A 31-YEAR-OLD unemployed chef was yesterday convicted of posting a grossly offensive and menacing message on the social network site Facebook against DUP MP Gregory Campbell.
The message was posted following media comments by Mr Campbell after the publication last June of the Saville Report into the Bloody Sunday killings.
Daryl O’Donnell, Belvedere Park, Foyle Springs, Derry, was found guilty of committing the offence on June 20th, 2010, following a contested hearing at the city’s Magistrate’s Court.
O’Donnell, a father of two, admitted posting a message on Facebook about Mr Campbell which said: “He’s a dirty Orange lying bastard and should get a bullet in the head. At least he would have got it for something – scumbag.”
He denied that the message was either offensive or menacing. “I was not born on Bloody Sunday but I saw the effects it had on the people in Guildhall Square last June and on my father who was there on the day,” he told Judge Barney McElholm.
“There were people crying and a great weight had been lifted off their shoulders. It was a great day all round and when I got home and saw the comments Gregory Campbell had made on the news about the inquiry costing too much money, I was very angry.
“In anger I decided to post my own comment. The reason why I said he should get a bullet in the head was because people were murdered on Bloody Sunday. It was a throwaway comment, I never meant any harm by it. When I woke up the next day and checked my Facebook page, another 1,400 or 1,500 other comments were posted about Gregory Campbell. When I saw my own comment again I decided to take it off because I realised I should have kept my opinions to myself.
“I stand by the comments I said. I did not mean them to be offensive, I was just expressing my opinion,” he added.
Det Const Richard Jack had earlier told the court that the comment was brought to the attention of the police by Mr Campbell on June 21st, the day after it was posted.
“Mr Campbell then came to Strand Road Police station and had a meeting with a detective inspector and with the then area commander Chris Yates. He said the comment was threatening both to himself and his family and he feared it may be carried out. He perceived the comment to be a threat which he took seriously,” the officer said.
Applying for a direction, defence barrister David Heraghty said while the comment could be described as offensive, it did not reach the threshold of being grossly offensive.
However, his application was refused and the judge convicted the defendant.
Judge McElholm said that while Mr Campbell was “in one way entitled to comment about how much the Bloody Sunday inquiry had cost”, someone else might say “if the government in Westminster at the time had simply apologised there would not have been the need for the inquiry”.
“There is no doubt many people in this city were outraged by Mr Campbell’s comments but he was entitled to make them and that is the nature of democracy,” he said.
Mr O’Donnell’s comment had been “grossly offensive and menacing” and it was wrong of him to post it, he said.
The judge said the defendant would be sentenced on July 29th following the preparation of a pre-sentence report.