Only a Tweet LC REPORTER

What the student Liam Stacey tweeted was offensive and stupid, but given the great groundswell of support for Fabrice Muamba it was clearly out of step with the whole nation. So what was the purpose of the sentence? Stacey was clearly remorseful about what he did, so why take this issue out of proportion? The jails would be overflowing if all equally offensive comments resulted in a prison sentence.