Mick Hartley

From a "fanatical" admirer of Jeremy Corbyn.. Who'd have thought?

Outraged anti-racism campaigners have appealed to the Attorney General after a judge spared antisemitic troll Nicholas Nelson from jail, instead handing down what they described as a “woefully weak” suspended sentence.

Sentencing Nelson at Southwark Crown Court last Friday, judge Charles Gratwicke ordered him to do 250 hours of unpaid work and handed him an 18-month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, for bombarding an Oscar-nominated screenwriter with antisemitic abuse.

Nelson, who has twice been convicted of sending abusive and racist messages to high-profile Jews, told victim Lee Kern that he hoped for another Holocaust.

He was also described in court as a “fanatical” admirer of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Following the sentencing, Mr Kern, a writer, said it sent a “clear signal to Britain’s Jews that, when it comes to receiving justice, they don’t count”….

In his victim impact statement, Mr Kern described how he suffered years of harassment by Nelson, who he described as a “highly motivated Jeremy Corbyn fanatic”.

He told the court: “The antisemitic abuse included wishing me and my family would experience another Holocaust, sending intimidating messages of Jews being shot and used as target practice, subjected to disgusting pornographic and sexual deviant rape fantasies involving Jews and Adolph Hitler.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism, which used a court order to unmask Nelson after he harassed his victims anonymously, said it would refer the case to the Attorney General’s Office, which has the power to send unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal….

Nelson, 33, sent sickening messages celebrating the Holocaust and threatening violence to Mr Kern between November 2018 and October 2020.

He heaped similar online abuse on writer Joanne Bell between November 2019 and February 2020.

It's not as though he's a first-time offender:

In 2020 Nelson was given a suspended sentence for sending antisemitic abuse to Dame Margaret Hodge as well as then-MPs Lord (John) Mann and Dame Louise Ellman.

He sent vulgar and threatening messages to the MPs’ offices after they commented on racism against Jewish people.

In 2018 Nelson was spared jail following similar abuse towards then-MPs Luciana Berger and Ruth Smeeth.

And spared jail again. But Jews don't count.