Vaiva Sutinyte who was convicted of sending offensive messages to her MP has lost an appeal against the sheriff’s decision to repel a no case to answer submission.
In February 2021 the appellant emailed Mr Grady on multiple occasions from 6:04am until 10:36pm. She stated that she wanted to take Mr Grady to court for a violating human rights and called him a ‘fuckin bitch’. She also stated, “I hope you choke from your morning coffee”. Further to this, messages of this nature were sent on the 31st of January.
At trial the sheriff heard evidence from Malcolm McConnell, a member of Mr Grady’s parliamentary team. The court also heard from a police officer about the emails that were sent. Mr McConnell stated that there was concern about the appellants fixation on Grady.
Counsel for the appellant argued that the messages did not satisfy the high standard of being ‘grossly’ offensive. It was accepted that the word ‘bitch’ had been used in a pejorative sense; however, that the word had lost some of its offensive inferences.
The Crown submitted that the sheriff had properly considered the messages in line with the context and that they were grossly offensive.
Sheriff Principal Murray in delivering the opinion of the court stated: “In applying [Lord Bingham’s] test, we find no error in the sheriff’s conclusion that the section 160 submission was properly refused. He was entitled to reach the view that, objectively assessed and taking into account the context in which they were sent, these messages did contravene section 127(1)(a) of the 2003 Act.”
He concluded: “On objective assessment, the messages included language which was intrinsically offensive, which conveyed personal insult, and which wished physical harm to the recipient, who was acting as a public servant. We agree that, in context, the messages went beyond merely offensive and were grossly offensive. To quote Lord Bingham, the appellant ‘used language which is beyond the pale of what is tolerable in our society’.”
As a result, the appeal was refused.