A GIRL who posted offensive comments in response to a man’s Facebook rant about dead soldiers, has been sentenced by a court and told she can’t hide behind the ‘virtual world’ of the internet.

Amy Wilby, 20, admitting posting grossly offensive messages on the social networking site, when she appeared at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court in Huddersfield.

Her comments were made in response to Azhar Ahmed’s rant that “all soldiers should die and go to hell”, made two days after the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.

Wilby’s comments are too extreme to print in full in a family newspaper.

But they saw her slapped with a community order after District Judge Marie Mallon told her that she could not hide behind a “virtual world” when airing her views.

Wilby, of Gladstone Court in Dewsbury, was a teenager when she made the comments on her personal profile page on March 9.

They were made a day after Ahmed’s slurs about the soldiers who were killed when their vehicle hit a Taliban roadside bomb.

Click here to open up our report on the sentencing of Azhar Ahmed in a new window

Corporal Jake Hartley, 20, of New Mill, Private Anton Frampton, 20, of Longwood and Private Daniel Wilford, 21, of Cowlersley, were among the soldiers killed in the blast.

Ahmed, of Fir Avenue in Ravensthorpe, was sentenced earlier this week after he was convicted following a trial.

The 20-year-old was given a two year community order for remarks that a judge found to be “derogatory, disrespectful and inflammatory”.

Vanessa Schofield, prosecuting, said that following Ahmed’s comments numerous other people posted angry responses on Facebook.

Many were cautioned but police decided to charge Wilby.

Judge Mallon was told that she posted five comments on her profile page under Amy Jane Wilby.

In one she made a vile sexual statement regarding Ahmed and his religion.

One statement that can be printed read: “I wasn’t racist until I read this.”