UK court jails Murdoch’s foam pie assailant
London (CNN) — A man who threw a shaving foam pie at media mogul Rupert Murdoch while he testified over the British phone hacking scandal has been jailed for six weeks, court officials told CNN Tuesday.
Jonathan May-Bowles caused an uproar when he thrust the paper plate covered in foam towards the face of News Corp. CEO Murdoch at a hearing before lawmakers in London last month.
Westminster Magistrates Court confirmed to CNN that Bowles, a self-described comedian and activist, had been sentenced to jail Tuesday over the public order offence.
May-Bowles pleaded guilty last week to assaulting Murdoch, the British Press Association reported.
Sentencing him, District Judge Daphne Wickham told May-Bowles he would spend three weeks of his six-week term in prison, the Press Association said.
The judge said he had disrupted an important parliamentary process that should take place in a “civilized fashion,” and that she had taken into account the potential alarm caused to Murdoch by the incident.
May-Bowles was also ordered to pay £250 (about $407) costs and a £15 (about $25) “victim surcharge”, a levy that is attached to any fine for a criminal offense and used to provide services for the victims of crime.
The foam pie incident was captured live on television as Murdoch and his son James answered questions from lawmakers over alleged wrongdoing by the staff of News Corp.’s British arm, News International.
The swift reaction of Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, who leapt to defend her 80-year-old husband and smashed Bowles’s hand with her own, also attracted wide media interest. Murdoch was unharmed in the incident.
CNN’s Antonia Mortensen contributed to this report.
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