A right-wing former prison officer has been acquitted of stirring up racial hatred in a series of social media posts shared before and after the Southport killings. (BBC, Evening Standard, Leicester Mercury).
The mass stabbing targeted children at a Taylor Swift dance workshop in the city on Monday, July 29th. Along with the fatalities there were 10 people injured, including eight children. On July 30th and over subsequent days there were riots in several parts of the UK.
A court heard that Mark Heath repeatedly posted false claims that the offender behind the attacks was an asylum seeker named Ali Al Shakati on X.
Mr Heath, whose X profile had more than 6,000 followers, told the court he is “right wing” but does not consider himself “far-right”.
He denied publishing “threatening, abusive or insulting” material to X between July 22 and August 6 this year, telling the court that these were his “strong opinions” that “did not encourage violence”.
Mr Heath, from Oakham in Rutland, was cleared by a jury at Loughborough Courthouse, acting as Leicester Crown Court, on Monday.
The prosecution told the court that posts sent by Mr Heath – who had been employed at HMP Peterborough over a period of five years – had been screenshotted by police to compile a 48-page document for the jury.
The court heard that Mr Heath described the Southport stabbings as a “tipping point”, and falsely claimed the perpetrator was a failed asylum seeker who was on a plane to Rwanda “that got stopped” by the Labour party, Sir Keir Starmer and “other lefties”.
Jurors were told Mr Heath, 45, went on to write: “Those people now have blood on their hands, as they kept a dangerous killer in Britain.”
Images attached to another tweet included slogans reading “it is time we the people took our country back” and “I will not submit to Islam in my own country”.
When defence barrister Christopher Surtees-Jones asked Mr Heath whether he was intending to stir up racial hatred with these posts, he answered: “Not at all. I was just commenting on what I had heard.
“Taking our country back means taking the borders back. That’s me having an opinion.”
Mr Heath added: “The people that were rioting, in my opinion, are stupid. I condemn them 100%.
“At no point in any of my posts that had anything to do with riots do I encourage or endorse a call to arms. That is not who I am.”
Giving evidence during the trial, Mr Heath also said nothing he had ever posted on X was intended to stir up hatred. He told jurors: “I do have strong opinions and express those opinions but at no point was I trying to stir up racial hatred.
“I am very much right-wing. I do not hate all Muslims, but I do have major issues with radical Islam.”
On hearing the verdict, Mr Heath – who was sitting in a wheelchair in the dock wearing a red T-shirt – punched the air with two fists.
Judge Timothy Spencer KC thanked the jury for its service and discharged the defendant.
