A British Twitter user may face a jail sentence for racist remarks he posted on the micro-blogging site over the weekend.
It all started when Liam Stacy, 21, tweeted the message “LOL, F___ Muamba. He’s dead,” on Saturday after the Bolton Wanderers football player Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch having suffered a heart attack during a live televised game against Tottenham Hotspur.
Many other users responded to his message to express their disgust and outrage, and Stacey in turn replied to them with repeated racial slurs and insults. It wouldn’t be appropriate to repeat any of them here, but if you have a real desire to find out what he said, there are plenty of news agencies running this story so the tweets shouldn’t be too hard to find.
Enough users reported Liam for his tweets and on Sunday he was arrested by local police under a “public order offence“. It is reported that he initially tried to distance himself from the tweets, saying that his account had been hacked, however he was arrested before he could try to delete the account.
Yesterday he pleaded guilty to a racially aggravated public order offence and has since been released on bail, but he is due back in court for sentencing on March 27th. In yesterday’s hearing at his local court, Stacey was told that his comments on Twitter may result in jail time.
Fabrice Muamba can “breathe independently” without a ventilator but remains in intensive care after a cardiac arrest on Saturday.