Luciana Berger ‘felt sick’ when she saw anti-Semitism directed at her
The Jewish MP was allegedly targeted with anti-Semitic material by far-right activist Joshua Bonehill-Paine
A Labour MP has told jurors she “felt sick” when she saw a string of hate-filled anti-Semitic blogs which cast her as a “rat” and “evil money grabber”.
Over four months, Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger, 35, was allegedly harassed by self-proclaimed internet troll Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 23.
Bonehill-Paine allegedly posted five “hateful and insulting” articles about the woman he blamed for the jailing of a far-right extremist he regarded as a comrade.
Garron Helm was sentenced to four weeks in prison after pleading guilty to sending a malicious communication by tweeting a picture of Ms Berger with a Star of David superimposed on her forehead accompanied by the words “#Hitler was right”.
Prosecutor Philip Stott told jurors that Bonehill-Paine regarded the sentence as “wrongful” and set about targeting Ms Berger afresh, posting five articles between October 2014 and January 2015.
In his first posting, he used a picture of Ms Berger’s face and superimposed it onto a rat.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, Ms Berger said she found the cliched image associating a member of the Jewish faith with a rodent as “troubling” and she was “incredibly concerned”.
She told jurors: “I felt sick really.”
She said: “It’s attacking me for my faith or religion and not something I have said or done for my constituents.”
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