Man jailed after racially abusing England players on Facebook livestream after Euro final
Forklift driver told colleagues: ‘It’s my profile, I can do what I want’
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A forklift driver who Facebook livestreamed himself racially abusing three England football players has been jailed after his colleague reported the video.
Jonathon Best, 52, used the social networking site to rant about black players who missed penalties during the Euro 2020 final, which England lost to Italy in July.
The football fan, from Feltham, west London, was caught out after a colleague and Facebook friend reported the 18-second clip to both the site and the police after he refused to take it down. Facebook took the clip down three days later.
Best was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday after previously pleading guilty to sending by public communication network a grossly offensive or indecent or obscene or menacing message or matter.
When asked to take the video down by a Facebook friend, Best allegedly responded: “It’s my profile, I can do what I want.”
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Elaine Cousins, a senior Crown prosecutor, said: “While the majority of the nation took great pride in the Three Lions reaching their first international final in more than 50 years, Jonathon Best took to Facebook to livestream a barrage of racist abuse at the three players who missed penalties during the game.
“He used social media to publicly vilify these three young men who tried to score for England. When approached by a Facebook friend asking him to remove the grossly offensive content, Best replied ‘it’s my profile, I can do what I want’.
“There is absolutely no room in the game, nor elsewhere, for racism. The CPS is committed to bringing perpetrators of hate crime to justice where there is the evidence to do so.
“I would like to thank the individual who reported this appalling hate crime and I hope this prosecution goes someway in educating and deterring people from posting hate on social media.”
The CPS said it was working with the police, player bodies and organisations to explain what evidence is needed to pass its legal tests to authorise charges in hate crime cases.
Elizabeth Jenkins, of the CPS, said: “Hate crimes such as these have a massive impact on players and their mental health.
“The CPS takes this kind of offending very seriously and this case shows that, where offensive content is reported to the police, we can successfully bring offenders to justice.”
The social media pages of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were quickly flooded with racist comments after they missed penalties during the match on 11 July.
The Football Association (FA) released a statement in response condemning the “disgusting behaviour”, while prime minister Boris Johnson said those responsible for the “appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves”.