Patrick Ruane, 55, was found guilty at the Old Bailey of two charges of encouraging terrorism in a series of Telegram posts in which he advocated the use of weapons, guns and explosions

He suggested “whacking” the chief medical officer for England Sir Chris over the head with a rounders bat in one post

Sentencing on Monday, Judge Richard Marks KC said Ruane’s messages were “extremely dangerous” during a volatile time

He went on to say that Ruane had a “compulsive and obsessive” mindset about the vaccines and that he often posted the messages while “blind drunk”

The judge also acknowledged Ruane’s childhood trauma and alcohol dependence[…]
Ruane specifically targeted individuals, such as Sir Chris, and the chief executive officer of Covid vaccine developer Pfizer in a series of posts during 2021, the court heard previously

Ruane had replied to a post about Sir Chris, saying: “The weakest point of the scull (sic) is the back of the scull (sic) and all it would take is riding a bike very fast and whacking target over the back of head with a rounders bat but a mace (a piece of metal ball and chain) would be way better”

In response to the creator of the AstraZeneca vaccine getting a standing ovation at Wimbledon, he commented: “It’s a shame there was not a sharp shooter to take that f****** POS (piece of shit) out”

Prosecutor Julia Faure Walker said that Ruane was “angry, frustrated and upset” about lockdown policies and the vaccine rollout[…]
Ruane wrote that he was “all for hunting them down and f****** executing them”, saying “too many people” had died and “it’s not going to stop until we start killing them back”

When someone posted about not allowing a “satanist puppet” to come near his children with “that poison jab kill shots”, the defendant encouraged others to “find where they live, put a kill squad together and shoot”[…]
He called for an “IRA playbook” to be implemented after[…]Boris Johnson extended powers for a further period