Viscount faces jail for online threats to Brexit campaigner Gina Miller

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 fourth Viscount St Davids, wrote a message just four days after Ms Miller won a landmark High Court challenge against the government 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 0 Gina Miller won a landmark court challenge last year 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 that the first post was menacing ... You were offering money to have her killed.”

She said: “Looking at the language you use to Ms Miller ... ‘f ****** jumper’. That is not political debate.”

The judge added: “To some who don’t know you they would perceive the offers of bounty as menacing.”

Ms Arbuthnot found the post about Ms Miller to be racially aggravated and told Philipps he faces a prison sentence.

Philipps will be sentenced tomorrow.