It is right that this man was spared jail. It is wrong that he was prosecuted at all.
A shamed Sheffield Wednesday fan refused to apologise to young mascot Bradley Lowery’s family after being spared jail for mocking the child after his death.
Dale Houghton has today been given a 12-week prison sentence suspended for 18 months at Sheffield Magistrates Court – but he shook his head when asked outside court if he had anything to say to Bradley’s family.
The football yob mocked Bradley – who died aged six from neuroblastoma in 2017 – during a match by holding up an image of him while laughing in a bid to goad Sunderland fans.
He’s an obnoxious shit. But being an obnoxious shit should not result in criminal prosecution.
Houghton, 32, previously pleaded guilty to a public order offence after sparking widespread fury with his sickening stunt.
Two points here – one is that this is stretching the concept of a public order offence to absurdity. The second is that if he was wearing a mask and a Hamas headband and climbed on a statue, he would not be guilty of a public order offence.
There’s a pattern here.
If we are now going to be locking people up for being a twat, we are going to need to build thousands of prisons.
We have for millennia had a system to deal with this type of idiot without recourse to officialdom, in that opinions freely expressed are judged by your peers, and you reap or bear the consequences accordingly. All of this has been distorted by social media and modern working practices which serve to fragment the social cohesion we have relied upon for generations; couple that with the woke and diversity agendas and I’m not sure will ever recover.
But they are unwilling to stretch the concept to members of a favoured minority climbing on a war memorial.
I came here to make that very same comment, Docbud, and you’ve saved me some typing!
So holding up a picture on your mobile is a crime?
I look forward to West Yorkshires finest arresting every Leeds United fan the next time they sing about the fire at Valley Parade or Munich…
I won’t hold my breath
The third is he pled guilty. Throwing yourself at the mercy of the court and admitting the charges, only empowers them to do this more
True. I presume that he was advised to do so in order to minimise any punishment.