A former counterterrorism detective has received a fine for making incendiary comments about Muslims and asylum seekers on Facebook and warning one user that they would be “eating through a straw for six months”.
Robert Douglas, 61 who also once worked for the CID, made an inflammatory post on the Northallerton Community Forum, a Facebook group allowing residents to “communicate, buy and sell items and discuss local news”, York magistrates heard.
Prosecutor Ryan Thornton said the ex-police officer’s comments caused consternation on the social-media platform when he railed off about asylum seekers and Muslims after reading news about someone riding an e-scooter on the pavement and assuming, “judging by your name, you are a Muslim”.
The first complaint about the ex-cop was made by a named woman who spotted the Facebook post made by Douglas on March 26.
In it, he wrote of people from Muslim backgrounds “breaking into my country on false pretences”.
Referring to the e-scooter rider, Douglas, from Brompton, said that if he saw the motorcyclist riding on a pavement, he would be “dealt with” and that the individual concerned would be “eating through a straw for six months”.
In his online rant, Douglas added: “This is a Christian country. You are not welcome in my country.”
On the post, he said he was an ex-police officer and a former detective in the North-East Counterterrorism Unit up to 2012 and that before then he had served in the CID in Leeds between 1999 and 2006.
Douglas then switched his attention to a then-asylum hotel in Northallerton, which is no longer a migrant accommodation centre.
At the time, the Allerton Court Hotel was housing male asylum seekers, “many from a Muslim background”, until the migrants were moved out in June as part of the Government’s drive to end hotel asylum accommodation in favour of former Ministry of Defence sites and old army barracks.
Douglas made what the prosecution described as a threatening comment aimed at “the hotel as a whole” and it caught the attention of a male staff member at the then asylum centre who was left “worried and scared”.
Days later, Douglas was brought in for questioning and made full admissions to police about his online comments.
He said he made the Facebook comments “in a fit of anger” and offered his “unreserved apology”.
“He said he was disgusted with himself after reading the post back,” added Mr Thornton.
Douglas told police he only had a problem with the religion of Islam and that “his problem was not with Muslim people”.
Mr Thornton said that Douglas’s behaviour “appears to be somewhat out of character”.
Douglas, of Church View, Brompton, appeared at York Magistrates’ Court on Monday when he admitted sending a threatening message to an individual which conveyed a threat of serious harm through physical assault, so that the individual would fear that the threat would be carried out.
Douglas’s solicitor Lee-Anne Robins-Hicks confirmed that the ex-detective did work in the policing roles he described on Facebook.
She said that during his policing career, Douglas was “severely hurt” by a person riding a bicycle or motorcycle on the pavement, hence his taking umbrage at the e-scooter rider on Facebook.
She that in his online diatribe, Douglas had responded to a post he had seen by the scooter rider who was annoyed at being “challenged by a member of the public” because they had been riding on the pavement.
“He (Douglas) saw that post and it was that post – bearing in mind his own experience (at being injured by a cyclist) – that upset him,” added Ms Robins-Hicks.
She said that Douglas, who was retired, had “lost his temper” when he saw the post and he wrote a response “in a fit of anger”.
“He bitterly regrets having done so,” she added.
Linda Goddard, chair of the magistrates’ bench, told Douglas: “There is no doubt in our mind that (the Facebook post) was clearly considered in the language used.”
However, they noted Douglas’s hitherto good character which meant they could deal with the offence by way of a financial penalty.
Douglas was fined £1,138 and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £455. He was ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs.
Be the first to comment