Sam Mole, 20, from Kettering, Northamptonshire, first tweeted at Dan Levene after the journalist tweeted his opposition to antisemitic chanting during matches at Stamford Bridge. Replying to a tweet from Levene which stated that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, Mole said: “And unfortunately one of them killed wasn’t you.”
However, a judge ruled that he could not be charged for sending racially or religiously aggravated malicious communications because Mole was on holiday in Australia when he sent the tweets. Consequently, the alleged offence falls outside the jurisdiction of UK law.
Objectionable, vile, etc etc, but liberty does mean that pinheads gain the freedom to be pinheads.
Which country he was in should be irrelevant. It should not be a crime to send an offensive message.
On the other hand, it would be nice to see some of the cretins who reacted to Limbaugh’s death spend a few days sharing a cell with Bubba.
Pathetic Beak ducking a stand for free speech and not helping to weaken anti-free speech laws.
UK Judges are low scum by and large. Another bunch who need a Purge.
Oh, this idiot is from my home town. How embarrassing.
…..and if an offensive message had been directed at certain other groups?
but liberty does mean that pinheads gain the freedom to be pinheads.
But that, specifically, is not what the judge said. This boy would be in jail had he been in the UK. The judge just said that a crime committed beyond Britain’s borders is a crime beyond British law.
Which is probably isn’t. Where is a crime committed after all?
I liked the Australian (of a certain ethnic persuasion relevant to this discussion) who sued a New York newspaper, I think, in Australia. They were able to show something like five dozen copies of the offending article had been read in Australia – likely all by his defence team – and this was enough.
A spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “A defendant who broke the law and should have been punished has escaped justice. The online harms bill should be debated this year and enacted urgently.”
Is it a crime? If so, it shouldn’t be.
In a recent Judgement, it was decided that causing offence isn’t a crime. Kate Scottow was prosecuted under a different Law, I know, but the principle is the same:
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Scottow-v-CPS-judgment-161220.pdf
The feelings of Jews – or Africans, or Asians – cannot be more important than preserving the liberties of Englishmen.
He got a 3 year “restraining order” (lol), but Dan reckons the terrifying cybercaust of people being RUDE on the internet is because Chelski aren’t doing enough woke shit to annoy their customers:
Dan Levene
@danlevene
This young man is not the disease. He’s merely a symptom of it.
The radicalisation of people like Mole, though support of this football club, is the real issue here.
The Eternal Journo.
Oh, no, it’s better than that.
Dow Jones newswire in New York published something that could be taken as being libellous about an Australian bloke. Financially dodgy etc. The bloke sued. In Oz. Won too – well, DJ settled. As far as anyone knows the only person in Oz who downloaded and read the piece was the bloke who claimed he had been libelled.
In UK law there was a case about terrorist financing or summat. In a book that wasn’t published in the UK. Some few copies were privately imported. That was enough to sue for libel. I’ve been in direct contact with the writer who got sued – and she lost. As a result the US courts no longer need – need, they can but they don’t have to – enforce English libel judgements. The Americans changed the law after that…..
In any case “anti semitic chanting” at Chelsea only happens when Spurs are there. I spent years going to The Shed and it was a hotbed of dodgy banter, anything was fair game: coming from the north, being a scouser, coming from the midlands, being a yokel (eg Ipswich) etc . They are not a bunch of Nazis.
Not sure which is the worst part – that this is actually a crime, or that the law is enforced on a small group only – hands up if you remember those people being jailed for saying “die Tory scum” 15,000 times a day on Twitter.
They don’t mention but is this about a game against Tottenham? I know sweet fuck all about football but even I’m aware that Spurs are the Yids. Spurs supporters call themselves the Yids. So there wouldn’t have been anything whatsoever anti-semitic about the chanting. More football fanatics are an uncouth, low intellect bunch of idiots & situation normal. In which case Levene’s a precious cunt of the gratuitously offended variety & got the response he deserved. If he doesn’t want to be offended, stay away from the Beautiful Game.
More football fanatics are an uncouth, low intellect bunch of idiots
Who can afford the ticket prices.
Yell out for a plumber or electrician at Arsenal or Chelsea matches and you’ll be killed by the rush.
The radicalisation of people like Mole
Radicalisation? Lawks! He might join one of those terrifying British online Neo-Nazi groups. Although he’s about five years too old.
“Yell out for a plumber or electrician at Arsenal or Chelsea matches and you’ll be killed by the rush.”
