I think smartcooky and others are probably taking their talking points from an Allison Pearson interview with Lucy Connolly where she said words to the effect of "Oh sure, I shouldn't have posted it because that's not me, obviously. Anyone who knows me knows it isn't me."
You snipped out the important bits of my post (and in so doing, removed that "context" that you appear to value so much) so I will re-insert those bits here...
Have to say it again, she got terrible advice from her lawyer.
Have to say it again, people often plead out for a lighter sentence, even though they do not beleive they have done anything wrong.
Citation please: Show us where she ever said she intended for her words to incite someone to actually burn down one or more migrant hotels
She admitted she committed the offence when she pled guilty, that is what a guilty plea means.
No, it isn't. You have been watching too much Law & Order
Immaterial.
Exactly, and that is the problem. Governments must be severely curtailed as to how much they are allowed to restrict free speech (unless of, course you would prefer to have the kinds of free speech restrictions you see in China. Russia and North Korea)
As I said, I regard Brandenburg as the Gold Standard. The government should be required to surmount a very high hurdle to charge anyone for an online post.
But that is the thing.
She didn't have to say the words, the judge said them. And he's the one that matters.
In the UK we have had a lot of legislation created by the last few right wing governments that have tried to encroach on our right to freedom of expression. Given our type of governance it takes actual court cases to challenge the extent of the legislation and that unfortunately can take years and even more unfortunately people may suffer actual harm as these cases percolate through the judicial system. Thankfully the courts have constrained the excessive intent of the rightwing legislation time and time again, which is why the rightwing is constantly attacking our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression. However Connolly's case isn't one that the above touches on, as she said she admitted intentionally tried to incite violence and fear, to give her some credit she did realise what she had done, and I don't think there is much public support to allowing people to intentionally try and incite violence and fear.
In the UK when you have been charged with a crime your first court appearance will be when you can first state whether you are guilty of the crime or not. She said she was guilty of the incitement, no one made her lie in her court appearances. She never changed her plea. Her appeals were not about whether she lied in court and that she was innocent of the crime and that she had been given bad legal advice to lie to the court they were about her sentence. Now I think her sentence was harsh, it was certainly within the guidelines put in place by the rightwing government but harsher than required.
None of this is relevant to what I have been saying
So she incited people to start doing things they were already doing? You've been reading Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report" haven't you?
I don't pay any attention anything that Rogan has to say - he's an alt-right moron.
Changes nothing! She only did that because of the terrible advice she got from her useless lawyer.
No doubt she would have benefited from you as her lawyer, as you could have explained how your client was completely innocent according to the United States Supreme Court ruling of Brandenburg vs Ohio. That would have been superb lawyering no doubt!
smartcooky ignored the actual facts of the case? What of it? When a court case is not going the way that you want it to, should you not appeal to the laws of a completely different jurisdiction or perhaps even declare yourself a freeman on the land!You ignored my explanation about crimes committed during national rioting. Connelly was charged with;
Public Order Act 1986
An Act to abolish the common law offences of riot, rout, unlawful assembly and affray and certain statutory offences relating to public order; to create new offences relating to public order; to control public processions and assemblies; to control the stirring up of racial hatred; to provide...www.legislation.gov.uk
"A person who publishes or distributes written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting is guilty of an offence if—
(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or
(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby."
She said "mass deportation now, set fire to all the ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ hotels full of the b******* for all I care... if that makes me racist so be it". That was during spreading national rioting which included the setting fire of hotels with immigrants in them.
What else could a lawyer do, when she admits to the tweet, it specifically advocates racial violence, when there was rioting targeting immigrants? Can you provide a reasonable defence? The Act provides a defence;
"In proceedings for an offence under this section it is a defence for an accused who is not shown to have intended to stir up racial hatred to prove that he was not aware of the content of the material and did not suspect, and had no reason to suspect, that it was threatening, abusive or insulting."
