On Wednesday, 40-year-old Paul Fogg was sentenced to 20 rehab sessions, pay a fine of £339, and a suspended sentence of 6 weeks in Prison after pleading guilty to making an online critique of Norwich South, MP Clive Lewis for his support of trans-identified male breastfeeding an infant.
According to The Standard, Fogg accused Lewis of not "caring about child safety" and called him a "nonce and a pedophile" on Facebook posts and phone calls.
Prosecutor Nathan Paine-Davy accused Fogg of leaving an abusive voicemail that suggested Lewis would "like to have a child sucking his nipple." He added, "I'm Paul Fogg, come and nick me."
In response to Lewis signing a pledge to support trans-identified male Mika Minio-Paluello breastfeed a baby, My London reports that the MP reponded to a post of a picture of Minio-Paluello holding a baby on a bare chest, with a caption that said, "Clive Lews MP is proud to support this."
Lewis said, "100% proud to support this. The bet you got? Bring it..."
In court, prosecutor Paine-Davy claimed it was after that the MP "was contacted by anti-trans activists and members of the far-right."
Fogg's attorney, Ian Fisher claimed that his client had been drinking and taking medication at the time, and "jumped on the bandwagon" of negative comments against Lewis.
He added that Fogg "doesn’t have much of a social media platform himself, though he is not a man in a field in the dark shouting in the wind. But he doesn’t have much of a following.” He noted that his client quit drinking and admitted that it was a "very disgraceful and abhorrent thing to do."
The judge in the case, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring, expressed "substantial distress" in a victim statement to the court. He added, "People seem to think MPs, because they put themselves in the public domain, should have a thicker skin, but they are victims and should be treated as victims like anybody else."
“What you did and what you said was abhorrent, disgusting, and in some ways disturbing," the judge said. "But essentially it was a one-off, borne from isolation, depression, and alcohol.”
