Suspended Reform councillor convicted over Facebook post about melting down Nigerians

A suspended Reform UK councillor has been found guilty of a malicious communication after posting on Facebook that Nigerians should be melted down and used to fill potholes.

Sunderland City councillor Glenn Gibbins, 66, denied posting a grossly offensive message on Facebook in March 2024, two years before he was elected.

He was convicted following a trial South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court and will be sentenced later on Monday.

He has been told he will not be jailed.

His legal team will appeal against the verdict at the crown court later.

His post came to light when the group Hope Not Hate went through his social media posts after Gibbins was announced as a Reform UK candidate for Sunderland City Council.

Police were informed after he was successfully voted in.

Gibbins posted: “Carnt believe the amount of nigerians in town… should melt them all down and fill in the pot holes!!” (sic)

Emma Dowling, prosecuting, said: “The comment about melting them down conjures up despicable images.”

She said it implied that Nigerians were “somewhat less than human, stripping people in that group of humanity”.

Godwin Ejeh, a community leader for Nigerians in Sunderland, gave evidence to say he led a protest outside the City Hall building when Gibbins should have been sworn in, hoping that the councillor would apologise.

But Gibbins had already been suspended by Reform UK after the post came to light and he did not attended the ceremony.

Mr Ejeh, who stood as a Liberal Democrat councillor in the May elections, denied trying to make political capital from the situation, telling the court: “We are talking about humanity here it’s way beyond politics.”

He said Nigerians in the city were “distressed” for their safety and the safety of their children.

Gibbons, a divorced former salesman who runs a stall in Sunderland city centre printing novelty gifts, told the court: “I thought it was a tongue in cheek joke.

“It was an unreal scenario. No-one took it literally.”

He explained how he had set up his business in the Bridges shopping centre and recalled on the day he made the post that some Nigerians had approached him about buying some of his printing equipment.

Gibbins said he had “banter” with the Nigerians at his stall and that the conversation was good fun.

That night, after “a couple of cans of beer”, he said he saw a post on Facebook about Nigerians which he tried to share without success, so he typed it out himself and posted it to his public Facebook profile.

When Ms Dowling asked him what reaction he intended to cause, he said: “It was tongue-in-cheek, a bit naughty, but I thought it was fun.”

Speaking of the earlier interaction with the Nigerians at his stall, he said: “They had done my head in, in a funny way not a bad way.”

When she asked what was funny about the post, Gibbins replied: “It’s an unreal scenario, you cannot melt people down, anyone that takes that literally… you cannot do that.”

He added: “I wouldn’t dream of joking about killing people.”

He explained he was not particularly political and when he was approached by Reform UK about becoming a councillor in March this year, he considered it would be a source of income “to tide me over” when business was quieter in the summer.

He also said he enjoyed helping residents in the brief period when he was not suspended.

Ms Dowling, summarising the prosecution case, said the post was grossly offensive and dehumanising.

She said it was shared “for no reason whatsoever other than to offend and humiliate people from Nigeria who live in Sunderland”.

Adam King, defending, said the post was “unfunny” and “an unpleasant joke/non-joke”.

He said professional comedians such as Jo Brand had joked about throwing acid on Nigel Farage and Jimmy Carr about gypsies in the Holocaust and they had not been prosecuted.

Giving her verdict, District Judge Zoe Passfield said Gibbins now accepted that his post was offensive, but not grossly so, and maintained it was a joke.

She said he had no previous convictions, had not offended since the post more than two years ago and she had read character witnesses in his support.

The district judge said the post was targeted at a specific ethnic minority and that they could be “eradicated” and turned into inanimate substances and used to fill pot holes.

Had he confined his observation to the number of Nigerians living in Sunderland – even if that were a racist held view – she did not believe the case would have gone to court.

But he went on to reduce them to the status of Tarmac, she said.

His comments were not politically motivated, she added, as there was no wider context about immigration.

She said: “The post was nothing more and nothing less than a grossly offensive comment about members of the Nigerian community in Sunderland and Mr Gibbins’ views as to their status, or otherwise, as human beings.”

The district judge said she had considered Gibbins’ right to free expression as per Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but decided the post was not a genuine expression of political views.

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