Man jailed for April Jones and Madeleine McCann Facebook posts

A man who posted “despicable’’ comments on his Facebook page about missing youngsters April Jones, from Machynlleth, mid Wales and Madeline McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, has been jailed for 12 weeks.

Matthew Woods, 19, from Chorley, Lancashire, made a number of derogatory posts about April and Madeline after getting the idea from Sickipedia - a website that “trades in sick jokes’’.

Unemployed Woods was arrested for his own safety on Saturday night and was remanded in custody ahead of his appearance at Chorley Magistrates’ Court today where he pleaded guilty to sending by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive.

Chairman of the bench, Bill Hudson, said Woods’s comments were so serious and “abhorrent’’ that it deserved the longest sentence they could pass, less a third to give credit for his early guilty plea.

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Mr Hudson said: "We have listened to the evidence in what can only be described as a disgusting and despicable crime and the bench finds was completely abhorrent.

“The words and references used to the current case in Wales and that of the missing girl in Portugal are nothing less than shocking, so much so that no right thinking person in society should have communicated to them such fear and distress.”