Leicester pub received death threats after false report of soldier ban

The Globe in Leicester had to shut for a day last August and install security for the following two weeks after a wave of threats sparked by an article on the Daily Bale website.

The piece, written by Joshua Bonehill-Paine, claimed the Ever So Sensible-owned pub was refusing to serve soldiers to avoid offending migrants.

The pub, which is an Everards tenancy, was inundated with over 1,000 phone calls which included death threats and promises the venue would be fire-bombed.

Last week 21-year-old Bonehill-Paine, of Yeovil, was sentenced to serve 180 hours of unpaid work and pay costs of £145, after admitting a charge of malicious communication. The court heard he had written the article because he wrongly believed the licensee had been part of a hate campaign against him.

But Ever So Sensible managing director Chris Bulaitis said the courts should have gone further.

Ridiculous​

He said: “The effect both financially and emotionally is not reflected by the sentence. We lost about £5,000 through this. Whatever we got we would have donated to Help for Heroes so it wasn’t about money. But the courts awarding £85 to the victim is just ridiculous.

“The staff who had to go through this were terrified. Some felt they couldn’t come back, it had affected them so badly.

“His track record is there for the court to see. He needs to be punished or he will keep on doing this.”

The Daily Bale has previously fabricated a missing person poster claiming a six-year-old girl from Croydon had been kidnapped by “an Asian grooming gang”. The website also ran a false report that an Asian youth in Middlesbrough had thrown a two-month-old baby against a wall.