Background
Yesterday, Alison Saunders, the Director of Public Prosecutions, announced updated and expanded “guidelines” on how the Crown Prosecution Service will deal with so-called “hate crime”. These new guidelines have been heavily criticized as, in effect, creating new and tyrannical law, despite the fact that the guidelines are neither primary nor secondary legislation.
In this blog post, I examine only those aspects of relevance to socio-political tweeting etc, meaning in practice those with a racial or religious element.
Part of the concern around the guidelines revolves around Alison Saunders herself. Many regard her as a sinister though incompetent figure, a “graduate” (member) of the pervasive and infiltrative organization (some say “cult”) called Common Purpose. In 2013, when Alison Saunders was CPS chief for the London area, a Freedom of Information request was made as to her connection with Common Purpose. At first, the reply was affirmative, but that was then altered to negative:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/alison_saundersgraduate_of_commohttps://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/alison_saundersgraduate_of_commo
The answer is relevant to the new CPS guidelines because the motto of Common Purpose is “Leading Beyond Authority”. In other words, the citizens of the UK cannot rely any more on law or decent public administration, because organizations such as the CPS, full of “CP” “graduates”, will, it is suspected, manipulate the regulations etc in order to achieve a desired (by them) result.
Definition of “Hate Crime”
It is vital to note that there is no statutory (or accepted Common Law) definition of “hate crime”:
“A hate crime law is a law intended to deter bias-motivated violence. Hate crime laws are distinct from laws against hate speech: hate crime laws enhance the penalties associated with conduct which is already criminal under other laws.” [Wikipedia]
Wikipedia continues: “For England, Wales, and Scotland, the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 makes hateful behaviour towards a victim based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) in a racial group or a religious group an aggravation in sentencing for specified crimes.”
In other words, there must first be a crime as designated by law and only then can that alleged crime (if one of those “specified”, i.e. assault, criminal damage, offences under the Public Order Act 1986, and offences under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997) be treated by the police and CPS as a “hate crime.” The new guidelines reflect that existing position:
“The police and the CPS have agreed the following definition for identifying and flagging hate crimes:
“Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice, based on a person’s disability or perceived disability; race or perceived race; or religion or perceived religion; or sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation or a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.”
“There is no legal definition of hostility so we use the everyday understanding of the word which includes ill-will, spite, contempt, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment and dislike.”
It will be noted that there must first be a criminal offence. If there is not, then it matters not at all how “unfriendly”, “prejudiced” etc is the alleged perpetrator.
Further, sections 145 and 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 require a court to consider whether any crime which is not specified by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 is “racially or religiously aggravated.”
Incredibly, while the police and/or CPS will “flag” a case as a “hate crime”, “it is not CPS policy to remove a flag in the absence of sufficient evidence to support a sentence uplift. This in part reflects the commitment to treat hate crime seriously and to support the victim’s perception and also to encourage community confidence in reporting all such offending.”
So a crime which is “flagged” at first as a “hate crime” but for which flagging there is eventually no evidence, will still be treated, in Court, as a “hate crime”, resulting (on conviction) in a far more severe sentence. How can this be regarded as in any way just?
The guidelines now continue:
“If the case passes the evidential stage and it is a case of racial or religious hate crime, or it is motivated by discrimination against the victim’s ethnic or national origin, or religion or belief, it is more likely that a prosecution is required in the public interest.”
This is a hardening of the position taken in the earlier CPS guidance and may mean an increase in the number of prosecutions. However, there is still a requirement for a substantive crime to have been committed and there is still a requirement for sufficient evidence to support prosecution. New crimes have not been created, but the danger is that zealous CPS and –especially– police persons will get the bit between their teeth and start to ignore the basics in their quest to hunt the witches. Anyone who has read the outpourings of the UK police forces online recently will not be reassured as to their objectivity in this respect. There is an unthinking “me-too” political correctness abroad, one which seems impervious to logic, argument, reason or plain commonsense.
Other Aspects Relevant to a Charge
The CPS legal guidance for its staff can be found here:
http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/racist_and_religious_crime/
The full details can be found via the above link but one key element is that there must be one or more identifiable “victims” of the “crime”. In other words, if there is no identifiable victim, then the matter falls in respect of the “hostility” required under the relevant statutes.
