A Ripon man has been found guilty of sending offensive matter by public communication network after posting pictures of himself wearing a costume depicting Manchester Arena bomber, Salman Abedi.

David Wootton, 40, formerly of North Street in Ripon, appeared at Harrogate Magistrates Court yesterday (September 12) after pleading not guilty at a previous hearing.

Wootton was found to have shared grossly offensive images of himself on social media last year in October 28, namely posting photographs of himself on Facebook in a Halloween costume depicting Abedi.

Abedi killed 22 people in a suicide attack at Manchester Arena on May 22, 2017.

The court was shown photographic evidence of Wootton wearing an Arabic-style headdress and a white T-shirt with the phrase "I heart Ariana Grande" written across the front in red pen.

Another image was shared with the court showing a black rucksack with red and black wires spouting from the top with a white graffiti style slogan reading “Boom TNT” painted across the front.

The caption of the post read: 

The court heard that the post was shared to a private group of between 20-50 people, some of which were set to attend the same party.

The post gained mainly negative responses in the form of reactions and comments.

To one of the comments confronting Wootton about the offensive nature he replied telling them to delete him from the social media platform.

He then posted an update stating:

North Yorkshire Police were contacted via a report of a hate crime.

Peter Minnikin, of the defence, told the court the theme of the event Wootton attended was a “bad taste Halloween party".

He added that Wootton accepted that he posted the images and “in this case you are a court of public morals".

Mr Minnikin said it was “a straightforward matter but not a straightforward decision” for the magistrates to make.

The court deliberated if the images shared were offensive or grossly offensive and if Wootton should have known they were offensive.

Wootton gave evidence and said that he “didn’t intend to cause offence” and at the time didn’t see how it could be offensive.

Prosecuting, Robert Campbell, counteracted this and said that Wootton knew the costume and images shared were offensive by the nature of the “in bad taste” party theme.

The court found Wooton guilty. They deemed the social media posts to be grossly offensive and said he should have known they would cause offence.

The case was then referred to crown court after it was established that Wootton had breached a two year suspended sentence.

He is due to be sentenced at York Crown Court on October 3.