A man has been remanded in custody after posting grossly offensive comments on Facebook about a tragic toddler, Mikaeel Kular, who was beaten to death by his mother.
Shaun Moth launched a tirade of abuse about the three-year-old on the social networking site the day before the his body was found in woodland in Kirkcaldy
The 45-year-old, who lives in Whitehills in Aberdeenshire, posted the comments on an anti-racism page as a major police search was underway for the toddler.
Moth pleaded guilty to conducting himself in a disorderly manner, posting grossly offensive comments on Facebook and breaching the peace which was aggravated by religious prejudice when he appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court today.
Fiscal depute David Bernard said: “The circumstances in this case are that on the 16th of January this year Mikaeel Kular, who at the time was aged three, was reported missing by his mother in the Edinburgh area.
“A national media release was sent by Police Scotland to try to trace the child.”
The case was reported in newspapers along with appeals on social media before police discovered the child’s body and established that he had been killed.
The little boy’s mother, Rosdeep Adekoya, later admitted a charge of culpable homicide and was jailed for 11 years in August.
Mr Bernard said that on January 16 the case was still being treated as a missing person inquiry
He said: “On that date a post was put on the page for a group entitled Scotland United Against the racist SDL.
“During the evening of the 16th of January, one of the administrators for that Facebook page logged on to the page and that account to view recent activity.
“At this time she noticed a comment about the missing child which was made at 17:45 hours that day by a user named Shaun Moth.
“The comment read ‘Hopefully he’ll be found… under the wheels of a bus’.”
Several other comments were posted on Facebook by Moth and the Facebook account administrator was “so offended” she decided to hide them from public view.
Among them was a statement from Moth that he would laugh when others wept when the kid’s body turned up.
Another post read: “I care not. One less ethnic regardless of his age is a good thing. Said what I wanted to and annoyed a few of your ilk.
“My work is done here. wpww 14/88.”
Mr Bernard said the acronym wpww was understood to stand for White Power World Wide and 14/88 was a Neo-Nazi term for “Heil Hitler”.
Moth also posted the comment: “Do you look for missing white kids as well?” on the social networking page and called for another account user to concentrate on getting “that Arab loving ape” out of the White House.
The court heard that Moth also posted a comment about Jews on the page.
The Facebook administrator contacted the police and officers carried out a search of his property on January 29th.
During his police interview, he was informed that he was going to be asked questions in relation to an intent to stir up racial hatred.
Describing himself as a Nationalist Socialist, he told officers that he often went on to the Facebook page for debate and classed it as a left wing Marxist page for all Communist types.
Moth was asked if he was racist and said he was an intelligent man and “not a mindless yob”.
He claimed to police that we had a Jewish descendant Prime Minister who was tied to a Jewish run European Union that wanted to destroy any status of indigenous people in Great Britain.
He said in the interview: “My heritage is being stripped by these people. It’s being systematically eroded and attacked by these people”.
Sheriff William Summers deferred sentence for background reports yesterday.
Defence lawyer Tony Burgess pleaded with the sheriff to bail his client until he was sentenced because he lived alone with two dogs.
But Sheriff Summers remanded Moth in custody stating that it was almost unimaginable that he would deal with the case in any other way other than custody.