A Twitter user who posted racist messages about football pundit Rio Ferdinand during Euro 2020 has been handed a suspended prison sentence.
Robert Whippe, 64, sent the abusive tweets after England’s victory in the semi-final against Denmark and following the penalty shootout defeat to Italy on July 11 last year.
Ferdinand, a BBC pundit, called it “disgusting” when he was shown the messages, urging social media companies to work on blocking racist abuse from being posted.
Whippe, who lives alone and had been drinking while watching football on TV, claimed to police that he did not understand banana and monkey emojis he posted carried racist connotations when he used them and suggested they were “jokes”.
“Nonsense”, said Deputy Chief Magisrate Tan Ikram. “Of course you realised it was racist. These two symbols are often used by those who want to express racist views towards black people, and that’s what you did.”
Whippe pleaded guilty to two offences under the Communications Act 2003, for sending offensive messages, and was handed a 12-week prison sentence suspended for a year along with rehabilitation sessions and 160 hours of community service.
In a victim impact statement, former Manchester United and England defender Ferdinand said he wanted to see Whippe “prosecuted and educated about race so they understand the impact of this on victims.”
He said it had been “deeply upsetting” to have to explain the abuse to his children, aged 10, 13 and 15, and told the court he has “experienced racism a lot throughout my life”.
“I continue to find comments people say to me in football stadiums and on social media platforms deeply distressing”, he said.
“More and more on social media people are in the belief they are anonymous and there are no consequences. It is disgusting that people feel that can do this.”
He added a “hope there could be technology that would stop posts like this”.
Whippe’s posts were detected after an initiative between the FA and police to sweep social media in search of racist and abusive posts during Euro 2020, particularly after the shootout defeat in the final when Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford, and Bukayo Saka were targeted for their penalty misses.
Whippe, who had already posted a message on Twitter calling Ferdinand a “c**t”, wrote on July 8 last year at just before 6am a message criticising the pundit’s views. The tweet ended with a monkey face emoji and pictures of the Italian flag.
After the final defeat, Whippe took to Twitter again, celebrating Italy’s win with the comment “did Ferdinand say it was easy” and the banana emoji.
Whippe claimed to police his messages were meant “as jokes” and told a probation officer on Tuesday morning the emojis had been selected by mistake. But he “decided to U-turn” when challenged about this unlikely explanation, the court was told.
The judge said England’s star players had been subjected to a “very high level of racist abuse”, and told the court: “The whole country watched on, I have to say, in shame at those who subjected our team and our team’s players to that abuse.
“Mr Ferdinand, who happens also to be black, would have expressed his professional view throughout the matches upon which he commentated. Not everyone will agree with what commentators say.
“Everyone is entitled to disagree and respectfully disagree with the views of those put in those positions. But what you did was not only disagree but you used racist language through symbols and emojis.”
The court heard Whippe, from St Albans, is currently receiving universal credit and has not worked since he lost a warehouse job after a serious accident in 2017. He has offered to deliver a face-to-face apology to Ferdinand.
Whippe was ordered to pay £120 compensation to Ferdinand, as well as £213 in prosecution costs and court fees.
Ferdinand previously told a joint commitee of MPs and Peers how he had to explain to his children “what the monkey emoji means” after they saw comments on his social media.
He was speaking to MPs examining the government’s Online Safety Bill about his experience of online hate and racism - providing evidence on proposed new laws to tackle the abuse.
