A man carried on a “disgraceful rant” on Facebook after being angered by the alleged murder of a soldier, Cupar Sheriff Court has heard.
Graham Anthony James Litherland, 24, of Dick Crescent, Burntisland, admitted on May 23 at his home address behaving in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person fear and alarm by posting messages on Facebook that contained abusive and racist comments and making abusive and derogatory comments to Rikki Kitchener or Rizwanullah.
Depute fiscal Beverley Adam said Litherland had been commenting on the death of army drummer Lee Rigby when he became engaged in an exchange of messages.
He had written about “dirty black immigrants” and made comments about Rizwanullah.
Defence agent David Bell said the messages were visible only to Litherland’s Facebook friends, not to the general public.
“He had been drinking and he was angry at what he had seen on TV,” he said.
Litherland had deleted the message the next day when he sobered up.
Sheriff Macnair told Litherland: “This was a disgraceful rant on the internet.”
The sheriff sentenced Litherland to a 20-month supervision order and 75 hours of unpaid work and ordered him to pay £350 compensation to his victim.