Suspended prison term for man who sent racist emails
A RETIRED engineer who sent racist and threatening emails to six MPs – including some with an image of a noose attached – has been given a nine-week suspended jail sentence.
David Hall admitted sending six grossly offensive messages, including one warning Labour’s David Lammy to “remember what happened to Jo Cox” and others saying four Tory MPs deserved to hang for “treachery” over Brexit legislation.
The 72-year-old, of Castlecroft, Wolverhampton, had denied six charges of sending grossly offensive and menacing messages, but changed his plea to guilty at Walsall Magistrates’ Court.
The court was told the Ukip supporter was cautioned for threatening behaviour in 2011 after getting involved in an altercation while putting political leaflets and posters on lampposts near his home.
The pensioner sent emails last December to Nicky Morgan, Dominic Grieve, David Lammy, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen in the wake of an EU Withdrawal Bill vote in Parliament.
Hall, who appeared in the dock wearing a leather jacket, slacks and slip-on shoes, also sent an email to Wolverhampton MP Eleanor Smith last July.
Opening the facts of the case against Hall, prosecutor Matthew Brook said the email to Ms Smith was sent after she made critical comments about the Black Country’s flag, which bears an image of chains.
The court heard that the email to Mr Lammy read: “I would like to give you a friendly warning. As you attack the white population of Britain in your aims to gain Black Supremacy in this country, remember what happened to Jo Cox.”
Labour MP Mrs Cox was murdered in her Batley and Spen constituency by Thomas Mair in 2016. Another email was sent to several MPs after a vote on an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill last year.
As well as being handed a jail term suspended for 12 months, Hall was ordered to complete 25 days of rehabilitation work and pay £735 in costs and a victim surcharge.
Chairman of the bench Paul Wooding said: “This was a series of highly offensive emails sent to public servants involving a racial element.”
Before sentence was passed, defence lawyer Adil Khan told the court Hall had been angered by comments linking the chains on the Black Country’s flag to the slave trade. Hall declined to comment as he left court.