[Nedusa]

Originally Posted by Cherie

Nicely put Joey, there are levels of crime, of course someone who calls someone else a dickhead on a forum shouldn't be prosecuted but a person who actually goes out of their way to cause distress, who knows what else is going on in their sick minds and when fantasy will play out into reality. A few short sharp examples won't go amiss, just like this one, and yes it probably is a waste of police time and resources but then where do we draw the line, do we ignore anti social behaviour on our streets, who is calling for resources to be pulled from that particular crime?

A Twitter troll who delighted in the fatal stabbing of teacher Ann Maguire has been jailed for eight weeks.

In the wake of Mrs Maguire's death, Robert Riley bragged to his followers he would not just have killed Mrs Maguire but "all the bastard teachers" at Corpus Christi School in Leeds.

The jobless 42-year-old from Cwmavon, Port Talbot, also posted a series of racist tweets claiming Nazi death camp Auschwitz was a "health spa" and suggesting that Muslim babies should be drowned.

Despite a Twitter backlash, Riley, who used the handle @johnriley001, initially revelled in his new found notoriety, boasting that he had the "biggest gob this side of the River Severn".

However, the ex-junkie cut a more forlorn figure when appeared before Swansea magistrates today.

After pleading guilty to one charge of sending a grossly offensive message via a public communications network, Riley begged for leniency.

However, chairwoman of the bench Georgina Scannell voiced her disgust and said she was left with no choice but to send the defendant straight to jail.

Interesting that this person was prosecuted and convicted and imprisoned for his hateful words yet as we are seeing not everyone is prosecuted by the police for this type of hatespeech.

So my question is........who decides what is abhorrent enough to constitute actual prosecution by the police ?

where is the bar set, is it speech that is racist,sexist,religious hatred, ageist ?

Is it only hatespeech that makes it to the national press or pricks the conscience of the nation ie a topical news story.

Who decides.