A British man who was arrested in January after joking on Twitter that he would blow Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster, England, “sky high” if his flight was delayed, was found guilty on Monday of the crime of sending a menacing message over a public telecommunications network.

Paul Chambers, a 26-year-old trainee accountant, was ordered to pay £1,000 ($1,500) in fines and court costs by a judge at Doncaster Magistrates Court, who said his post was “of a menacing nature in the context of the times in which we live,” according to The Daily Telegraph.

Mr. Chambers, who issued his now-deleted mock threat when snow closed the airport, threatening to derail his travel plans, responded to the verdict by taking to Twitter an hour ago to sarcastically “thank” the Crown Prosecution Service “for their level-best efforts” to make a mess of “the life of an ordinary citizen.” He added: “I love Britain.”

In the last few minutes, he posted these further updates, responding to questions from other users of the social networking service:

Currently considering an appeal. Half of me just wants it to be over, the other half is indignant. I took, and still take the charges seriously. I have spent the last four months wracked with worry. It’s not the fine by the way, it’s the criminal record. It has jeopardised my career. Punishment not befitting the “crime.”

The British legal blog Jack of Kent explains that Mr. Chambers “was prosecuted under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 for sending an ‘indecent, obscene or menacing’ message. An explanation of the law on the Crown Prosecution Service’s Web site states that section 127:

covers the sending of improper messages. Section 127(1)(a) relates to a message etc that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character and should be used for indecent phone calls and e-mails. Section 127(2) targets false messages and persistent misuse intended to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety; it includes somebody who persistently makes silent phone calls (usually covered with only one information because the gravamen is one of persistently telephoning rendering separate charges for each call unnecessary). If a message sent is grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing or false it is irrelevant whether it was received. The offence is one of sending, so it is committed when the sending takes place.

After he was arrested, and questioned for seven hours for possible violations of British anti-terror laws, the self-described “film-watching, football-loving, rubbish-talking, hyphen-using idiot,” told The Independent in London, “I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they’d never heard of it.” The newspaper reported that the joke had immediate serious consequences for Mr. Chambers. He was suspended from work and initially told he would be banned from Robin Hood Airport for life, although that was later rescinded.

Among those broadcasting their anger at the verdict across the twitwaves on Monday was the British comedian Simon Pegg, who asked: