A TikTok influencer who made ‘disgusting and nauseating’ posts including one where she ‘joked’ about the ‘the Jews putting gas into gaslighting’ walked free from court today.
Fiona Ryan, who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf in the dock, also called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘Nazi Yahu’ and livestreamed herself singing ‘I will wear my antisemite badge with pride’, to the tune of ‘If you’re happy and you know it’.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, the sociology graduate posted photographs of Hiroshima and Gaza with the caption ‘this is what Jews do best’, while several of her posts also ‘showed support for and glorified Hamas‘, a District Judge was told.
Ryan also uploaded fake quotes from the Talmud to call Judaism an ‘evil religion from the depths of hell’, Salisbury magistrates court heard.
In a police interview the 40 year old compared herself to comedian Ricky Gervais and claimed her TikToks were ‘free speech’ protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The mother was handed a suspended sentence this afternoon after District Judge Timothy Pattinson branded her ‘appallingly ignorant and misguided’ and said the posts were ‘anything but amusing’.
The judge told her: ‘In the course of the trial I heard the recording of an abusive song and comments, you said ‘where’s the harm in a little bit of fun’ suggesting that you thought offensive communications of the type described by the prosecution can somehow be amusing.
Fiona Ryan (pictured) outside Salisbury Law Courts, Wiltshire, where she escaped jail today
‘It also undermines what you say about remorse, to put it bluntly the comments made in these various offences are anything but amusing, they are grossly offensive and disgusting.
‘Any reasonable person would find your comments disgusting and nauseating, I find they were motivated by a desire to shock, self-publicity and money.’
The sentencing comes after it emerged a prominent journalist is under criminal investigation for allegedly stirring up ‘racial hatred’ after a complaint was made to police about a social media post.
Allison Pearson, a columnist at The Daily Telegraph, said she was visited by two officers at her home in Essex on Remembrance Sunday as she was preparing to make her way to a memorial service.
Ryan was found guilty at an earlier trial of four counts of sending by public communication an offensive message for the TikTok videos made in March and April last year.
She also admitted two further counts in relation to posts on X between October and December last year, around the time of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
At her trial in September the court was told that a neighbour overheard her singing the ‘antisemite badge’ song whilst Ryan was livestreaming on TikTok.
In a video posted to TikTok on April 18, Ryan referred to Netanyahu as ‘Nazi Yahu’ and told him to ‘go back to Poland’.
In a different video on her backup TikTok account Ryan said she did not think Ashkenazi Jews were Jewish and that they were ‘descendants from Nazis’.
Salisbury Magistrates Court heard that Ryan was interviewed by the police on April 22, she described herself as a ‘geo-politician’ and told them she was earning £200 a week from the TikTok Creator Fund.
Ryan, who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf in the dock, called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘Nazi Yahu’
In her police interview she said: ‘If the song was about Muslims no one would care. It’s just a silly joke.’
She also compared herself to The Office creator and standup comedian Gervais, saying she used humour to talk about horrific things.
At today’s sentencing, senior prosecutor Adam Cooper said the posts were ‘beyond the pale’ and that the X post about the Talmud had caused ‘a lot of offence’.
He said: ‘Between October 1 and 31 last year a number of messages were put on social media, the dates you will be well aware include the events that took place on October 7.’
Mr Cooper said some posts had ‘shown support and glorification of the actions of Hamas’.
He added: ‘There is a balance with freedom of expression but when material is so shocking or disturbing it goes beyond the pale, throughout the police investigation that test is rigorously considered.
‘Certainly in all of these cases it was found to have crossed that, in particular the antisemitic tropes and conflating the Jewish religion with Nazi Germany.’
Mr Cooper also read out victim impact statements from five people who had been harmed by Ryan’s ‘discriminatory’ posts, including Alexandra Boyd, a town councillor for Wilton who is Jewish. She said the posts had ‘created an environment of fear for my family’.
Representing herself, Ryan, of Salisbury, said she was ‘deeply remorseful’ and that the posts were made in ‘anger’.
She said: ‘I have had a long time to think about this and I am deeply remorseful for any comments that have caused offence to anybody and I understand why that was the case.
‘I am pro-Palestine but not pro-terrorism.’ She said she had made videos ‘in a state of anger at what is going on in the world.’
Ryan was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail suspended for 18 months for the TikTok posts and, concurrently, 8 weeks suspended jail for 18 months for the X posts as well as being required to attend 20 rehabilitation days, pay a surcharge of £154 and the prosecution’s costs of £650.
Writing in the Telegraph on Wednesday, Pearson described a ‘Kafkaesque situation’ when two policeman arrived at her door to inform her a complaint had been made in relation to a post on X, around a year ago. At the time the journalist, who said she cannot recall the post in question, was frequently commenting on the October 7 attacks on Israel and pro-Palestine protests in London.
Essex Police said: ‘We’re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed.’