Prison warning to 'shock blogger'

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A supermarket worker who set up a website mocking minority groups has been told he could be jailed.

Economics graduate Andrew Love, 22, "blogged to shock" on the site and invited staff at the Falkirk Morrisons branch where he worked to view it.

Love directed his insults at groups including black and disabled people, Muslims and homosexuals.

He featured a film clip of a disabled colleague playing a mouth organ and captioned it with an insulting remark.

Falkirk Sheriff Court was told that Love set up the site in 2005.

Alistair McSporran, prosecuting, said that at first the website featured only "amusing or supposedly amusing stories and anecdotes", and nothing particularly offensive.

This was disgraceful conduct, very serious and unpleasant Sheriff William Gallacher

However, in time Mark Kerr, an administration manager at the branch, became concerned.

Mr McSporran said: "Mr Kerr had accessed the site reasonably regularly and was amused by it. But around December 2005 the tone had changed.

"The site had started to take on undertones of racism and homophobia and contained derogatory remarks about disabled and unfortunate members of society."

Among its features was a video clip recorded on a mobile phone, showing a member of Morrisons' staff playing the harmonica at a Christmas party.

Mr McSporran said the staff member concerned had suffered a childhood illness which had left him slow of speech and with his right hand bent backwards.

'Dawning realisation'

Mr Kerr spoke to Love and told him to take the clip off the site, which he did.

However, Love then told people who accessed his blog that the clip had been taken down on Mr Kerr's instructions.

He also published Mr Kerr's e-mail address and his home postcode.

Love was suspended by Morrisons and resigned a few days later.

He was arrested and during a police interview showed what Mr McSporran described as "a dawning realisation" that the material was not funny.

Love mocked a disabled colleague in a video clip

Love, of Maddiston, Falkirk, pleaded guilty to committing a racially-aggravated breach of the peace between June 2005 and 16 January, 2006.

Defence advocate David McLeod said the views on the site were not Love's own, but had been intended to shock.

Sheriff William Gallacher deferred sentence for a social background report and an assessment of Love's suitability to perform community service as a possible direct alternative to a jail sentence.

Releasing Love on bail, he added: "This was disgraceful conduct, very serious and unpleasant.

"You should be under no illusions that this is a charge of great gravity.

"The offence you caused, and might have caused, was very grave indeed, and may need to be marked by the court."

As he left court with his father, Love told a reporter: "I have nothing to say."