Twitter joke trial must not end here
There will be lots of talk of pride in Britain today, but perhaps the biggest source comes from the Royal Courts of Justice rather than the Olympic stadium. It was there, at the Court of Appeal, that justice - and sanity - finally prevailed, as Paul Chambers’ conviction of sending a message of a ‘menacing character’ was overturned by the lord chief justice.
But whilst the judgment should be welcomed - and Twitter was in jubilant mood this morning - the very fact this case advanced only serves to undermine confidence in the legal system to an increasingly cynical public. The charge related to a tweet sent in 2010 by Chambers following problems at a Doncaster airport.
The offending tweet in full: ‘Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your sh*t together otherwise I am blowing the airport sky high!’ A joke. A pretty crass joke, but a joke nonetheless. That the Crown Prosecution Service opted to hound this man for more than two years is nothing short of shameful.
Reading through the judgment, the absurdity of this case is so stark it’s easy to think Lord Judge used a few expletives of his own at having to waste his time with such a triviality. For a start, Chambers was charged under section 127(1)(a) and (3) of the Communications Act 2003 - legislation that pre-dated Twitter by four years.
The tweet itself actually remained undetected by anyone other than his 600 or so followers for five days. Only then, on a speculative search for Twitter talk about his airport, did the duty manager notice Chambers’ tweet. Duty bound to report the matter to his boss, the tweet was found to be a ‘non-credible’ threat and was passed onto the police as a matter of course.
There it should have been quietly filed away, but instead South Yorkshire police arrested Chambers at work two days later. Despite the subsequent police report stating there was ‘no evidence to suggest there is anything other than a foolish comment posted on Twitter as a joke for only his friends to see’.
But the court took the view that an ‘ordinary person seeing the tweet would see it in that way and be alarmed’ and his conviction was secured. Who are these ‘ordinary’ people? Presumably we’ve yet to see them as they’re too afraid to leave their own house.
Thankfully, in today’s judgment, we have overdue common sense. It points out that wannabe terrorists rarely use their own name to serve warnings, and often give less than a week for the authorities to plan ahead. The language, tone and lack of direct recipient all suggest this is hardly the work of a master criminal. Moreover, given that the authorities themselves were so unconcerned they left Chambers alone for a week, it hardly seems that his tweet sent panic through the staff at Robin Hood Airport.
Today, Chambers is a free man and deserves to get his life back on track.
But the matter must not end there. Public money has been wasted on this farce and confidence in the legal system eroded (not to mention making the effort to prevent terrorism that much harder). At some point, the government must create new legislation to cater for the rapidly changing world of social media.
There needs to be a public inquiry into how the CPS allowed this case to grow out of control. And on that point, I’m definitely not joking.
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Comments
Snooper blooper
The key phrase in the above is surely the "speculative search" for Twitter talk....you can see the way this will go if the Govt is given power to monitor emails . Bored jobsworths will speculatively trawl the Net for discussion of alleged offences committed or to be committed as the starting point for investigation , instead of investigating the fact of an alleged offence itself. It points to more pathetic substitutes for genuine crime detection, but will no doubt make targets look achieved, warranting bonuses all round.
The CPS Persecutor in the
The CPS Persecutor in the local office, the magistrates and the Crown Court Judge should all be dismissed for gross incompetence...
oppressive state
That doesn't go far enough or to the root of the problem. First the Police seemed 30ish years ago (I'm 71 and not a lawyer) to forget, or more likely disregard, that they had and were expected to use discretion, except between zealous prosecution and a blind eye, whichever served their own interest, individual or corporate. This then spread throughout the legal process and has accelerated, not just unchallenged but seemingly approvingly by judges, until now. How many even of the Justices of the Supreme Court would accept the impassioned argument of former Home Secretary Chuter Ede in the debate over the Timothy Evans case, that, of law and justice, "If one has to go, let us be quite certain that, for the safety of the State, it must not be justice"?
It seems to be part of this "walking blindly into a Police State". I wouldn't have thought that it might only be because I grew up in an atmosphere of great awareness of the methods of the Nazi, the Soviet and the Franco regimes that I would appreciate that extending the State's powers of surveillance and coercion should be permitted only in the most compelling circumstances and with clear and monitored legal time constraints, but the Health and Safety, risk aversion paranoia, which is quite useful to government, seems wholly to have overtaken this. (My wife is from an ex-Soviet State and a teacher, and is astounded at this week's suggestion that teachers here should adopt the "spy on your parents/neighbours" tactics of the KGB/Stasi/Securitate.) I have also assumed, perhaps wrongly now, that at least the judiciary would have this historical perspective, but in my lifetime they too seem to have become more ready to bow to State omniscience: my breath was taken away by the, by then sainted, Lord Denning's reasoning in his doing of "justice" for the Birmingham Six, not publicly disowned by the legal profession even until know, and even only mutedly in her writing by Helena Kennedy, arch-protagonist of j/Justice.
