As the Guardian notes this morning:
The director of public prosecutions is appealing to the supreme court in an ongoing and expensive battle to overturn the acquittal of two protesters found to have acted reasonably in calling Iain Duncan Smith “Tory scum”.
The background to the case is that:
Ruth Wood, 52, and Radical Haslam, 30, were found not guilty in November 2022 of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent after a two-day trial in Manchester magistrates court.
They had been outside the Midland hotel in Manchester, where the Conservative party annual conference was taking place in October 2021 [and....] separately called him “Tory scum”. Wood added:“Fuck off out of Manchester.”
As was noted in court:
Wood had successfully defended her comments on the grounds that her job working with homeless people in her local community meant she felt very strongly about the impact Conservative party policies were having on people's lives. Duncan Smith was the work and pensions secretary from 2010 to 2016.
Haslam's comments were made in a speech in which he cited child poverty, homelessness and a lack of action over the climate emergency as reasons “why people hate you, why people call you scum”. He added: “It doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from what you have done to ordinary people's lives … shame on you, Tory scum.”
As the Guardian then notes:
In clearing the two protesters, Judge Goldspring, who is also described as the chief magistrate, had noted that “the use of Tory scum was to highlight the policies” of Duncan Smith and that this was relevant to the “reasonableness of the conduct” in relation to the rights of freedom of expression and assembly.
Goldspring added: “The use of those words did not amount to an offence, as in the circumstances it was reasonable.”
The government sought a judicial review of the decision. It was found that the decision involved no fault in law.
So they are now going to the Supreme Court to try to overturn these decisions and make it a crime to call a Tory minister 'scum'.
They justify this by saying:
We have a duty to ensure that that we understand the reasoning of a court so that we can correctly apply any considerations to future cases and charging decisions. This appeal was pursued because what is required, for all concerned, is clarity and certainty.
There is a technical description for that, which is it is drivel (other words could be used).
The reality is that the Tories want to limit free speech.
The courts would not do it.
Making a justified claim that the Tories are scum is clearly a legal thing to do.
Unless you are a Tory minister, of course, whose aim here is to politicise the Supreme Court, whatever the outcome. Which looks like the actions of Tory enemies of free speech to me.
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Hang on a minute, aren’t right wingers always accusing loads of people of being snowflakes? On the grounds they’re scared of robust argument and, say, insults. The ‘lefty snowflakes can’t take the rough and tumble of political debate?’.
Like, for example, Tory scum?
I think you accurately nail the dishonesty, hypocrisy and bad faith of the Tories.
Like me you may have heard this morning that the Daily “Enemies of the People” Mail was today railing about the Tory minister who has decided to give up politics because of threats against him and his family.
Even for the Daily Mail the lack of ability to connect the dots and understand that they have significantly contributed to the political atmosphere that makes this kind of thing possible is mind-boggling.
I think the Tories should be reminded that respect is earned, not imposed.
Two things:
I did not think it was possible for anyone to overturn a not guilty verdict in a criminal trial?
Does anyone know which of the words Tory or scum is considered by the Tories to be offensive?
I presume they want retrial on the basis it was found incorrectly in law
You may well disagree, but our ‘Supreme Court’ was just created as a political toy for politicians, simply aping our cousins over the Atlantic.
The High Court was enough.
But not for people who want power and play chess with judicial appointments. It’s all been done before but no one is watching.
I remain profoundly sceptical about this institution. And when you consider how clogged up the legal system is by austerity.
So, it may not be that we cannot call nasty politicians names like ‘scum’ or ‘wankers’ – OK – fine. Ridiculing them doesn’t seem to go down well either as it not seen as ‘serious enough’.
So, how should we call out their crimes and failures with infantile name calling? It might help the courts by calling them perhaps by what they have done:
‘Murderers’? (NHS cost cutting, Covid failures, sending men to war in crap equipment (Iraq)).
‘Frauds’ (saying one thing and doing another – ‘oven-ready BREXIT’, etc).
‘Thieves’ or accessories to theft (enabling the rich to get their hands on public money, lack of procurement rules).
