United Kingdom

4110 readers

472 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in !casualuk@feddit.uk or !andfinally@feddit.uk
More serious politics should go in !uk_politics@feddit.uk.

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

tom

GreatAlbatross

frankPodmore@slrpnk.net

Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is jailed for terrorism offences (www.bbc.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Emperor to c/unitedkingdom

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

An anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist who encouraged violence against Prof Sir Chris Whitty on social media has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Patrick Ruane, 55, from Paddington, west London, was convicted of two charges of encouraging terrorism on social media in 2021, following a trial at the Old Bailey.

Ruane believed in conspiracy theories about the government having a "hidden agenda" to the coronavirus epidemic which he shared with thousands of users in Telegram groups, the trial heard.

His posts referred to "serious violence" including the use of explosives such as Semtex as well as criminal damage and the disruption of electronic communication systems, said the prosecution.

Ruane had suggested "whacking" the Chief Medical Officer for England, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, and referred to executing politicians.

top 2 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] mannycalavera 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Now this is an overreach of the terrorism law that I can get behind!

[–] Emperor 4 points 1 week ago

A counter-argument is that they are punishing mental illness:

In mitigation the court heard Ruane had mental health issues from childhood trauma and had alcohol dependence.

The defendant claimed he had no memory of sending the messages as he was "blind drunk" every day at the time.

Like the Prevent scheme where a "staggeringly high" number people on it are autistic.