Asperger syndrome can leave the subject able to learn and do even complicated concepts and tasks, but it affects the most social life and human communication skills, so even if he were not handicapped at all either in physical abilities or pure reasonment, he can really be almost totally handicapped in human relations, not understanding irony, not getting the external signals of other people's feelings and so on. You really can't say his particularly handicap didn't affect what he did. As I wrote in a previous post, he could have learned the mechanisms of black humour and sarcasm, but not understood in what cases is inappropriate. Or the reason of his actions could be another abnormal reaction, there are a lot of different possibilities that his mental problems influenced his behaviour. And even not considering mitigating factors, both in the case of the stabbed boy and the girl bullied until suicide, he wasn't the one that committed the biggest offence. Why didn't anybody  prosecute the bully girls? Was it easier to prosecute not the worst offenders, but just the one that couldn't afford expensive lawyers?

can we really qualify nasty internet comments as a harassment? going by that, almost everyone on the net has harassed and was being harassed himself.

well imo, that he has gone to these places(repeatedly and on anniverseries of events) that are expressly for these people to get together and mourn for someone and the level at which he went to to cause hardship for them does indeed qualify has illegal harassment.

wow, didn't know he was doing that. what a sick obsessive sad low life scum bag piece of shit

Yes, he routinely looked for such sites/groups, where he knew the parents and loved ones of the kids that died would frequent, so he was sure that they'd see his messages. He also made offensive videos reharding the dead kids and posted them on YouTube.

He was deliberately posting messages on sites where he knew the kid's parents and loved ones would see them. He was harassing them. It had nothing to do with humor (unless he got a kick out of mentally torturing people, which he probably did). HE was probably seen by a doctor, and that doctor obviously deemed that his 'mental illness' did not excuse his behavior.

And I still don't understand why you keep bringing up those girls who bullied the girl who killed herself (and now the guy who stabbed that boy, who was most likely arrested). It's simply irrelevant to the case at hand. This guy was harassing the parents and loved ones of the kids that died, not the kids themselves, and that's what he was prosecuted for. We don't know anything about the girls who bullied the girl who killed herself. We don't know who they are, what they did exactly, the toll it had on the girl etc. There may simply be no reason to prosecute them. And most of all, it has nothing to do with this case, it's simply IRRELEVANT.

It's not irrelevant, read the end of the OP:

[...]

Paul Warren, chairman of the magistrates' bench, said: "This case serves to illustrate the harm and damage done by the malicious misuse of social networking sites."

Sherry Adhami, of the charity Beatbullying, said: "Today's ruling is a monumental move towards bullying and cyberbullying being taken more seriously and sends a strong message to society that bullying, whether online or offline, is not going to be tolerated.

"It's time that stopping bullying at the source is placed higher on the government's agenda."

Judges, parents and associations against bullying meant to fight bullying, wherever it happens. I can't understand why you are so eager to acquit those bully girls, when everything we can read about the case tells us that what they did was worse.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017330/Natasha-MacBryde-Coroner-slams-bullies-taunt-suicide-girl-15-death.html

BTW in that article you can read that during the last period of her life she was the target of a clique of snobbish bully girls, so their actions were not only deliberate, but previously planned together, and this can be an aggravating factor, and that many students trolled her online too in life and kept on trolling her starting again almost immediately after her death, not just the Asperger troll, that actually, unlike her schoolmates, trolled her only after death, and unlike some of those schoolmates, never bullied her in real life.

What exactly did he say?

It's irrelavant because this guy did something wrong, and he was caught and punished for it. What those girls did has nothing to do with what he did. This case is about himand his actions. Also, there were no complaints filed against those girls, whereas there was a complaint filed against this guy. If someone is harassing you, you need to report it.

It's also important to note that we have no ideea what exactly those girls did (it's mentioned in the article that they were teasing/bullying her, but it's unknown exactly how and why, or if it's something they could be prosecuted for). Also, even her parents say that a 'combination of circumstances came together' in her mind and created an intolerable situation for her. You can't say that it was only the bullying that got to her.

He surely did something VERY wrong! It's just that amongst all the people that bullied or trolled those dead teens, he's the one that could have done it with least consciousness of the consequences of his actions on others' feelings, let's just accept he's guilty because he was conscious enough, still it's wrong to choose right him as an exemplary case. And given his conditions and what he did, surely he shouldn't be left free, even if totally unconscious, mandatory treatment would still be necessary to protect both him and society, but even if the degree of is guilt is higher the time of the sentence should be spent curing and rehabilitating him, closing him in a jail without adequate cures will just make him worse.The father himself of one of the victims stated he feels anger and indignation, but also pity for him.

BTW, Duffy himself asked the judges to consider three other cases where he trolled dead younsters http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-jailed-for-memorial-abuse-posts-2354073.html Why? Does he realise he fell into an obsession he can't control and want to be stopped?

About those girls, we don't know how small or big was their contribution to push Natasha to suicide, but they had some, and bigger than Sean Duffy's one, as he had absolutely no part in it. So, again, it looks wrong that just his case become the exemplary one.