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A sandwich shop owner endured an eight-hour grilling by police and had his computer seized for three weeks – after cracking sick Nelson Mandela jokes on the net.

Neil Phillips, who runs Crumbs in the heart of former staunch Staffordshire mining community Rugeley, says he was quizzed, finger-printed and DNA swabbed following complaints about what he refers to as “Bernard Manning” gags.

In one, he posted: “My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela.”

Mandela, former South African leader, global statesman and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, died on Thursday, aged 95.

Mr Phillips, 44, is one of two men interviewed by police following a bitter, ill-tempered feud over plans for a mining memorial in the town centre – a well-intentioned project that, claims one leading councillor and barrister, has been ambushed by some members of the Far Right and used as a propaganda platform.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Tim Jones said: “Some of the material would make the very miners that this is intended to be a tribute to, turn in their graves.”

The other individual collared is pensioner and former miner Tom Christopher, quizzed by police at his home in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, over claims he issued threats on the net.

Neither man faces charges.

The simmering memorial dispute sank to new depths at a Rugeley Town Council meeting three days ago, when police ejected Mr Christopher.

The 72-year-old, who worked at the local Lea Hall pit from 1965 to 1991, says he was enraged by public allegations that some of those beating the drum for the £68,000 tribute, which will depict three miners, were “thugs and fascists”.

One council official admitted: “It didn’t come to fisticuffs, but it was close.”

As part of the growing concern over comments on cyber talk-shop “Rugeley Soapbox”, Mr Phillips was arrested at his home on September 10.

He was first taken to Rugeley police station, then Stafford. The shopkeeper alleges he was also quizzed over two further postings:

l Free Mandela – switch the power off.

l There was confusion at Rugeley Jobcentre. Someone who spoke English walked in.

Mr Phillips admits to once being a member of the far-right BNP, quitting 25 years ago.

He said: “It was an awful experience. I was fingerprinted, they took DNA and my computer. It was a couple of jokes, Bernard Manning type. There was no hatred. You can question the taste, but they’re not hateful. I told the police they got plenty of ‘likes’. What happened to freedom of speech? I think they over-reacted massively. Those jokes are ‘out there’, anyway.

“When they took my computer, I thought, ‘what the hell are they looking for?’ To be questioned would have been over the top, never mind arrested.”

Coun Jones was so incensed by the one-liners, aired at a time when Mandela was critically ill, that he made an official complaint.

And he commented under one tasteless joke: “Attacking a 94-year-old man who is probably dying. Does the far right have an ounce of human decency?”

The legal expert in town and country planning says he’s “deeply disturbed” an unofficial Facebook poll over the memorial has been “influenced” by the English Defence League.

And he sent the Sunday Mercury screen grabs – one a shocking image of decapitation, another featuring a wheelchair-bound individual, posted by Mr Phillips.

He said: “They are vile and deeply offensive, anti-Muslim, anti-disabled.”

“They are jokes that I cut-and-pasted,” insisted Mr Phillips. “I didn’t make them up and I didn’t put them on a public site. You have to sign-up and join. It’s turning into the thought police – you can’t do this, you can’t do that. I’m not really involved in the memorial, yet I’ve been dragged into it. The whole idea of right wing involvement is a conspiracy theory.”

Staffordshire Police declined to go into detail about the nature of their interview with Mr Phillips. But a spokesman said: “We can confirm a man was arrested in Rugeley on September 10.

“He was bailed pending further enquiries. When he answered bail on September 30, he was informed that there would be no further action based on CPS decision of there being insufficient evidence to support a prosecution.”

Coun Jones insisted the mining debate had become English Defence League influenced and aggressive, but insisted the overwhelming majority involved were not politically motivated.

“It is an enormous shame because it is something that should have brought people together,” he said.

“As far as I can tell, more or less everyone wants a miners’ memorial in Rugeley. The dispute is about its location. Without the involvement of extremists, people could have sat down talked about their differences and had a good chance of reaching agreement, perhaps on a survey, which most people would have accepted as fair.

“The whole affair is very sad.”

To an outsider, seeds of the pit dispute would seem a storm in a teacup, spawned by differences over where the monument is to be placed.

A succession of surveys – the town council’s own closed on Friday – has only mudded waters further.

A committee behind the memorial wants it on the Globe Island, where defeated miners gathered at the end of the 1985 strike. The council, annoyed over lack of consultation, want it in the town centre, so do traders. An unofficial poll is now being conducted on Facebook – a site, says Coun Jones, that has attracted Far Right attention.

Tom Christopher’s passion for The Globe Island proposal has twice landed him in hot water. Last year police called following a complaint he had emailed threats to individuals, including Coun Jones. He vehemently denies the claim.

“The visit traumatised my wife,” he said, “because my daughter was travelling on the motorway at the time and we thought it was about her.

“I have offered £100 for that ‘threat’ to be made public on the internet, so people can make their own mind-up. I’ve had no response.”

Mr Christopher admits seeing red at Thursday’s council meeting.

“I was called a liar,” he insisted, “so I went straight up and the policeman was called over. I had to be there because the miners weren’t there to defend themselves.”

“During the strike I saw them at the Globe Island waving their banners, then I saw them walk over it when the strike ended and that is poignant.”

There is no love lost between Mr Christopher and Coun. Jones. The ex-miner said: “He is the kind of bloke who threw his qualifications in my face. He is a QC. He threw his weight.”

After two years of wrangling, the entire project – a project everyone in Rugeley wants – is on hold. One council insider admitted: “It’s a mess with no sign of being sorted.”