A British man has been sentenced to 18 months in jail for two anti-immigration X posts that were viewed that were viewed just 33 times between them.
Luke Yarwood, 36, from Burton, near Christchurch, Dorset, pleaded guilty to two counts of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred and was jailed by Judge Jonathan Fuller KC in Bournemouth Crown Court on Wednesday.
The court heard Yarwood was reported to the police by his brother-in-law over a series of anti-Muslim and anti-immigration X posts made between December 2024 and January this year, two of which were found to be illegal.
The first was made in response to a post about Germans taking to the streets demanding their country back after a refugee drove into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people, and read: “Head for the hotels housing them and burn them to the ground.”
The second was a reply to a post by GB News saying: “I think it’s time for the British to gang together, hit the streets and start the slaughter. Violence and murder is the only way now. Start off burning every migrant hotel then head off to MPs’ houses and Parliament, we need to take over by FORCE.”
Prosecutor Siobhan Linsley told the court the X posts had the potential to spark violent disorder at three hotels housing asylum seekers near where Yarwood lived, and argued they were part of a “series of extremely unpleasant posts”, the Daily Mail reported.
“In posts over this one-month period the defendant plainly demonstrates a rabid dislike of those he regards as ‘non-British’ – immigrants, Muslims, as well as other minority groups within society,” she told the court.
“The two specific posts were aimed at immigrants or asylum seekers, housed in government hotels. This wasn’t reckless behaviour, this was a pattern that happened over a month. It was rooted in his belief. He was angry about the presence of Muslims and foreigners in Britain.”
She also compared the posts to those made by Lucy Connolly, the wife of a councillor who was jailed for 31 months in October last year for urging her 10,000 X followers to “set fire” to asylum seeker hotels in a post that was viewed 310,000 times, and served 40% of the sentence before being released.
Defence lawyer Nick Tucker told the court his client was not a racist and that the posts were viewed by an “extremely limited audience” and did not result in any harm.
“There is no evidence that it had any real world consequences. They are the impotent rantings of a socially isolated man with fragile mental health,” he said.
“The defendant is not at heart a racist, he simply found this to be a convenient channel for his discontent.”
But Judge Fuller said Yarwood had a “preoccupation with immigrants and particular obsession with Islam and some extreme right-wing views”, and that his offences “could have had serious consequences and can only be marked by a sentence of immediate imprisonment”.
“This is not a court of politics but law. You are entitled to express your views, but freedom of speech is not an absolute right, it’s a qualified one. What the law prohibits is the stirring up of racial hatred,” he told Yarwood.
“The continuing safety and stability of our communities are undermined by actions such as yours. The tweets speak for themselves, they are odious in the extreme. There could be few clearer examples of words specifically designed to stir up racial hatred and incite violence.”
The sentence comes after Welsh man David Morgan was jailed for 20 months for “racist and anti-Semitic” X posts, and father-of-two Norbert Gyurcsik was jailed in England for 40 months for possessing and distributing “extreme right-wing” music.
There is growing concern in Britain about the rising number of arrests for social media posts, more than any other country, and the two-tier justice system that has seen right-wing political dissidents sentenced to years in jail for stickers and Facebook posts while paedophiles walk free.
Header image: Luke Yarwood (Facebook).
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