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Man jailed for sexist twitter witch-hunt

by on29 September 2014



Moans that the court interfered with his free speech

A bloke who called a Labour MP a witch for trying to put an image of Jane Austin on a £10 has been jailed. 

Peter Nunn, 33, from Bristol, retweeted “menacing” posts threatening to rape the Walthamstow MP, Stella Creasy, and branding her a “witch” and threatened to rape her. However Nunn said that the court was interfering with his free speech and his comments were only intended to further the debate on the internet. He told reported he would be appealing… which judging by the comments he made to Creasy we would have thought it unlikely.

Nunn began leaving offensive posts on 29 July last year – five days after the Bank of England revealed Austen would be the new face of the £10 note. He retweeted a threatening message sent to Creasy which read: "You better watch your back, I'm going to rape your arse at 8pm and put the video all over."

Over the next day Nunn, a part-time delivery driver, sent a barrage of offensive tweets using the Twitter account protectys including: "Best way to rape a witch, try and drown her first then just when she's gagging for air that's when you enter."

Later that evening he wrote: "If you can't threaten to rape a celebrity, what is the point in having them?"

Then he claimed that Criado-Perez, who also received a barrage of abuse, of lying about rape threats in a "hoax" to clamp down on internet freedom and said that feminists exaggerated their abuse. He told the police that he was a feminist and that the threats of rape were just furthering debate about the British banknote.

The Judge however said that Nunn was not a credible witness accusing him of being "evasive" and "delusional" in court.

Outside court, Nunn said: "It is a sad day for free speech. I think my tweets have been misinterpreted. I never had any hate towards either Stella or Caroline Criado-Perez. I will be appealing."

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