British man found guilty after Facebook posts offering money to ‘run over’ woman, ‘carve’ another
A 51-year-old British man was recently found guilty of sending menacing material on Facebook, after posting a message saying he’d pay £5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over a Brexit challenger.
Rhodri Colwyn Philipps, also known as the 4th Viscount St Davids, was found guilty after a two-day trial.
According to the Metropolitan Police, an investigation was launched by detectives from FALCON, the Met’s response to Fraud and Linked Crime Online, after police were made aware of online threats made towards a 52-year-old woman from 3 November 2016, onwards.
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On 7 November 2016, Phillips posted on his Facebook page a message that read: “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant”. The post targeted Gina Nadira Miller, a British business owner who initiated the 2016 R (Miller and Dos Santos) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union court case against the British government over its authority to implement Brexit without approval from Parliament.
On 25 January, he was arrested at his home address.
In May, Philipps was charged with two further additional counts of sending menacing material via a public communication network, following Facebook posts of a similar offensive nature against a second victim. In response to a news article about an immigrant, in Philipps wrote: “I will open the bidding. £2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces. Piece of s**t.”
“These posts were grossly offensive in nature and Philipps has now been brought to justice. The Metropolitan Police is committed to tackling all forms of hate crime and I would like to encourage anyone who has been a victim of such a crime to contact police and we will make every effort to hold offenders to account,” Detective Chief Superintendent Mick Gallagher from the Met’s Organised Crime Command, said.
Philipps is set to be sentenced on Thursday, 13 July.
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