A repulsive photo of a man in a beer garden wearing a vile t-shirt mocking the Hillsborough disaster and referring to those who died as pests has gone viral over the Internet, sparking worldwide outrage.
The photo was posted on Twitter yesterday evening showing a middle aged man wearing the t-shirt which reads, ‘HILLSBOROUGH. Gods way of helping [a British pest control firm]’, reports the Liverpool Echo.
And, as you would expect, the people of the internet have reacted very severely:
The photo was shot in the beer garden of the Brewers Arms, in Worcester, where the man was later thrown out and subsequently barred.
However, despite the pub making the correct decision and removing the man, who claims he was spat at and confronted while he sat in the beer garden (for obvious reasons), landlord Mark Daniels has also received numerous threats and online abuse forcing the pub to post this tweet.
Apparently, the same man was also caught wearing this t-shirt in the past:
Liverpool fans, and others who were simply disgusted by the man in general, have responded in the best possible way – by sending him over a thousand pounds worth of random goods to his house:
Lou Brookes, whose brother Andrew was 26 when he died at Hillsborough, lives in Worcestershire – as was reported in the Liverpool Echo – and she does not want the photo of the man shared. For this reason, we have chosen to follow the Echo’s lead and go with a pixellated version of the photo in this story.
She said:
I personally don’t like posting the photo. People mean well in sharing it. But when they retweet the photo, with those words, it’s giving him the attention he wants.
I think he’s a sick individual. It baffles me that he’s gone out of his way to have that printed on a t-shirt and why he’s wasting so much time and energy on our 96, who he obviously has so much contempt for.
UPDATE:
The man who wore the t-shirt has since been arrested on a public order offence according to an official statement released by West Mercia Police.
The statement reads:
A man from Worcester has been arrested by police today (Monday 30 May) after reports were received of a man wearing a t-shirt printed with offensive comments relating to the Hillsborough disaster.
The man, aged 50, was arrested by officers this morning, under Section 4a of the Public Order Act 1986, on suspicion that with intent he displayed writing which was threatening, abusive, insulting and caused harassment, alarm or distress.
A video has also surfaced claiming to show the moment of his arrest.
Police showing up to arrest paul grange pic.twitter.com/gEffsHRUTa
— kyonn evans (@kyonnevans) May 30, 2016
The man’s actions are a very sour note on what should be a positive period considering that last month a jury found the 96 who tragically died in the Hillsborough disaster 27-years ago to have been unlawfully killed.
