Insulting Captain Tom Moore should not be a crime - says columnist

The decision to charge someone over a 'grossly offensive' Captain Tom Tweet is 'overblown' according to Parliamentary sketch writer Madeline Grant.

Scotsman Joseph Kelly has been charged after making the Tweet, where he said "The only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn", soon after the death of Captain Tom last February.

He was convicted of breaching the Communications Act with his post, which prosecutors described, per terms of the law, as “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character”.

Kelly, 36, was found guilty by Sheriff Adrian Cottam and released on bail ahead of sentencing in March.

Captain Sir Tom achieved a heroic status in the UK after walking 100 laps of his garden during lockdown, raising more than £32m for the NHS.

Sir Tom Moore achieved the feat just before his 100th birthday.

The decision to charge Joseph Kelly over his offensive tweet regarding Captain Tom sets "alarming" precedents in a case with "totalitarian details" according to Madeline Grant.

She criticised the comment made by Sheriff Adrian Cottam, who said that Kelly’s “gratuitous insult” about Sir Tom was made “with only offence in mind”.

Grant said regarding the notion of offence: "we should be very worried about living in a country where being offensive, even gratuitously so, is a crime. And quite apart from the principle itself, what a shocking waste of resources this is".

Sheriff Cottam told Kelly: “This is a man who had become known as a national hero, who stood for the resilience of the people of a country struggling with a pandemic and the services trying to protect them.

“His statute and the view of society towards him must be looked at in that light and therefore any comment likewise.

“What the accused chose to write, when and how it was said, can only be regarded as grossly offensive.”

At one point in the trial Sheriff Adrian Cottam threatened to put Kelly in the cells if he did not stop shaking his head as prosecutor Liam Haggert spoke about Sir Tom.

Cameron Smith, defending, had argued that the tweet could not be described as “grossly offensive”. While it might be “unpleasant” and “unsavoury”, he said, it did not pass the threshold.

He told the hearing that the message was not about a protected characteristic, like race, religion, or gender, and did not incite violence.