Windfarm campaigner warned he was “going to do witchcraft on him”
An anti-wind farm campaigner has been ordered to pay compensation after making death threats against councillor, crofter and TV personality Donald ‘Sweeny’ Macsween and threatening to “do witchcraft” on him and his animals.
Lucius Dillon, 39, formerly known as Jake Stafford, was sentenced at Stornoway Sheriff Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty at a previous hearing before he was due to stand trial.
Donald ‘Sweeny’ Macsween, councillor for An Taobh Siar agus Nis, also presents the Air An Lot programme on BBC Alba and other TV work. He was targeted on 18 January this year.
Dillon, of St Ronan’s Drive in Ness, was charged with behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by repeatedly putting comments on Cllr Macsween’s Facebook page which contained threats of violence, challenges to fight and derogatory and abusive comments.
Fiscal depute Robyn Macleod told the court of a string of abusive comments which included “how about you meet me for a fight, how about it big boy?” and “what are you going to do, run to the police and tell them I’m doing witchcraft on you?” He also said: “Don’t make me bury you in the moors”.
When Dillon was questioned by police he continued in the same vein: “It’s not my fault if I do witchcraft and one of his piggies will die”.
Dillon represented himself in court. He said he had been part of the campaign group Hebridean (SEA) Without Turbines and his family had “received abuse over the last two years from numerous people”.
He claimed he had approached Alasdair Allan and the media about problems he was experiencing and that “the police weren’t any assistance”. He claimed he had made the threats towards Sweeny to attract police attention to force them to investigate these alleged problems.
Dillon told the court he had borderline personality disorder and had been suffering from a fever and drinking alcohol on the night in question.
He admitted: “Because of my borderline personality disorder… I can be irrational”. He also said: “It was a silly mistake to make at the time. My intention was not to do any harm.”
He claimed he wanted to “trigger a hate crime incident” and force police to look into all matters, with the ultimate aim of “trying to secure safety for my family”.
Sheriff Gordon Lamont sentenced Dillon to pay £400 compensation at a rate of £50 per week, and imposed a non-harassment order for five years. He told him: “Mr Dillon, you are getting off lightly. If there is any repeat of this type of behaviour, the court will then have this to take into account and the court might not deal with it so lightly in the future. So be careful what you post online.”
Responding to the verdict, Cllr Macsween said: “I welcome the sentencing and wish to thank the legal system for handling matters in a professional and supportive manner. You never truly understand the impact harassment and threats can have until you find yourself having to live through them. It has been a challenging time and it has taken a toll on my health and wellbeing.
“I have been signed off from my Comhairle duties for a period of time and I think it is important that people are aware of the consequences that can result from online communications.” He said he would give any compensation to charity.