Football fan cautioned for anti-semitic tweets

A football fan has been arrested for a series of anti-semitic tweets referring to the Holocaust and Hitler made before a Tottenham Hotspur match against West Ham.

The 55-year-old, who used the handle pienmashgeezer on the social networking site, was held this morning at his home in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire and later accepted a caution.

His Twitter account, which also contained entries that urged violence against Muslims, has now been suspended.

The anti-semetic West Ham account @PIEnMASHgeezer has been deleted from twitter after his disgusting tweets. Good work, @twitter.

— Addicted to Spurs (@AddictedtoSpurs) October 10, 2013

Police had warned fans before the Premier League match not to use the word “yid” and said supporters who did so could be committing a crime.

West Ham told supporters that anyone caught behaving in a racist, anti-semitic or homophobic way would be punished to the full extent of the law.

This comes after British Home Secretary Theresa May said that concerns about anti-semitism among the UK Jewish community must be addressed.

In a speech last night she said: “A newly released survey shows concerns about anti-semitism are on the rise in Europe. The survey covers the eight countries where 90% of Europe’s Jewish population lives: the UK, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Latvia.

“Britain, I am pleased to say, comes out better than most of those countries. But even here, two thirds of Jewish people think that the situation for them has worsened in the last five years. Nearly half think that anti-Semitism is a ’very big’ or ’fairly big’ problem in their lives. And one in five report that there are places they avoid in their neighbourhood because they do not feel safe in them.

“That level of anxiety is clearly far too high, and we badly need to reduce it.

“What can Government do? One of the things we can do is make it clear that we will not tolerate anti-semitism in any form, and we will zealously protect the right of Jewish people to follow their religious practices and customs.”

She said that the law would also be used to stop people inciting racist or religious prejudice.