Woman who posted 'blow up mosque with adults in' on Facebook community group jailed

A woman who posted "blow the mosque up with the adults in it" on a Facebook community group in the wake of the Southport attacks has been jailed.

Julie Sweeney, 53, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to sending communication threatening death or serious harm at Chester Crown Court and was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Described by the judge as a 'keyboard warrior', she was arrested after police received a complaint about a message she posted on a Facebook group in Staffordshire.

Sweeney, of Lawtongate Estate in Church Lawton, Cheshire, wrote: “Don’t protect the mosques, blow the mosque up with the adults in it” below a photograph which showed a number of people cleaning up the aftermath of a riot in Southport.

Sarah Badrawy, proscuting, said the concerned member found the comment “offensive” and “did not like reading it”. The post was later deleted, the court heard.

Julie Sweeney was arrested, Chester Crown Court heard, and told officers: “I’m not being rude but there are a lot of people saying it.”

She said she posted the comment “in anger”, had “no intention to put people in fear” and conceded it was “unacceptable” and that she would be “deleting Facebook”.

John Keane, defending, said: “She accepts it was stupid. This was a single comment on a single day.

“She lives a quiet, sheltered life in Cheshire and has not troubled the courts in her long life.

"Her character references show she lives a kind and compassionate lifestyle. She has been primary carer for her husband since 2015.

“This conduct is firmly out of character for her and she has shown genuine remorse."

Sentencing, Judge Steven Everett, the Honorary Recorder of Chester, said: “I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the defendant would have been involved in that herself but so-called keyboard warriors like her have to learn to take responsibility for their language – particularly in the context of the disorder that was going on around the country."

Sweeney is among dozens of people jailed in connection with violent disorder seen across the country following the murder of three girls in Southport.

Alice, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were killed, eight other children were injured and two adults were critically injured.

False claims spread online that the knifeman responsible for the deadly attack was an asylum seeker who had arrived in Britain by boat.

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