Internet racist jailed

Emily Dent | Friday, 6 October 2006 Source: The Sun

A RECLUSIVE fantasist who posted racist messages on a website in memory of murdered black teenager Anthony Walker was jailed for nearly three years today.

Neil Martin, 30, emailed at least six sick comments to the website, set up by a school friend of the teenager, who was killed with an ice axe by racist thugs in Huyton, Merseyside, last year.

Martin, a loner who lived with his parents in Maghull, Merseyside, posted the comments under the pseudonym Genuine Scouser less than a week after the murder.

He suggested white people should celebrate the murder, that Anthony's family should be burned and made frequent reference to slavery and a "banana boat".

He was arrested in September and officers also found 33 images of child pornography on his computer.

He pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to publishing material likely to stir up racial hatred and to making indecent photographs of children.

He was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court to two years and eight months for the race hate crime and six months consecutively for the child pornography offences.

Judge Henry Globe QC told Martin: "The intention of the website was innocent, honourable and well motivated.

"You accessed that website and you abused its use. You posted highly abusive, insulting and racist messages on the site.

"I have no intention of repeating the content of the messages, suffice it to say, there were at least six and they were extremely offensive and objectionable."

During police interviews, Martin admitted posting the messages but insisted he was not racist.

He told the officers he had intended to stir up an argument on the website but did not believe in what he had written.

Heather Lloyd, defending, said Martin had no history of racist behaviour and that he felt "deeply ashamed".

She said: "He was isolated and living in a fantasy world, spending hours on his computer in his room where his persona could be as he made it, good or bad."

Miss Lloyd said that her client had written a letter of apology to both the court and to the Walker family.

Speaking outside court, Anthony's mother Gee Walker said she did not accept the apology.

She said: "After hearing what he said in those messages, I don't buy it. I don't accept it.

"He had time to think about it and he did it six times. I don't accept his apology."