I have now read the #bulk of MR JUSTICE JULIAN KNOWLES 'judgement' PP { and thanks for posting Link! } and read the 17 out of 31 tweets. --
"I turn to the Claimant’s tweets which give rise to this case. There were 31 tweets in total. They were posted between November 2018 and January 2019. I will not recite them all, but will set out a selection which I think fairly expresses their overall tone and impact."
An enlightening experience requiring effort IMHO, on the lines of pilpul and legal doubletalk, but hey, I am not educated in Law and maybe that is the reason I found it so tortuous and off-putting .
It had some interesting and @eye opening# details along with the Legal squirming, eg
"[38] Finally, PC Gul offered his final words of advice, words that I will never forget as I was so stunned by them. He said, ‘You have to understand, sometimes in the womb, a female brain gets confused and pushes out the wrong body parts, and that is what transgender is. I replied, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. Wrong body parts ? You have to know that is absolute ***. Is this really the official police line ?’ PC Gul said, ‘Yes, I have been on a course.’ I ended the call shortly after this. The call lasted 34 minutes.”
195. Hate incidents and non-crime hate incidents are the subject of detailed definitions by reference to the five protected strands, namely disability; race; religion; sexual orientation; and transgender. I have already set out the definitions earlier in this judgment.
237. I therefore reject the Claimant’s broad-based challenge to the legality of HCOG under Article 10. In summary, I conclude that (a) the mere recording of a non-crime hate incident based on an individual’s speech is not an interference with his or her rights under Article 10(1); (b) but if it is, it is prescribed by law and done for two of the legitimate aims in Article 10(2); and (c) that HCOG does not give rise to an unacceptable risk of a violation of Article 10(1) on the grounds of disproportionality. >Hate Crime Operational Guidance (HCOG)
287. What the Claimant wrote was lawful. The Claimant was just one person writing things which only one other person found offensive out of however many read them. Mrs B chose to read the Claimant’s tweets. The tweets were not directed at her.
288. In his treatise On Liberty (1859) John Stuart Mill wrote:
“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
289. For the reasons I have set out, whilst Mrs B made a complaint that was recorded under HCOG, the police’s treatment of the Claimant thereafter disproportionately interfered with his right of freedom of expression, which is an essential component of democracy for all of the reasons I explained at the beginning of this judgment. END OF!!!
What may be of interest, Mrs B - the protagonist - "69. Mrs B made her complaint via an online system called ‘True Vision’."
http://www.report-it.org.uk/home
worth a look at, and "“12. On Twitter, my account name (or handle) is @HarrytheOwl."
I am ALL for 'free speech', and Peter Pedant, I do NOW "have an opinion on the judges ruling" : BASED on his summary I would likely have agreed the police response to his allegedly transphobic tweets was unlawful.
Sorry!! for the delay PP as I try not to jump to conclusions ( = opinions???) as some do ... "so presumably you spend your days driving your dear wife up the khazi at a supermarket when you pick a tinna beans and comment - well it says 38 pence but it may not be ....." { ;~~~ 0 )