A HAMPSHIRE soldier has been sentenced in Basingstoke today for making a racist comment on Facebook.

Warren Butler, 19, made the racist comment about Mikaeel Kumar, a three-year-old boy whose body was found in woodland in Scotland in January this year.

Butler, a Grenadier Guardsman based in Aldershot, added: “One down many more to go.”

He received 16 weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, with 250 hours unpaid work, at the hearing at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court today.

He was also ordered to pay £85 costs and an £80 victim surcharge.

After the hearing, Kate Brown, chief crown prosecutor for Crown Prosecution Service Wessex, said Butler told officers he shared extreme right-wing ideology and that he did not think his comments were bad.

She added: “On January 18, he posted on his Facebook account a racist comment, which callously referred to three-year-old Mikaeel Kular, who was found dead in Scotland the day before.

“The disappearance and the tragic discovery of the body of the little boy shocked many of us and it is therefore very difficult to understand how a 19-year-old is capable of making such cruel and disrespectful comments.”