Viscount Faces Jail Over Facebook Post About Brexit Campaigner Gina Miller

Viscount Faces Jail Over Facebook Post About Brexit Campaigner Gina Miller

A viscount is facing a jail sentence after he offered money on Facebook for someone to kill Brexit campaigner Gina Miller.

Rhodri Philipps, the 4th Viscount St Davids, posted: "£5,000 for the first person to 'accidentally' run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant."

The 50-year-old wrote the comment just four days after Ms Miller won a landmark High Court challenge against the Government last year.

He described her as a "boat jumper", and added: "If this is what we should expect from immigrants, send them back to their stinking jungles."

Philipps, of Knightsbridge, central London, is due to be sentenced at Westminster Magistrates' Court.

Senior district judge Emma Arbuthnot previously warned him that he faces a prison sentence after he was convicted of two counts of sending menacing messages on a public electronic communications network.

Ms Miller, 52, said she found his comments "genuinely shocking" and she felt "violated".

She added in a statement that she was "very scared for the safety of herself and her family".

"In addition to finding it offensive, racist and hateful, she was extremely concerned that someone would threaten to have her run over for a bounty," prosecutor Philip Stott said at an earlier hearing.

"She took the threat seriously, and it contributed to her employing professional security for her protection."

The Guyana-born mother of three was subjected to a torrent of abuse and threats after spearheading the legal challenge which forced Theresa May to consult Parliament before beginning the formal process of leaving the EU.

The other post Philipps was convicted for was in response to a news article about an immigrant and his children.

He wrote: "I will open the bidding. £2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces. Piece of shit."

Philipps, also known as Lord St Davids, accepted writing the posts but insisted they were not publicly visible and were not menacing.

He told the court: "My own mother is an immigrant from the very same continent (as Ms Miller)."

Philipps, who represented himself in court, admitted during his evidence that he was "incandescent" after Ms Miller's legal challenge.

"She's left a third-world country to come to Britain. It's not for first generation immigrants to behave the way Gina Miller did," he added.

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