A Welsh man has been jailed for one year and eight months for “racist and anti-Semitic” X posts after two Jewish users of the platform successfully campaigned for his prosecution.
David Morgan, 24, pleaded guilty to publishing nine posts with “intent to stir up racial hatred”, and faced Cardiff Crown Court last week where Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke said only an immediate jail term could be justified due to his “entrenched and extreme” views.
Other posts on Morgan’s “David Morgan #StayFree” X account, which has 127,000 followers, protest internet censorship and the jailing of another X user, Wayne O’Rourke, for posts supporting anti-immigration protests, and include a repost of an appeal to Elon Musk to maintain his commitment to free speech.
The posts, made in September and October last year, are still visible on the site, and the court heard Morgan was reported to police by Jewish X user Caroline Ost, who testified against him, WalesOnline reported.
Ms Ost told the court that she reported the posts to X, and her local MP, but when they were not removed she went to police “in desperation”. She then discovered that another Jewish X user, had been trying to get Morgan arrested for more than a year.
Mr Morris complained that South Wales Police first advised him “not to look at the posts and not to get wound up by online jokes”, and told him they had sent an officer to Morgan’s house “advising him to behave”, but that Morgan was finally charged after Counter Terrorism Policing Wales became involved.
“He was verified on X, which meant he was allowed to monetise his posts, and I would not be surprised if he profited financially given the metrics of his account. Absurdly, X considers the posts acceptable under its terms and conditions,” Mr Morris told the court.
Morgan, from Aberdare in Rhondda Cynon Taf, had no previous convictions and his barrister Hywel Davies argued prison would be difficult because his client needed to inject himself with insulin up to 10 times a day for his type one diabetes.
The court heard that Morgan was “isolated” after being shunned by his family for rejecting their Jehovah’s Witnesses faith, and Mr Davies said his client “has had significant bereavements, leading to social isolation and a deeper and deeper spiral into the cesspit of this side of social media”.
But the barrister also told the court Ms Ost’s description of his client was “extremely accurate”, and said Morgan “was pandering to racist stereotypes in the hope of gaining some shallow popularity to fill his otherwise empty life”.
Judge Lloyd-Clarke called the posts “appallingly prejudiced” and “disgracefully anti-Semitic and racist”, and noted the probation service had made an assessment that he posed a high risk of harm.
“Your posts caused very serious hurt and increased the risk to the safety of Jewish and black people in this country … Those posts remain on X to this day,” she told him.
The sentence came a day after another man, 48-year-old father-of-two Norbert Gyurcsik, was jailed in England for 40 months for possessing and distributing “extreme right-wing” music.
There is growing concern in Britain about the rising number of arrests for social media posts, more than any other country, and the two-tier justice system that has seen right-wing political dissidents sentenced to years in jail for stickers and Facebook posts while paedophiles walk free.
Last month mother-of-four Elizabeth Kinney was convicted of a hate crime for sending a text message calling a man who beat her up a “faggot”, while her attacker was never prosecuted, a case later highlighted by Tucker Carlson while criticising the UK’s “hate speech” laws.
And on Friday it was revealed that an IT consultant from Yorkshire was subjected to a 13-month ordeal and had his phone and computers seized after being charged for posting pictures of himself posing with guns during a trip to the US on LinkedIn.
Header image: David Morgan (X).
