On the morning of February 19, 2024, the Stray Ferret were alerted to posts on a Harrogate councillor’s X account.

Pat Marsh, who at the time was a Liberal Democrat councillor on North Yorkshire Council and group leader for Harrogate and Knaresborough, made a serious of inflammatory posts labelling Jews as “evil” and “a disgrace to this world”.

What followed was a two-year saga, which saw the veteran councillor axed from her own party and culminated in a court case at York Crown Court.

Political downfall

Marsh had served on the council for more than three decades, most recently for Stray, Woodlands and Hookstone division, and became leader of the Liberal Democrat group in Harrogate and Knaresborough following the scrapping of Harrogate Borough Council.

However, a series of posts on her X account between January 21, 2024, and February 19, 2024, spelled the end of that decades long career in local politics.

The catalyst for Marsh’s explosive flurry of tweets, thought to be in their hundreds, was the war in Gaza and the Israeli Defence Force’s raids on the strip following the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023.

The posts described Jewish people as a “so-called religious group who are evil” and labelled them as “a disgrace to the world” who “will pay”

One post about the war in Gaza, read: “This is atrocious and a war crime. No wonder people are becoming anti-Jewish.”

The Stray Ferret were alerted to the posts and contacted her.

At the time, she denied the posts were anti-semitic. She said she could not stay silent while children were being killed, adding:

However, shortly afterwards a Lib Dem spokesperson contacted us with the message saying Cllr Marsh had been removed from the party.

Despite the widespread condemnation, which included criticism from antisemitism campaigner Steve Cooke on social media, Marsh remained defiant and refused to resign as a councillor.

The following day, she told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that she intended to sit as an independent for the remainder of her time in office, which was three years.

She claimed she had received emails of support from residents urging her to carry on serving them in her Stray, Woodlands and Hookstone division.

But, despite the defiance and claims of support, Marsh resigned her seat six days later on February 26, 2024.

A political career which spanned three decades had ended within the space of a week.

Criminal charges

Amid the political condemnation and social media noise, members of the public took the posts on Marsh’s X account to North Yorkshire Police.

A trial at York Crown Court last week heard that at least four people reported the posts to the force in February 2024.

Detective Constable Kirsty Greenbank, the Harrogate-based police officer who led the investigation for North Yorkshire Police, told the court that the first member of the public to complain about Marsh’s tweets came into Harrogate Police Station in February 2024 and showed officers a screenshot of the councillor’s Twitter page.

It showed a series of posts including one which read: “This is what you Jews are doing. I hope you feel proud of yourselves. You are a disgrace to this world. For a religious group, you are evil.”

Marsh was arrested on February 20, 2024. But she was not charged until October 2025.

It would take another 10 months before the ex-councillor stood trial. But, by that stage, it had already been established that Marsh was unfit to give evidence.

At a hearing in June 2026, Marsh was found to be unfit to give evidence following consultation with two psychiatrists acting on behalf of the prosecution and defence.

The Stray Ferret asked the Crown Prosecution Service why it continued to pursue the charges after it was established that she was unfit to give evidence.

A spokesperson said the court found in the prosecution’s favour that it was in the public interest to continue with the case.

A judge handed Marsh an absolute discharge after a jury found she had posted or distributed written online material likely to stir up racial hatred following a trial of facts.

A trial of the facts is where a jury, in the absence of the defendant, is asked to decide if she did the act alleged.

Lib Dem investigation

During the backlash caused by Marsh’s tweets, the Liberal Democrats suspended her from the party and launched an investigation.

The move came amid accusations that the party must have known about the councillor’s posts — a claim which was largely driven by the former Conservative MP, Andrew Jones, in the House of Commons.

At the time, local Lib Dem representatives said they had not seen the messages and the matter was being dealt with by the party's national press office.

A spokesperson for the party said at the time that the matter was being dealt with by an independent panel.

This week, in response to Marsh’s court case, a spokesperson for the local party said:

We asked what the Liberal Democrats’ internal investigation had concluded. We were told that our query had been forwarded to the party’s HQ, but we had not received a response by the time of publication.

Political career ended

Amid the criminal charges, court case and backlash on social media, Marsh’s career in local politics was left in tatters.

Two months after the posts were made, her friends paid tribute to her and said that her decades of public service should not be forgotten.

They also described her as “hard-working, warm and conscientious”.

However, her comments on X during that fateful period between January and February 2024 were described in court as “plainly insulting and abusive”.