{"id":602497,"date":"2021-09-30T11:17:24","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T15:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=602497"},"modified":"2021-09-30T11:17:24","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T15:17:24","slug":"romaine-sawyers-racist-abuser-jailed-for-eight-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/09\/30\/romaine-sawyers-racist-abuser-jailed-for-eight-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Romaine Sawyers\u2019 Racist Abuser Jailed for Eight Weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Romaine Sawyers\u2019 racist abuser has been sentenced to eight weeks in prison, as reported by Steve Madeley of <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/news\/fan-who-racially-abused-romaine-sawyers-sentenced-to-eight-weeks-in-prison\/8wgaTFMfWVdh\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Athletic.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Romaine Sawyers: \u201cThis is an incident that has affected me deeply, but I would like to encourage fellow players to report all racial abuse to the police.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Valerien Ismael: &quot;Racism won\u2019t stop tomorrow. But least now everyone is aware.&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/WBA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#WBA<\/a> @TheAthleticUK<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/g1CXZIQq7j\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/g1CXZIQq7j<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Steve Madeley (@SteveMadeley78) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SteveMadeley78\/status\/1443560340235726849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 30, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Romaine Sawyers\u2019 Racist Abuser Sentenced to Eight Weeks In Prison<\/h2>\n<h3>West Bromwich Albion Supporter Jailed<\/h3>\n<p>Via Facebook, Simon Silwood, aged 5o, from Kingswinford in the West Midlands sent Sawyers malicious and racist messages.<\/p>\n<p>During the trial at Birmingham magistrates court, Silwood claimed that he had sent the Facebook post, but it was an error as a result of the auto correct function and he had not intended to cause harm or offence in his communication with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/09\/07\/kean-bryan-completes-west-bromwich-albion-move\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">West Brom<\/a> midfielder.<\/p>\n<p>Silwood was sentenced to eight weeks in prison as well as being fined \u00a3500 in costs alongside a further \u00a3500 to be paid to Sawyers in compensation.<\/p>\n<p>Sentence was passed by District Judge Briony Clarke who The Athletic report <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/news\/fan-who-racially-abused-romaine-sawyers-sentenced-to-eight-weeks-in-prison\/8wgaTFMfWVdh\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">stated to Mr Silwood: <\/a>\u201cThis is, Mr Silwood, a serious offence. There is no place for racism or racist abuse online. This clearly, in my view, crosses the custody threshold. I assess the remorse you have for your actions as very minimal indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Simon Browney, who was in court for the prosecution, stated that the impact of the incident had severely affected Sawyers who is now on loan at <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2021\/08\/02\/sam-surridge-bournemouth-stoke-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Stoke City<\/a> and read out a <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/news\/fan-who-racially-abused-romaine-sawyers-sentenced-to-eight-weeks-in-prison\/8wgaTFMfWVdh\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statement<\/a> from the player who did not appear in court:\u00a0\u201cDaily I am constantly thinking about the incident. Every time I play football I am now thinking about comments that could be made about me online about the colour of my skin. He has shown a complete lack of respect for me, my family and West Bromwich Albion. It is now 2021. Behaviour like this is completely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Defence solicitor Rupert Jones told the court that the incident was\u00a0\u201dout of character\u201d\u00a0for Silwood and that the defendant had written to Sawyers to offer his apology.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"oVbNmss6T3lmJlTX1WF0hA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1234358924\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'oVbNmss6T3lmJlTX1WF0hA',sig:'g7wi3rTtdLIt8qxUq_rBewim28qmetmzsfLGPXdv9Ns=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1234358924',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Romaine Sawyers\u2019 racist abuser has been sentenced to eight weeks in prison, as reported by Steve Madeley of The Athletic. Romaine Sawyers: \u201cThis is an incident that has affected me deeply, but I would like to encourage fellow players to report all racial abuse to the police.&quot; Valerien Ismael: &quot;Racism won\u2019t stop tomorrow. But least [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2488,"featured_media":602532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,30,1],"tags":[4024],"class_list":["post-602497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-romaine-sawyers"],"modified_by":"Tom Cunningham, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}