his ‘joke’ YouTube footage of dog’s Nazi salute
Video slammed as ‘grossly offensive’ and ‘anti-Semitic’
A man who filmed a pet dog giving Nazi salutes then posted it online was fined £800 yesterday.
Mark Meechan, 30, recorded his partner’s pug responding to statements such as “gas the Jews” and “sieg heil” by raising its paw, and put the footage on YouTube in April 2016.
He was found guilty of posting material that was “grossly offensive” and “antiSemitic and racist in nature” in breach of the Communications Act, in an offence aggravated by religious prejudice, after a trial at Airdrie Sheriff Court.
Meechan had claimed he made the video as a joke to annoy his partner and raised issues about freedom of speech.
Speaking outside court, he said the decision sets a dangerous precedent.
Dozens of his supporters, including former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, were at Airdrie Sheriff Court for the hearing.
Sentencing Meechan, Sheriff Derek O’Carroll said the video was grossly offensive and his girlfriend did not even subscribe to YouTube.
He said: “The centrepiece of your video consists of you repeating the phrase ‘gas the Jews’ over and over again as a command to a dog, which then reacts.
“Sometimes the phrase is ‘You want to gas the Jews’. You recite ‘gas the Jews’ in a variety of dramatic ways. ‘Gas the Jews’ in one form or another is repeated by you 23 times within a few minutes.
“On the whole evidence, including your own, applying the law as made by Parliament and interpreted by the most senior courts in this land, I found it proved that the video you posted, using a public communications network, was grossly offensive and contained menacing, anti-Semitic and racist material.
“You deliberately chose the Holocaust as the theme of the video.”
He added that while the right to freedom of expression is very important, “in all modern democratic countries the law necessarilyplaces some limits on that right ”.
Meechan’s defence agent Ross Brown said his client was a “tolerant and liberal” man, adding: “His difficulty, it seems, was that he was someone who enjoyed shock humour.”
He said Meechan was concerned about the impact his conviction may have on comedians such as John Cleese, Frankie Boyle and Ricky Gervais if they were to come to Scotland.
Speaking outside court after sentencing, Meechan said: “I’m going to appeal against it. He says it doesn’t set a precedent, it does set a precedent, a really, really dangerous precedent has been set for people to say things, their context to be completely ignored and then they can be convicted for it.”