Or a mathematician, rocket scientist or journalist. The Beautiful Game seems to have a devastating effect on particular areas of the human cortex. Turns perfectly rational people into raving nutcases. The most intelligent life form in any soccer stadium is the grass. Only explanation why so many would put so much into supporting the business activities of limited companies. If Chelsea why not Glaxo?
“A crime committed beyond Britain’s borders is a crime beyond British law.”
So Garry Glitter broke no UK laws when in Thailand then?
jgh
No. He was deported out of Thailand, but his current gaol term is for offences committed in the UK.
I did not say that. I said the judge said that. I even said it was probably not true.
Sex crimes against children are a good example of where we ignore jurisdiction. As are war crimes. Well some of them. Pinochet was in trouble but any number of Communist war criminals have lived long and productive lives in places like Oxford. Look at Zygmunt Bauman.
But not, it seems, tweets. Which is odd because, as I also said, they were read in the UK. So where does the crime take place? You hack the Pentagon and that takes place in the US. It is a problem
Now that physical chastisement of wives is no longer permitted, the football is the last refuge for demonstrating what a prat you are.
Direct incitement to violence should be a crime… Other than that – “Sticks and stones…”.
I attended an away game at Spurs about 7 years ago. The home fans closest to us were chanting:
We’ll sing what we want
We’ll sing what we want
We’ll sing what we waa-ant
Yid Army
Yid Army
Yid Army.
Battered them 5-2. Which was nice.
If Chelsea why not Glaxo?
Ask the fans of Bayer Leverkusen or Philips Sport Vereiniging Eindhoven.
(Bayer also used to own a Krefeld-based team called Bayer Uerdingen, but had to cut it loose, it is now bizarrely called KFC Uerdingen, but is not thankfully related to anything finger lickin’ good).
I fully concur with what BiS says about the effect on the human cortex.
Pre-lockdown I attended 5 or 6 Arsenal games each year. My neighbours were charming people until kick-off when, women included, the purest tribal behaviour took over. In the row in front of me was “shouty man” – mid thirties with his young daughter. How any father could use such foul language in the presence of his child was deeply disturbing to me but not overmuch to anyone else. This isn’t terrace hooligans, it’s season ticket holders paying £2-3k.
Many years ago I took a Yank pal to a Chelsea game. I think it was either against Villa or Everton, anyway it was a pretty dull match. In the pub afterwards he stated that he had “never heard the word c*nt shouted by so many people in such a small space. And at their own team too.”
This is bollocks:
Because
His case wasn’t even heard.
Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence?
Once upon a time, I took a soccer-loving mate to his first rugby match at Twickers. After half time he said “You can tell we ain’t at the football; no-one is pissing in the sinks…”
BIS,
“Only explanation why so many would put so much into supporting the business activities of limited companies. If Chelsea why not Glaxo?”
I have a theory that most major team football fans are now wankers LARPing being a bit manly and working class. Like back when it was terraces, it was thrilling and had a frisson of danger to it. You were amongst people who looked like they’d be useful in a fight, and that on the other side, you would be facing people like that, if you didn’t get to the train on time. You were part of a noisy choir, part of something. You had Firms meeting up for fights.
But CCTV and all-seater stadiums ended all of that. The fun of that has gone. You’re just watching 22 blokes kick a ball around. It’s cheaper to watch on TV with a beer in hand. But really, do you care? I know a Chelsea supporter. Doesn’t come from around there, never lived there, it’s owned by a Russian and the players are from around the world.
It’s like people going on holiday to Asia, like visiting Saigon means dodging the summary executions of the Viet Minh. It’s got a dozen Starbucks, somewhere to get your iPhone fixed.
“I have a theory that most major team football fans are now wankers LARPing being a bit manly and working class.”
I’d share it. There was a period, the back end of last century, when football went from being a largely working class interest & became fashionable. The amount of TV money floating around? Posh Spice? Big Bang Yuppies with braces & one arm a foot longer than the other thanx to 5kg mobile fones? Was the time when those aspiring to be fashionable were discovering they’d had a life-long interest in the game. When people you’d thought otherwise sane started asking which team you supported. As a Londoner with the misfortune to be living equidistant from Spurs & Arsenal my usual reply was Green Bay Packers.
Oh the thrill of having to decide whether to be a gooner or a yid! Almost as bad as the Geordie v Mackem stuff
I remember post 2003 when we had an influx of the football twats to England games at Twickenham for a while. Bellends. Mind you, Twickenham is not without its own share of bellends, albeit of a different variety. I suppose they get everywhere.
“Oh the thrill of having to decide whether to be a gooner or a yid! ”
Oh the thrill of having a home game on your doorstep every week. Not