Two men are jailed for “grossly abusive” racist social media videos posted on Priti Patel. aim

Two men who uploaded and shared a viral racist video making fun of the Home Secretary Priti Patel have been imprisoned.

Jake Henderson, 30, was sentenced to ten weeks in prison in Mansfield Magistrates’ Court after shooting the original video of Ms. Patel doing the daily newspaper Covid-19 Briefing and making a racially offensive remark.

Henderson, previously from Retford, uploaded the 48-second clip to a closed page Snapchat Group in January before Robert Cumming, 26, of Doncaster, split it into another closed group.

On the video, Henderson could be heard, “I’m a white man and a p *** won’t tell me what to do.”

He adds, “As a white man, I don’t listen to People of Color.”

Cumming shared the clip along with the headline “Haters gonna be hassing,” followed by four laughing emojis.

This was then shared by a third party, which went viral to the offensive clip.

Cumming was jailed for six weeks. Both had been told that imprisonment was inevitable.

The court heard that Henderson was having a difficult time on the job and found the lockdown “particularly difficult”.

His defense said he returned home and started drinking, which was unusual for him.

The daily Covid briefing was on TV and after drinking he “made a terrible video,” his lawyer told the court.

His defense argued that he was not responsible for the video going viral and said he received death threats as a result.

The court was also told that Henderson’s parents had to be removed from their home by a police escort for security reasons and that after their relationship ended, Henderson was suicidal and that he was sacked as a football manager for a local team.

Prosecutor Dan Church told the court the video was “motivated by hostility towards members of racial groups.”

Mr Church said Cummings’ sharing of the clip was “clearly an endorsement” of those views from Henderson.

A Rotherham councilor previously made a statement in front of the court after the city was specifically mentioned in the clip, saying, “I believe the comments were directed at everyone in Rotherham, especially the Asian community.

“The comments are very extreme and were not made jokingly.

“These weren’t casual racist comments – it was an ideological point of view.”

She said she was concerned that someone would be “attacked on the spot, as happened before”.

Cumming and Henderson had already pledged guilty on June 29th.

The couple pleaded guilty to a single charge of sending a grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, or threatening message or matter over a public communications network.

The crime occurred between January 20 and January 23 of this year.

Cumming was interviewed on January 26th. He admitted saving Henderson’s video so he could upload it to his Snapchat account. He said he posted the video to show his disagreement with Henderson.

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