September 30, (THEWILL) –Â In a landmark case with widespread ramifications, a man who racially harassed West Bromwich Albion midfielder Romaine Sawyers online was sentenced to eight weeks in prison on Thursday.
After West Bromwich Albion lost 5-0 to Manchester City in an English Premier League match in January, the man, identified as 50-year-old Simon Silwood, attacked Sawyers. He was found guilty of sending a “grossly offensive message” by the Birmingham Magistrates Court.
Silwood was banned for life by West Bromwich Albion earlier this month. He confessed to sending a message on social media after becoming angry by the January 26 5-0 loss during his police interrogation, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), but blamed it on an error caused by using predictive text.
He claimed that when he posted the word “baboon”, he actually meant to use the word “buffoon”, but it was autocorrected on his phone while sending. However, the judge said Silwood’s message was “motivated by or demonstrated hostility based on race”.
Mark Johnson of the CPS said: “Silwood deliberately chose a word known to have clear racist connotations to abuse a footballer due to the colour of his skin. Such behaviour will not be tolerated in football and will be prosecuted by the CPS.”
Silwood was ordered to pay £500 (about $684) in compensation as well as £500 in court fees by the court. He will then serve half of his sentence in prison and half on licence.
The custodial sentence is a relief to Sawyers, who is now focused on putting the incident behind him. He promised to contribute the $500 fine received from Silwood to a local charity in the West Midlands.
A statement from the player read: “I hope this case will serve as a deterrent to others. This is an incident that has affected me deeply, but I would like to encourage fellow players to report all racial abuse to the police.
“It is widely accepted that social media companies must do more to stop the publication of racism on their platforms. I again urge them to take the necessary action required to prevent anyone from receiving the abuse I experienced.”
This is understood to be the first case in Britain where someone will actually serve prison time for racially abusing a footballer online. Several players have been subjected to racial abuse online in recent months, especially in the Premier League, and English soccer has been urging social media firms to do more to tackle the problem.
West Bromwich Albion were demoted from the Premier League at the end of last season.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
