‘Drunken madness’ led to remarks

A WOMAN made offensive comments about Celtic manager Neil Lennon and the families of Irish immigrants on Facebook in a “moment of drunken madness”.

Bigoted and racially aggravated remarks made by Elaine Lafferty, from Whitburn, West Lothian, were seen by thousands of people after spreading over the internet.

The 31-year-old – who lost her job at North Lanarkshire Council over the incident – appeared for sentence at Livingston Sheriff Court yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to behaving in a threatening and abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear and alarm.

She admitted posting an abusive and insulting racial and sectarian statement on her Facebook profile, which was likely to incite racial and religious hatred, on February 19 this year.

Sheriff Pamela Bowman sentenced Lafferty to do 100 hours of unpaid work under a one-year community payback order.

She said: “It’s incomprehensible to me for a young girl to have such negative feelings.

“I think you need to understand better the consequences of your use of alcohol.”