Man Jailed For Wearing Police Deaths T-Shirt

A man who wore a T-shirt emblazoned with anti-police comments just hours after the killings of two policewomen has been jailed for eight months.

Barry Thew, 39, was spotted in his home town of Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, wearing a T-shirt which carried the handwritten comments "One less pig; perfect justice" and "Killacopforfun.com haha".

Less than four hours earlier, PCs Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone, 32, had been shot dead in a gun and grenade attack as they responded to a reported burglary on the Hattersley estate in Mottram, Greater Manchester.

Thew, of Wolsey Street, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court to the public order offence committed on September 18.

He was sentenced to four months in jail and received an additional four months after he admitted breaching the terms of a previous suspended jail term.

Inspector Bryn Williams, of the Radcliffe Neighbourhood Policing Team, said: "While officers on the ground were just learning of and trying to come to terms with the devastating news that two colleagues had been murdered, Thew thought nothing of going out in public with a T-shirt daubed with appalling handwritten comments on.

"Thankfully the overwhelming response from the public - who have inundated us with messages of support and condolence - prove that Thew is the exception and not the rule, and our communities were right behind us at our darkest hour."

He added: "To mock or joke about the tragic events of that morning is morally reprehensible and Thew has rightly been convicted and sentenced for his actions."