A West Ham fan who sent vile anti-Semitic abuse to a founder of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has been spared prison.
Mark Harding, 48, told Holocaust survivor Agnes Grunwald-Spier MBE to “stick your head in the oven like the Jew you are” on Twitter.
He had spent the day drinking while watching his team lose to Tottenham in November last year , and sent a second message saying he hoped she would “die in a freak car accident.”
Harding later blamed the incident on “football banter”, claiming he had been baited by Spurs fans online in the wake of his team’s defeat. “He was involved in banter that escalated out of control,” said Tina Patel, defending. “He is totally ashamed by all of this.”
Harding, from Walsall, admitted sending offensive communications and was given an 18-month suspended jail sentence by Hendon magistrates yesterday.
JP Harvey Simons said his tweets were “hurtful and obnoxious”, and Harding was also told to do 60 hours’ community service and pay £150 compensation.
Mrs Grunwald-Spier, 72, was a baby when she and her mother were sent to the Budapest ghetto by the Nazis in 1944. She was liberated aged six months and came to the UK in 1947.
MORE ABOUT