A “men’s rights advocate” accused of putting a prominent barrister and women’s rights campaigner in fear of violence by harassing her on Twitter has been cleared by a jury.
Former soldier David Mottershead, from Machynlleth, insisted he hadn’t intended to threaten Dr Charlotte Proudman and denied the harassment allegation during a trial at Mold crown court.
However, the jury convicted him of having a lock-knife when he went to Aberystwyth police station to be questioned.
Judge Rhys Rowlands bailed Mottershead for a pre-sentence report.
“I am not going to send him to prison for this,” the judge told barrister Richard Edwards, defending, indicating that a suspended sentence was likely.
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Judge Rowlands said: ”There will be a restraining order on acquittal because it’s needed. Some of the things he was doing, on any view, are extraordinarily unwise.”
The judge added :”Mr Mottershead has got issues, I don’t say that in a pejorative sense.”
Summing up the case to the jury, the judge said the defendant and Dr Proudman held very different views in relation to gender equality and violence between the sexes. Both sought to promote them on social media.
Judge Rowlands said: ”However strongly someone holds views, that doesn’t put them above the law and entitle them to issue threats of violence.
"The prosecution allege Mr Mottershead, by his behaviour, targeted Charlotte Proudman, using threatening language and posting images, they say, intended to harass her and fear violence would be used against her.”
The defence accepted he was responsible for the messages but didn’t direct them at the lawyer who found them “distressing and disturbing”.
Mottershead also claimed he forgot about having the knife in his pocket.
Dr Proudman found a comparison with Hitler particularly upsetting and feared an image of a man pointing a gun at the camera had been a death threat, the jury heard.
Mottershead, who’d served in Kosovo, had post-traumatic stress and partial autism and took “great issue” with Dr Proudman’s views. He hadn’t, he claimed, intended to compare the barrister directly with Hitler.
The so-called men’s rights advocate denied his intention had been to “try and shut Charlotte Proudman up”.
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