Parliament and government have fostered this by a plethora of obviously perverse incentives, at every level in the Civil Service, Local Government, the NHS, schools, State Agencies etc, and practitioners have mostly performed accordingly to their own benefit, only sometimes complaining loudly, as with teachers. In the corporate sphere, bonus and commission has brought us to the state we're in, where honesty as I and, I assume, my generation knew it seems to have disappeared - pupils then were unlikely to challenge a teacher's misallocation of blame, except if it was of dishonesty, which would be stoutly challenged, but the true culprit who didn't own up would earn a lasting reputation of untrustworthiness.
First they came for the others and I did nothing, ..... then they came for me. This should be up conspicuously in every school.
Good for you John, in
Good for you John, in highlighting the absurdities of this case. It is time that common sense prevailed before the legal system becomes a 'laughing stock' and is completely thrown into disrepute.
Typical of the SRA
"There needs to be a public inquiry into how the CPS allowed this case to grow out of control. And on that point, I’m definitely not joking."
If he had been a solcitor the SRA would have tried to have him struck of after conviction.
How many ridiculous disciplinary procceedings do the SRA institute and how many of these are overturned by the judicary?
I am sick of the SRA/ Law Society hypocrisy,
I would like to know where
I would like to know where the public interest lay in the decision to prosecute. Can the Crown Prosecutor responsible please explain.
The interest (not the public
The interest (not the public interest) lay in the prosecutor filling his target of politically correct crimes to be prosecuted. That way lies advancement and increased salary.
The same would also apply to the Clown Court "judge" who was incapable of exercising judgment in any meaningful way. Regrettably, the quality of the judiciary is at an all time low-and is likely to decrease further.
The only reason the higher court found as it did, is that its members are effectively independent having gone as high as they are likely to, and hence not too concerned about insidious political pressures.
The CPS are afraid of their
The CPS are afraid of their own shadows and they have nothing better to do than waste public time and funds. Their department should foot the bill out of their own budget. We need to ask how many senior members at CPS checked this to see if it was in the public interest.
The UK has become worse than Russia in the cold war, are we going to be suddenly whisked off the streets next for making a statement of one's personal feelings and thrasshed in some back street den......or worse!
The police should also be accountable for not checking out the reality of the situation. Looks like they are all afraid of their own shadows, is buck passing an Olypic sport yet?
Social Media 2012
I am continually amazed at the nonsense that is pursued out of comments made on the internet. How on earth was that taken forward? Surely by a bunch of idiots?
It is obvious from the context that it was a joke meant out of frustration.
And this case highlights a far bigger problem going beyond the simple madness of the CPS in entertaining this nonsense and something I have been going on about for years. When is the law going to catch up with social media and those charged with upholding and interpreting the law, going get some common sense?
To their credit the judiciary now consider context when being presented with online libel claims. This follows a spate of absurd claims, some actually pursued with the benefit of legal exemption and even 'pro bono'. But why were they even considered seriously in the first place rather than laughed out of court in the first instance? Why were the context of the remarks not considered before wasting hundreds of hours on useless preliminary court hearings and then entertaining wasteful appeals. That is a question of case management which despite improvements still needs looking at.
My view is a controversial one but I think people will start to sympathise with now. In future throw the claimants in jail until they repay their costs and compensate their victims.(there are numerous outstanding cost orders and defendants financially out of pocket - just ask Simon Singh) Vexatious litigation and actions designed to stamp out free speech is a type of fraud in my opinion. The solicitors of these fools should also look at themselves. As regards to the above, charge the South Yorkshire Police and CPS with wasting their own time - and everyone elses.
And finally congratulations to David Allen Green who I believe helped the defendant obtain justice - just as he has supported others (Simon Singh and Vaughan Jones) in other ridiculous libel actions.
Outdated Legislation
The part of this that interested me was the sentence "Chambers was charged under section 127(1)(a) and (3) of the Communications Act 2003 - legislation that pre-dated Twitter by four years." It is clear that in an age dominated by social media additional regulations are necessary. We clearly require updated legislation, more in-keeping with the times, to combat and handle more responsibly and efficiently matters like this.
@Kelly Matthews, Jailing
@Kelly Matthews,
Jailing people for unpaid debts and costs orders is an option. It was used extensively in the past. Charles Dickens' Bleak House may give more insight.
However, in the real world ...
We do not need "updated legislation". Far from it. Anytime some diddering old MP or Civil Servant comes accross something they don't understand they bleat out "we need new legislation". Of course the law should define conduct, and do so in such a way that it is neutral as to how that conduct is played out.
Threatening terrorism is threatening terrorism whether or not it is via twitter, facebook or over the telephone.
Being an idiot with a silly joke, it being an idiot with a silly joke whether or not it is via twitter or in person. The twitter aspect of this was (almost) irrelevant (the only relevance being the question of whether a tweet is an active communication made to another, or whether it is a passive message, downloaded by others).
Anybody remember "amplified music wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats"? (An attempt by an earlier generation to "catch up" with the times by enacting new - and unecessary - legislation).
LEAVE THE STATUTE BOOK ALONE!!!
Thanks for a great article
Thanks for a great article John. The name of the game should always be common sense and discernment.
Thanks for a great article
Thanks for a great article John. The name of the game should always be common sense and discernment.