November 4 – An English fan who racially abused Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka after England lost the Euro 2020 final to Italy has been sentenced to 10 weeks in jail.
Jonathon Best, 52, posted an 18-second video on Facebook in which he made a “grossly offensive” rant about the three internationals – all of them black – following England’s penalty shootout loss
He was sentenced on Tuesday after previously pleading guilty to “sending by public communication network a grossly offensive or indecent or obscene or menacing message or matter”.
Rashford, Sancho and Saka received a torrent of online abuse after failing to score their penalties as England failed to win their first trophy since the 1966 World Cup.
The judge, Denis Brennan, said he had considered a suspended sentence for Best but decided to impose a custodial term to deter others.
“The words you used were antediluvian, vile, and offensive – they strike at the very nature of our civilised society and are corrosive,” said Brennan .
Best, a forklift driver from London, was reported to Facebook and the police by a colleague and Facebook friend after refusing to remove his post.
“When approached by a Facebook friend asking him to remove the grossly offensive content, Best replied: ‘It’s my profile, I can do what I want’,” said prosecutor Elaine Cousins.
“There is absolutely no room in the game, nor elsewhere, for racism. I hope this prosecution goes some way in educating and deterring people from posting hate on social media.”
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