Ex police constable who posted Ku Klux Klan memes and mocked George Floyd’s death is jailed

James Watts was serving with West Mercia Police when he shared “grossly offensive”WhatsApp messages

James Watts (right) was accompanied by Police Federation representatives for the court hearing. (Matthew Cooper/PA) (PA )

An ex-police constable who posted racist WhatsApp memes mocking the death of George Floyd has been jailed for 20 weeks.

James Watts was serving with West Mercia Police in 2020 when he shared the “grossly offensive” material in a group chat which included former colleagues at a Warwickshire prison.

The 31-year-old was charged after a police inquiry into 10 memes posted in May and June 2020, including one featuring a white dog wearing Ku Klux Klan clothing.

Other memes posted by Watts, who accepted in police interviews that the messages were racist in nature, featured images of a kneeling mat and a monkey.

Another message, which was found after a Twitter user claimed a serving policeman had posted racist memes, mocked a line in the movie Jaws.

Former prison officer Watts has been jailed (PA)

Watts, of Clifton Road, Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to 10 counts of sending a grossly offensive or menacing message by a public communication network.

Jailing the defendant, Mr Ikram told him: “These are the most serious offences. You have been employed in positions of considerable responsibility.

“At every stage since you were found out, you have cooperated with the authorities and accepted your wrong.

“But the fact remains that over a period of about a month, you continued to post messages which were grossly offensive.

“I do not agree with your advocate that this was stupidity or foolishness. This goes far beyond that.”

Mr Ikram continued: “You were previously a prison officer. I have no doubt you would have received training in relation to diversity and inclusion in that role.

“At the time of these offences, you were a police officer - a person to whom the public looks up to to uphold the law - but you did the opposite.

“You undermined the confidence the public has in the police. Your behaviour brings the criminal justice system as a whole into disrepute.

“You are there to protect the public and enforce the law, but what you did was the complete opposite.

“The hostility that you demonstrated on the basis of race makes this offending so serious that I cannot deal with it by a community penalty or a fine.

“A message must go out and that message can only go out through an immediate sentence of imprisonment.”

A co-defendant, West Mercia Police Constable Joann Jinks, 41, from Redditch, Worcestershire, is due to stand trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on August 23 charged with three counts of the same offence.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) announced in April this year that charges had been brought against Watts and Jinks under the Communications Act 2003.