Facebook troll jailed for threatening to kill 200 US schoolchildren
Briton Reece Elliott given 28-month term for online comments that led to students being kept away from schools in Tennessee
Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 July 2013 16.27 BST
In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, Reece Elliott, 24, left comments on an online tribute page to a Tennessee teenager who had died in a car accident. Photograph: Northumbria police/PA
A British internet user who posted threats on Facebook to kill 200 US schoolchildren in the wake of a mass shooting at a primary school has been jailed for two years and four months.
Reece Elliott, 24, was sentenced at Newcastle crown court after admitting communications offences. He had posted messages on tribute pages set up for two US teenagers who had died in road accidents.
More than 3,000 children were kept away from school in Warren County, Tennessee, the day after he left the remarks. A 15-year-old girl who challenged his comments was told: "You have been chosen tomorrow at school to receive one of my bullets."
The threats were made in the weeks following the events at Sandy Hook primary school in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed last December. The comments caused panic, with Warren County authorities asking residents to keep children at home.
Elliott, from Fossway, South Shields, was branded an "internet troll" after his campaign of online harassment was made public.
Judge James Goss QC, the recorder of Newcastle, told him the offences were driven by "no more than self-indulgent nastiness". The judge said the sentence of 28 months in prison took into account Elliott's early guilty plea and genuine remorse.
At a previous hearing the father-of-one admitted one count of making threats to kill and eight Communications Act offences.
Elliott posted on a tribute site to Caitlin Talley, a 17-year-old girl at the Tennessee school killed by a drink driver in October.
Using a false name, he wrote: "I'm glad the fat bitch is dead. Let's drink to drink driving. No one gives a shit that she's dead, get over it. If I was there now I would rape you."
And on another for a teenager who died in a car crash, he said: "Hip, hip, horray [sic], he is dead motherfucker. Huge brain injuries. Stupid motherfucking bitch. I hope you rot in hell."
After a local deputy sheriff threatened to shut down Elliott's page, he responded by writing on Caitlin's tribute page: "My father has three guns. I'm planning on killing him first and putting him in a dumpster.
"Then I'm taking the motor and I'm going in fast. I'm gonna kill hopefully at least 200 before I kill myself. So you want to tell the deputy, I'm on my way."
Using the same pseudonym, Elliott also posted the threat: "I'm killing 200 people minimum at school. I will be on CNN."
The FBI contacted police in England after discovering that the threats were coming from the north-east. Outside court, Detective Chief Inspector Ged Noble, who led the investigation, said officers were about to arrest Elliott when he walked into the police station.
"Police officers were about to go to the identified address when we were notified by a local solicitor that Reece Elliott wanted to hand himself in," said Noble.
"New guidelines on dealing with people who post offensive messages using social media have been released by the director of public prosecutions and we will continue to work closely with the Crown Prosecution Service to take action against those who cross the line from their right to free speech to committing criminal offences."
During Elliott's first appearance at South Tyneside magistrates' court in February, Gary Buckley, prosecuting, told the court: "[He] was well aware that he was wanted. He handed himself into South Shields police station.
"He said he was a part-time troll. He said he decided to post offensive comments to see what kind of reaction he could provoke.
"He was asked if he knew what had been going on recently and said he was well aware of the recent incidents following the shootings in schools.
"He confirmed he did post the postings on Facebook and therefore did make these threats but he didn't expect the threats to be taken seriously and didn't expect them to cause the reaction they did."
The CPS guidelines on the misuse of social media emphasise the importance of making an assessment about whether there was an "intention to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient".
The "Twitter joke trial" involving Paul Chambers – who eventually overturned a conviction for sending a menacing tweet on the grounds that it was never meant to be taken seriously – showed that, by contrast, what was little more than an expression of exasperation should not have been considered a criminal offence.
