High Court dismisses appeal over Qur’an burning acquittal

The Crown court’s decision to overturn the public order conviction of a man who burned a holy text outside the Turkish embassy contained no logical flaw, appeal judges ruled today. Lord Justice Warby and Ms Justice Obi dismissed an appeal by the director of prosecutions against the acquittal. 

Hamit Coskun had been convicted of religiously aggravated behaviour under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 after he set fire to a copy of the Qur’an while shouting outside the Turkish consulate in London. He was fined £240 plus a £96 victim surcharge. 

In today's written judgment the judges noted that the right to freedom of expression 'is not confined to the use of written or spoken words, but extends to “expressive acts”.' They added: ‘The right plainly covers what this respondent did outside the Turkish consulate as well as what he said.’

Deciding the Crown court’s conclusions were open to it and its reasoning did not contain any ‘logical flaw’, the judges said: ‘The Crown court took the two ingredients of the offence together. We think it might have been better to analyse each ingredient separately and in turn. But we do not consider this was an error of principle or logic.

‘In our judgment, the court was entitled to consider all these factors to be relevant to one or both of the ingredients under consideration. We are not persuaded that the court left any material factor out of account or relied on any immaterial factor.’

The judgment acknowledged that, although Coskun’s case was not such a case, forms of expression ‘aimed at the destruction of democratic values’ fall outside the scope of the right to free expression and are not protected.

Stephen Evans, chief executive at the National Secular Society, which co-funded Coskun’s defence, said: ‘The High Court has rightly rejected this wrongheaded attempt to introduce a blasphemy law by the back door. However offensive some may have found the Qur’an-burning protest, it was lawful. Criminal law protects people from harm, not from being offended. This judgment makes clear that it is not the state’s job to police religious sensibilities.’