She knows she is being racist and is calling for violence based on her racist beliefs, so she does not have that defence. You might try she has freedom of speech to stir up racial hatred and call for specific attacks on specified people, that was actually happening, but you would get nowhere. No lawyer would try that and he was wise to advise her to plead guilty early, apologise and get a lesser sentence.
Shhhhhh! You're not supposed to say that!
Absolute rubbish. The judge ordered a Special Report*, which means social workers looked at every possible mitigating factor.
Did they? I can't see any mention of it in the sentencing remarks, which say that "there is no recent psychiatric evidence".
It was at the pre-trial stage. Nothing to do with psychiatric evidence.
Are you sure? Mitigation is something considered at sentencing, not trial. Do you have a link to anything about this report?
Then why didn't she appeal on those grounds?
.....
A pre-sentence report is prepared by the Probation Service rather than social services, and is fairly standard before sentencing: "for offenders aged 18 or over, a PSR should be obtained unless the court considers it unnecessary".
It is not standard. Like I said. If you are unsure, you can Google it for yourself.
Yeah, shift those goalposts baby. Also insert the word "start" into your description so that everyone can clearly see how you're distorting the facts. Nobody else - especially not the judge - used the word "start".So she incited people to start doing things they were already doing? You've been reading Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report" haven't you?
Really? That's weird, because you repeat his talking points almost word-for-word, and soon after he makes them.
I listen to The Know Rogan Experience, in which two well-known and respected skeptics dissect and break down Rogan's "interviews" and expose his lies and conspiracy theories.But I do find it somewhat interesting that you seem to know a lot about the content of his broadcasts!
I did, and found the document I linked to, which cites the Sentencing Act 2020, s.30, which has been in force since 1st December 2020, and says:
Obtaining a pre-sentence report is clearly standard procedure.
If she was urging them on to do things they were already doing then that surely compounds her culpability. There is no way for her to claim she had no idea what could happen.So she incited people to start doing things they were already doing? You've been reading Philip K. Dick's "The Minority Report" haven't you?
It is not my problem you did not follow the case at the time. A special report was ordered. It is not done as a matter of course when people plead guilty to a crime. Edited: maybe it is unkind of me to expect others to be on the same level of awareness. Connolly was a 'special report' case because she had lost a child some years before. In any case Connolly has nothing whatsoever to do with 'free speech'.
I had a look at the tweet:
If this rises to the level of "incitement" then it is a pretty low bar.
You made the claim about a special report, there has been no evidence that the special report exists. You are making it up.
It does. A judge judged that it does. When said during a riot where people are literally trying to set fire to hotels full of immigrants, it is incitement.
The incitement was in knowingly falsely - or it should have been known by a reasonable person- claiming the perp who killed three little girls at a dance class was an Islamist asylum seeker and using the opportunity to encourage public disorder. This might seem minor to those who reduce it down to 'writing a tweet' but sovereign states all over the world have always been utterly terrified of public disorder and people taking to the streets to rise up against the state. So, the persons who got harsh sentences after the 2011 riots and looting wasn't because they nicked a pair of adidas trainers from a shop with smashed windows, it was because mass rioting shakes the foundations of those in power. So the far right (or far left) persons constantly looking for opportunities to seize power, as it were, will have the law come down heavily as soon as they succeed in getting people to lob bricks and mortar at the police, the very heart of the state itself. Rioting, insurrection and treason have always been considered some of the most serious of crimes. Connolly herself admitted she wanted a riot because she was a racist.
I provided a citation.
That just says that the intent was not clear enough and it needed somebody to declare it to be incitement.
Connolly believes the tweet was incitement to violence and racially motivated. I do consider the person who tweeted something to know their own mind better than any of us. Indeed that she deleted it after a few hours when she realised what she had done also supports her view of her tweet.
As you say his tweets were apparently posted when he was neither a British citizen nor in the UK, so they would not have fallen under any breach of UK law when they were posted. There would also be a case to be made that they were posted before the rightwing government passed legislation to make such tweets as Connolly's a "enhanced" criminal matter.
Connolly did.
