A man who called for the murder of Muslims and the burning of mosques on Facebook following the Southport stabbings received a two-year prison sentence.
Geraint Boyce, 43, of Rhondda Cynon Taf in Wales, pleaded guilty to one charge of publishing written material intending to stir up religious hatred.
During sentencing, the judge made clear that Boyce’s posts were “encouraging activity that would threaten or endanger life”.
The prosecution outlined how his far-right rhetoric had religiously and racially aggravated motivations.
On 31 July, Boyce posted an image of a mosque on his Facebook wall, captioned “no more mosques” before calling for the burning of mosques with worshippers inside in subsequent comments.
Police arrested him on 9 August. The CPS issued charges three days later.
The BBC reported that he called for the sinking of boats containing refugees.
Other inflammatory and threatening Facebook posts included captions like “I’m ready for war” over an image of a Union Jack and a lion, according to Sky News and a subsequent post that read “time to fight”.
He also shared an AI-generated picture of a “Hulk-sized” man chasing Muslims in religious clothing, the prosecution further outlined.
Whilst accepting his early guilty plea and reducing the prison sentence, the judge made clear that Geraint Boyce intended to “incite serious violence” during a “particularly sensitive social climate”.
In August, Blake Hindry threatened to burn down various mosques in anonymous menacing phone calls before receiving a prison sentence spanning over two years.
News of his jailing came against the backdrop of record levels of recorded religious hate crimes in England and Wales, with almost two in 5 of those targeted in religious hate crimes being Muslims (3,866 offences, 38 per cent of religious hate crimes).
Tell MAMA revealed how a year after the Hamas terror attacks on 7 October 2023, our service recorded almost 5,000 cases.