Captain Sir Tom Moore: Man avoids prison over 'grossly offensive' tweet

Captain Sir Tom Moore died in hospital after testing positive for Covid

A man who sent a "grossly offensive" tweet about Captain Sir Tom Moore the day after his death has avoided a jail sentence.

Joseph Kelly, 36, was handed a community payback order for his post on Twitter on 3 February last year.

Kelly, of Castlemilk, Glasgow, was found guilty of sending the message after a trial at Lanark Sheriff Court.

Captain Sir Tom raised more than £32m for the NHS after he walked 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday.

Sheriff Adrian Cottam told Kelly he passed the "custody threshold" but added there was a presumption against prison if there was an alternative.

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He sentenced Kelly to a community payback order comprising 18 months of supervision and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Sheriff Cottam told him: "My view is, having heard the evidence, that this was a grossly offensive tweet.

"The deterrence is really to show people that despite the steps you took to try and recall matters, as soon as you press the blue button that's it.

"It's important for other people to realise how quickly things can get out of control."

Kelly's defence agent Tony Callahan said his client had only a handful of followers when he posted the tweet and did not realise how widely it would be shared.

He said Kelly quickly took steps to take down the post, which was only live for 20 minutes, and had since expressed regret and remorse.

Mr Callahan said: "He accepts he was wrong. He did not anticipate what would happen. He took steps almost immediately to delete the tweet but the genie was out of the bottle by then.

"His level of criminality was a drunken post, at a time when he was struggling emotionally, which he regretted and almost instantly removed."

'National hero'

The charge under the Communications Act said Kelly made a post to the public using social media that was "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character, and that did utter offensive remarks about Captain Sir Tom Moore, now deceased".

After Kelly was found guilty at the trial, Sheriff Cottam told him Captain Tom was a "national hero".

He added the Army veteran stood for "the resilience of the people of a country struggling with a pandemic and the services trying to protect them".

Sheriff Cottam said: "His stature and the view of society towards him must be looked at in that light and therefore any comment likewise.

"What the accused chose to write, when and how it was said, can only be regarded as grossly offensive."

Sir Tom died in Bedford Hospital on 2 February last year after testing positive for Covid-19.

He walked 100 laps of his garden in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, before his 100th birthday and was later knighted by the Queen at Windsor Castle.