Man, 41, weeps as he's sentenced for vile tweet after England's Euros penalty loss

A former estate agent who posted a racist tweet targeting black England players after the team's Euro 2020 final defeat wept in court today. Andrew Bone uploaded a post to his Twitter account (now 'X') which read "n*****s ruined it for us" after England lost to Italy on penalties at Wembley in 2021 during the Euro 2020 final.

The disgusting tweet was directed at England players Bukayo Saka, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford who missed penalties in the shoot-out as England faced its first-ever Euros final. Bone was today (Tuesday 4) sentenced at Manchester Magistrates' Court to six weeks in prison, suspended for a year.

The 41-year-old, of Green Lane in Sale, initially pleaded not guilty to an offence under the Malicious Communications Act and had even contacted police to claim his profile had been hacked, a court heard. However, he later admitted the charge and changed his plea to guilty.

At today's sentencing hearing, Manchester Magistrates’ Court was told Bone had sent the Tweet from his account on June 11, 2021, before making another post which read "OMG I hadn’t said anything."

Prosecutor Andrew Heyes said other users then linked the account to Bone’s LinkedIn profile, which showed he was employed as a commercial building manager at Savills. The company was then tagged in asking if they employed racists, and the company replied saying it was carrying out a full investigation.

Police carried out a cell site analysis, at a cost of £2,730, to reveal that Bone had been at the location where the posts had been made, revealing his claim the account had been hacked was a lie.

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A victim personal statement by Savills was read out where the company