A vile Twitter troll was banned from football matches today after abusing a young disabled Celtic fan online.
Ross Gibson, 20, posted a photograph of 11-year-old Jay Beatty on the social networking site following an Aberdeen v Celtic game on March 1 last year.
The young boy, who has Down’s Syndrome, won the Scottish Professional Football League Goal of the Month for January and had been presented with the award at halftime.
Gibson posted an abusive comment about the Celtic fan on Twitter calling him a “disabled piece of s**t” and also made crude remarks about the team skipper’s late sister.
But he was forced to shut down his account a few hours after the offence because his tweets caused outrage across the country.
Gibson was later charged and admitted acting in a threatening and abusive manner by sending sectarian messages online when he appeared in court in November.
The offence was aggravated by prejudice of religion and disability.
Today the Aberdeen fan escaped jail when he was sentenced at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and was ordered to carry out a community payback order.
Defence lawyer Paul Barnett told the court that his client lived with his mother and had a good employment history working at a catering firm operated by his father.
He said the first offender had been drinking while watching the Aberdeen v Celtic game before posting the “poorly judged” messages on the social networking site.
He said: “My understanding from Mr Gibson is that the messages would have been on for a very short time, perhaps a period of 20 minutes.”
He said his client, who lives in Aberdeen, was disgusted by the messages he posted online.
Previously the court heard that one of the tweets referred to Celtic skipper Scott Brown’s sister Fiona, who lost a battle with skin cancer in 2008 aged just 21.
It stated that she was “in hell” along with Celtic legend Tommy Burns, who passed away just two weeks before her death due to the same disease.
During his police interview, Gibson had admitted posting the tweet about Jay Beatty but initially claimed it was written about one of his pals.
He told cops: “I was pretty intoxicated.
“It was about a friend. Nothing about someone with a disability.”
And Gibson stated that the posts were only meant to be seen by his friends.
He told officers that he had been “immature and disgusting” and apologised for his behaviour.
Yesterday Sheriff David Hall told Gibson that he would have to carry out a community payback order as an alternative to a custodial sentence.
He was ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work in the community and banned from attending football matches – both professional and junior games – for a year.
Sheriff Hall said: “This was a serious offence Mr Gibson.
“Picking on vulnerable individuals is simply not acceptable.”