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You’ve got to be joking
By Steven | March 9, 2011
Okay, when you’re part of a trash-talking video barracking for Crawley Town in its upcoming fixture with Manchester United, it’s offensive to make airplane crashy dance gestures referencing the famous 1958 tragedy that killed eight Man United players. (Watch the plonker on the right).
But it is surely not criminal. Or so I would have thought. But no, said plonker has just been given a (suspended) jail sentence for using threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to cause harassment alarm or distress. I think Britain has lost the plot.
Topics: Protest speech | 3 Comments »
3 Responses to “You’ve got to be joking”
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March 9th, 2011 at 11:00 am
hmmm… I wonder if this is one of those cases where the judge maybe got a little caught up in the heat of the moment?? Perhaps he was a Man-U fan??
March 9th, 2011 at 11:02 am
I think they’re community magistrates.
March 11th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Watch the summary court operate in any District Court and see similar trivial nonsense prosecuted and pushed through the courts in this country. Pull “the fingers” and mouth something to another car at an intersection, sleep on a public walkway outside a flash shop, take a brazil nut from the pick and mix in a supermarket, dive into a dumpster post mid-night at the back of a fish and chip shop.