A pensioner has been found guilty of sending the organiser of Grampian Pride an email asking why he was pushing his “sexuality perversions into everybody’s face”.
Thomas Owenson fired off the abusive communication to Deejay Bullock after becoming aggravated that a rainbow flag was to be flown above council headquarters to celebrate the LGBT History Month.
Owenson – who says he was raised according to “strict Christian beliefs” – strongly denied the email was homophobic or that there was any malice when he asked Mr Bullock: “Why can’t you be like normal people?”
The 73-year-old appeared in the dock at Aberdeen Sheriff Court facing a charge of sexually aggravated threatening and abusive behaviour.
The court was told on March 23 last year he wrote to Mr Bullock saying: “Hi. Here we go again. Please advise me what makes you and people of your various sexual persuasions always want to be in the limelight pushing your sexuality perversions into everybody’s face?
“Why can’t you be like normal people and just get in with your life without making other people’s lives a misery by going on about your affronted behaviours?”
He signed it “Regards, Thomas Owenson”.
‘I just asked a question’
Giving evidence, Mr Bullock – who is also the CEO of LGBT charity Four Pillars – said: “It said that we needed to be normal. I do what I do because I care for our community, so this made me angry.
“It was a hateful email.”
Owenson admitted sending the email and even took a copy of it with him to a police interview at Fraserburgh police station in October 2020 but denied it was threatening and abusive.
He told officers: “As far as I am concerned it’s not offensive or homophobic. I just asked a question.”
Owenson claimed it was a story in the Evening Express about the rainbow flag being flown over council headquarters that prompted the email.
When asked why he sent it, he added: “In the weeks leading up to the emails there had been several articles in the media pushing the parade.
“But the straw that broke the camel’s back was an article in the Evening Express on February 17 2020 about the council raising the rainbow flag to celebrate the LGBT History Month.”
In the same interview, he told police he didn’t know Mr Bullock but emailed him after finding his contact details on the Grampian Pride website.
After struggling to find a solicitor willing to work with him, he represented himself during yesterday’s court case.
He said he accepted that he sent the email but didn’t accept Mr Bullock’s “interpretation” of it.
‘There was no malice meant in any way’
He told the court: “The email I sent was in no way derogatory towards LGBT people – and I’ll call them LGBT because that’s what Deejay Bullock called it and because I don’t know what name to give to these people.
“There had been so many things about it in the press at the time. I asked the council a question about why they go ahead and do this all the time for this movement.
“I got no response so I asked Deejay Bullock. When I sent the email I was asking a question.
“There was no malice meant in any way. I just wanted to know why they always got their own way. Everything they ask for they get.
“What is it makes them so special that they get what they want and to be in our face?”
Owenson said he struggled to know how to correctly refer to the LGBT community and thought he had used the right terms, even reading out the definitions of the terms “sexual perversions” and “homophobic” to the court.
“Sexual perversion is the only way I knew to word it,” he added.
“I know people that are gay and lesbian who are not supportive of the parade.
“That wording was the only way I could think to ask the question. To me, it was a simple question.
“As far as I knew I had used the correct wording because I don’t know how to tackle these things … whether to refer to it as LGBT or what.”
‘Am I an ogre? What am I?’
Owenson said it was his inquisitive nature and desire to understand things fully that led to him sending the email.
“I like to understand things, so that’s why I asked,” he added. “At my age, I find it hard to understand.”
He said his 77-year-old wife had been suffering sleepless nights ahead of the trial and that his own ill health meant “nothing matters” anymore.
“This needs to come to an end,” he added. “Am I an ogre? What am I?”
He told the court that he maintains his belief that the emails could not be interpreted as offensive or abusive.
He later added: “If the gentleman in question had been decent enough to respond to my email then we wouldn’t be here.”
‘You were reckless’
Sheriff William Summers found Owenson, of Lingbank Terrace, Peterhead, guilty and admonished him.
He told him: “Putting it simply in terms of the email, it was abusive in at least three separate aspects.
“It does not matter that it was phrased as a question. In any assessment the words you used in the context of the email were abusive.
“I don’t think that was necessarily your intention, but I am satisfied you were reckless as to whether that behaviour would have that result.
“It was not reasonable conduct.
“I am simply going to tell you that you shouldn’t have done this and you shouldn’t do it again.
“You are a 73-year-old first offender – don’t do it again.”
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