Threat to ‘bomb’ the Board of Deputies reported to police

A threat to bomb the Board of Deputies has been reported to the police.

Communal leaders called on Facebook to “wake up” and take action against after the violent comment was made by an unknown user beneath a post written by an expelled Labour member.

Jackie Walker, who was kicked out of the the party in March 2019, posted on her Facebook account, saying: “Dear BoD, Kier [sic] Starmer, ‘Jewish Community Groups’ – if you want race conflict, you are going the right way. Stop it now.”

In the comments under her post, a user called Paul Blackburn wrote: “Bomb the bod”.

When told the remark is “direct incitement to violence”, he said “f***** right it is! The bullet & the bomb is the only way this country will ever be free!”

Jackie Walker was expelled over charges of making comments which were “grossly detrimental” to the party.

Board president Marie van der Zyl said Walker, who had “repeatedly baited the Jewish community continued her hateful rhetoric against the Board of Deputies, making a veiled threat”.

She added, “normally, we would ignore such statements as the ramblings of someone who has long been discredited, but this time her statements led to a direct threat to our organisation”.

She confirmed the Board have informed the police and Community Security Trust.
Van der Zyl said added, the situation was made “a thousand times worse” after “when alerted to this situation, Facebook took no action” with a staff member at the firm saying “it doesn’t go against any of our Community Standards.'”

She added, the incident demonstrates “Facebook’s Community Standards are hopelessly flawed or those employees responsible for implementing them are extremely ill-trained”.

Calling on the social media giant to “wake up” she urged it to differentiate between “free speech on the one hand, and incitement and hate speech on the other.”

The CST said it “can confirm we have been aware of this threat since it was first reported and have been working with
Board of Deputies to assist their investigation and advise regarding their security.”