A keyboard warrior from Dunfermline who repeatedly sent abusive messages to his local MP has been fined more than £1000.
Graham Epworth was told he had narrowly avoided a jail sentence for abusing Douglas Chapman.
Epworth, 41, of Macbeth Road, sent e-mails ranting about the SNP politician’s support for Scottish independence.
He told Mr Chapman to “stop with your comments regards breaking the union” or else he would visit his office.
He called the Dunfermline MP a “stupid old idiot” and said he was an “absolute moron”, adding “you should be in a care home.”
Police warning ignored
At Dunfermline Sheriff Court, depute fiscal Azrah Yousaf said police went to Epworth’s home, warning him to stop the emails.
However, within half an hour of them leaving, Epworth sent another message, telling Mr Chapman the officers agreed with him nothing criminal had happened and that he was “pathetic.”
That move backfired and Epworth found himself in court where he admitted between June 19 and 23 2020 he behaved in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause fear or alarm.
Sheriff Susan Duff told the anti-independence troll: “Mr Chapman was elected by the majority of the people in this area to be their MP.
“The fact that you hold a different view doesn’t give you the right to send abusive e-mails to his office.
“On no view is sending threatening and abusive e-mails to a sitting MP at the low end of any scale of offences.”
At the previous hearing, Sheriff Duff had commented, “A member of any parliament should be able to carry out their job without any sense of fear.”
Sheriff Duff fined Epworth £1075.
She told him it was only the fact he had been out of trouble for the previous six years and had a young daughter to look after that had kept him out of jail.
Last month, at the same court, Kelty man Hugh Docherty was jailed for six months sending a threatening message to the office of the then-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
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