Far-right “troll” jailed

A member of the tiny ‘Liberty GB’ party who billed himself as a ‘right-wing radio host’  has been jailed for 12 weeks for sending offensive emails to an online campaigner.

Mr Mughal is the founder of the online hate monitoring group Tell Mama.

Burton was convicted of one count of religiously aggravated harassment in March following a week-long trial at Southwark Crown Court. Burton, claims he resigned from the group following his conviction, but claimed in his defence that he was exercising his right to free speech.

Whether it is true that Burton has really left Liberty GB is true or not remains to be seen. The group’s leader, Paul Weston, certainly appears to have stopped trying to rally support for Burton. Weston has such a bad history with trying to raise support for people in trouble with the law (like his old mate Stephen Lennon,) that it’s probably a good result for Burton.

Mr Mughal said in a statement that Burton’s actions “have led to endless nights of anxiety and fear and a sense of being targeted to my core.”

The judge told Burton:

“You are seemingly incapable of distinguishing between Muslims and violent Islamists. Your offending behaviour was obviously motivated by a religious hostility and aggravated the harassment.

“You were at the time, [though you have] apparently now resigned, a member of a group Liberty GB which promotes antipathy based on religious adherence.

“Not only were these emails offensive, they provided links to deeply offensive material involving a petition called ‘renounce, reform, of get the hell out of my country’.”

Not only was Burton a member of the far-right group Liberty GB (with whom Anne Marie Waters was closely linked until recently,) Burton has also spoken at other far-right demonstrations.