‘Negligent’ (Covid, BREXIT and God knows what else – knock yourself out).
‘Embezzlers’ (unable to be trusted with public money).
‘Corrupt’ – (going through a voting process but still only listening to behind the scenes funders to direct policy).
Anyway, that’s enough. I’m sure others could add to the list of bona fide crimes, but then no doubt we start wading into the libel laws don’t we? But reflecting on this, it shows you just how unaccountable Parliament really is.
Thanks
The Supreme Court replaced the House of Lords’ judicial role. Personally I think that was a good move, given the makeup of the House of Lords. The High Court is still there.
https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/our-justice-system/court-structure/
You might have a perfectly sound factual basis for that Cyndi and fair enough.
But I did note thew New Labour always seemed to be infatuated with the North American way of doing things (in their quest for ‘modernity’) and I saw the supreme court as totally unnecessary.
Look how making the BoE independent has been abused by the austerity brigade (the BoE are ‘independent experts’) – even Labour’s Alistair Darling accepted the rubric of austerity even though he had just dealt with a private banking criminality induced financial crash that had nothing to do with public sector service which has been eviscerated ever since. Why?
The UK Supreme Court will just end up being abused in my view – it has already been used as tool in the anti-EU argument and as a beacon for rabid nationalists and exceptionalists.
If you believe in it Cyndy then please continue do so – but a keep a close eye on it is my advice.
The prosecution can ask for a judicial review of decisions by magistrates. Usually that is by way of a “case stated” to the High Court, which can review the facts and the law and potentially quash the original decision, and then send the case back to the magistrates to decide again or substitute a different decision.
In rare cases there can be a retrial after an acquittal at the Crown Court but there needs to be new and compelling evidence.
This decision was not a case stated, but a normal judicial review and boils down to who has the burden of proof to establish the defence of “reasonable” conduct under section 4A(3) of the Public Order Act 1986. Particularly when questions are raised about the proportionality of interference with human rights under the ECHR.
The legislation is here. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/4A
The ruling on the application for judicial review is here. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2023/2938.html
And here is the CPS guidance on judicial review of magistrates decisions. https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/appeals-administrative-court
Thank you
Appreciated
Amongst other things, I’ve been reading about the rise to power of the Nazi Party. Now I don’t wish to get prosecuted by referring to our august government as Nazis, but little by little the erosions of accepted freedoms is being encroached upon. And as has been pointed out, the language our right wing politicians use doesn’t bear repeating.
My only surprise on reading this post was that the Director of Public Prosecutions in this particular instance was not Kier Starmer. It has his fingerprints all over it.
A cynical person might say that they want clarity about the judges reasoning to allow them to draft effective new legislation…
If the supreme court kicks the case out, does that mean that I’m not guilty and can use the tory & “s..m” word in a phrase as a reasonable description of the current crew pretending to run the country?
Just asking cos we had a bit of argy bargy on this in the past 🙂
Great believer in calling a spade a spade or in this case .. well anyway, you get my drift. (LOL).
Whether you feel impelled to shout words like “scum” is up to you Mike, but I don’t think casually abusive language helps advance informed debate, but instead it inhibits participation.
It would be a mistake is to think this court decision means you or anyone else can hurl insults without consequence. As the decision makes clear, it depends on the facts. In this case, the elements of the offence under section 4A were made out – read the links I gave yesterday – it is an offence to uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, with intent to cause a person harassment, alarm or distress, and thereby cause harassment, alarm or distress. There is a defence if the conduct is reasonable.
In this case, the magistrate decided that the words were insulting, and were intended to and did cause alarm. But he found the defence was made out. (The argument in the judicial review was about which side needed to provide evidence, to what level of proof, to establish the defence. There are some legal points here that the Supreme Court might want to review.)
In similar circumstances, you might find that the court is not so sympathetic.
Ian Duncan Smith was one of the chief architects of the Benefit Scrounger narrative which gave rise to programmes like Benefit Street. Also his many derogatory comments about disability benefit claimants led to attacks and abuse against disabled people. Yet he moans about people calling him scum.