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20
Aug
Former Harrogate councillor on trial for string of antisemitic tweets
A former Harrogate mayor has gone on trial accused of posting vile antisemitic tweets online which “stirred up racial hatred”.
Pat Marsh, 78, who at the time was a Harrogate councillor and former Liberal Democrat group leader for Harrogate and Knaresborough, posted or re-posted the offensive tweets on her Twitter account, labelling Jews as “evil” and “a disgrace to this world”, York Crown Court heard.
She stands accused of posting or distributing written online material which was likely to stir up racial hatred between January 21 and February 19, 2024.
Due to Ms Marsh’s mental and physical incapacity, she was found to be unfit to give evidence following consultation with two psychiatrists acting on behalf of the prosecution and defence.
Ms Marsh, of Harrogate Road, Knaresborough, wasn’t required to attend today’s court hearing, known as trial of the facts, where a jury is asked to decide if the defendant did the act alleged.
In this case, the jury has been asked to decide whether Ms Marsh posted or re-posted antisemitic material on her Twitter page which was likely to stir up racial hatred.
Prosecutor Ashleigh Metcalfe told the jury that they would have to decide if the veteran former politician – who had served on the county council as its representative for the Stray, Woodlands and Hookstone division for over 30 years and was once Harrogate’s mayor – had posted and re-posted comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, that were insulting, abusive and threatening to “Jewish people around the world”.
She said that in one post on Ms Marsh’s Twitter page, Jewish people were derided as a “so-called religious group who are evil”.
The post also labelled the Jews as “a disgrace to the world” who “will pay”.
Ms Metcalfe said that by “conflating” the actions of the Israeli government during the war in Gaza with “an entire religious community”, the inflammatory posts implied that Jewish people including “Rabbis and Holocaust survivors” were somehow complicit in genocide.
“We say it is racism and bigotry in the extreme,” she added.
“We say it is plainly insulting and abusive.”
She said that the investigation into Ms Marsh’s tweets was sparked by complaints from four members of the public who either saw the posts on X or saw the reports about the online scandal on the Stray Ferret news site.
One of those complainants, a man who was named in court, went into Harrogate Police Station on February 19, 2024.
He complained about a social-media post he had seen on the former councillor’s X page.
The post in question, uploaded to Ms Marsh’s X account on January 22, read:
I hope you Jews feel proud of yourselves. Remember what happened to you during the Second World War. Why would you do the same?
Another post on February 18, which attracted 875 views, read:
The whole world is silent. The Jews will pay for that.
“Many of the posts (Ms Marsh) posted on X attracted hundreds of views,” added Ms Metcalfe.
“Much of the comment she posted or re-posted concerns events in Gaza and was plainly anti-Israeli. Some of the comments we say were antisemitic. Some of the posts contained graphic images.”
She added:
We say Patricia Marsh published and distributed, on her X account, posts about the Jewish community as a whole which were threatening, abusive or insulting, and which would be likely to stir up racial hatred.
Ms Metcalfe called Detective Constable Kirsty Greenbank, the Harrogate-based police officer who led the investigation for North Yorkshire Police, to the witness stand.
DC Greenbank said that the first member of the public to complain about Ms Marsh’s tweets came into Harrogate Police Station in February 2024 and showed officers a screenshot of the former 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.
The officer said that a husband and wife also made a complaint the following day after calling police. The female complainant said they saw the posts on X after reading a report in the Stray Ferret.
She said the Twitter posts made her “feel scared and she felt she needed to report (Ms Marsh’s) posts to police”.
A fourth member of the public, another named man, emailed a complaint to Harrogate Police on February 21, 2024.
He said he felt “saddened” by one of the posts he had seen on Ms Marsh’s Twitter page.
Ms Metcalfe said that this post appeared to have been written by someone else and re-posted by the ex-councillor.
Police launched an investigation and sent an officer to arrest Ms Marsh at her home in Knaresborough.
Ms Marsh invited the police constable into her living room where the officer saw several electronic devices on her sofa.
Six devices, including several mobiles and three laptops, were seized by the officer who took them away to be forensically examined.
Ms Marsh was taken into Harrogate Police Station for questioning in the presence of a solicitor but exercised her right to silence.
Police found three X accounts on one of Ms Marsh’s laptops, which was forensically examined.
The analysis revealed numerous re-posts by Ms Marsh of comments about “the people of Israel and the Jewish faith” which had already hit national headlines.
“Some of these tweets attracted 258 views,” said Ms Metcalfe.
“(There were) multiple hundreds of views of these tweets.”
One post, sent in February 2024 vis-à-vis the war in Gaza, read:
This is atrocious and a war crime. No wonder people are becoming anti-Jewish.
When Ms Metcalfe asked DC Greenbank if “some of the posts were anti-Israeli and some (were) anti-Jewish", the officer replied: “Yes.”
When asked if the screenshot of Ms Marsh’s Twitter page showed that the posts in question “conflated the Jewish people as a whole with the activities of the Israeli government”, DC Greenbank replied: “Yes.”
The trial continues.
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