The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Viscount facing jail for menacing post
A viscount who offered money on Facebook for someone to kill Brexit campaigner Gina Miller faces jail after being convicted of sending menacing messages.
Rhodri Philipps, 50, the 4th Viscount St Davids, wrote a message four days after Ms Miller won a High Court challenge last year.
He posted: “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first-generation immigrant.”
He described her as a “boat jumper” and added: “If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles.”
Philipps, of Knightsbridge, central London, was convicted on 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 that the first post was menacing. You were offering money to have her killed.”
Ms Arbuthnot found the post about Ms Miller to be racially aggravated and told Philipps he faces a prison sentence.
Ms Miller, 52, said she found his comments about her “genuinely shocking” and she felt “violated”.
Philip Stott, prosecuting, said: “She took the threat seriously, and it contributed to her employing professional security for her protection.”
Ms Miller was subjected to a torrent of abuse and threats after spearheading the legal challenge that forced Theresa May to consult Parliament before beginning the formal process of leaving the EU.
The Guyana-born mother-of-three was seen arriving at court as a witness but did not give evidence as her statement was agreed.
The other post Philipps was convicted for was in response to a news article about an immigrant.
He wrote: “I will open the bidding. £2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces. Piece of s**t.”
Ms Arbuthnot said the posts would “cause apprehension in a reasonable person reading them in this multiracial country we live in”.
Philipps will be sentenced at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.