How the CPS regards freedom of expression
“In deciding upon the public interest of charging these offences it is essential that prosecutors keep in mind that in a free, democratic and tolerant society people are able to robustly exchange views, even when these may cause offence. However, the rights of the individual to freedom of expression must be balanced against the duty of the state to act proportionately in the interests of public safety, to prevent disorder and crime, and to protect the rights of others.”
Other Thoughts
It is noteworthy that the body of the new guidance neither mentions nor lists the Communications Act 2003, s.127 as among the statutes utilized in the prosecution of “hate crime”. However, under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, ss.145 and 146 (see hereinabove), anyone sentenced for having posted a “grossly offensive” tweet (etc) under the 2003 Act can receive a sentence uplift if the offending tweeting (etc) had a “hate crime” element (the maximum sentence being 6 months’ imprisonment, though the usual sentence is non-custodial).
One cannot analyze these matters without noting that the Zionist special-interest lobby is likely to try to pursue its political ends by abusing the new guidelines. Readers are referred to my own experience of January 2017:
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/when-i-was-a-victim-of-a-malicious-zionist-complaint/
Advice for Social Nationalists
I advise a defensive approach. Malicious persons, notably Zionists, try to make provocations by saying offensive things online, eg on Twitter, then (if the interlocutor replies in similar vein), reporting to Twitter, Facebook etc and even to the police. I have found that the easiest way to deal with such nuisances (in the short or medium term) is to block them (on Twitter), which tends to avoid conversations and disputes. It also means that it is much harder for the Zionists to report a tweeter to Twitter. I myself have seen, in the past few years, several Zionists lamenting that “he blocks us, so we cannot [make false accusations].” Yes, it means that the individual tweeter cannot answer back to the lying allegations the Zionists often make, but the solution is simple: just do not care what they may write about you! I don’t…
In other words, just try to avoid having any conversations with malicious Zionists or other nuisances online. Make it hard or impossible for them to make false or malicious reports to Twitter (etc) or the police.
In respect of tweets not specifically addressed to anyone, it is more difficult for those wishing to destroy freedom of expression to report them to Twitter or (a fortiori) to the police, so long as there is no evidence of direct incitement within the meaning of the relevant (1988) Act.
In extreme cases, just protect your tweets. You can also pre-block any obvious Zionists on Twitter (and most of them are indeed very obvious…).
The ultimate and longer-term protection for social nationalists lies in future relocation to “safe zones”, as I suggest on my website: http://ianrmillard.com/social-national-communities, which will then limit the powers of the wider State.
In essence, the new social media guidelines are indeed another nail in the coffin of free speech in the UK, but are unlikely to stop socio-political comment online– which is why the conspiracy –and behind Alison Saunders stand Theresa May, Amber Rudd, secret groups, the whole #NWO and #ZOG farrago– is trying to get the big online platforms signed up to repression.
In the end, the net result of this latest silliness is likely to be a tsunami of pointless and/or malicious complaints to the police.
Update, 29 April 2019
Since I wrote the above blog post, Alison Chabloz has been convicted under Communications Act 2003, s.127, and is appealing (at time of writing, to the Divisional Court). However, the “guidelines” which are the subject of the article above do not seem to have had much practical effect in terms of changing prosecution or sentencing policy.
Update, 21 November 2019
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/20/right-offended-does-not-exist-judge-says-court-hears-police/
Update, 17 January 2021
Much water under the bridge in relation to the Alison Chabloz case(s). To find out more, please use the search function on this blog.
In relation to repression of free speech generally, and as I predicted in the main article above, the ZOG strategy has been, not so much a tightening of laws criminalizing individual free speech, but a campaign of getting the major plaforms of social media to police free speech without any law having to be passed.
Thus we see that Twitter, Facebook, Google etc are simply expelling socio-political dissidents, and so removing both their inherent citizen-rights to free expression and (in the case of the prominent few) their online incomes. We have seen such as Tommy Robinson, Katie Hopkins, David Icke, David Duke etc removed or largely removed from online platforms, the same also happening to less prominent people.
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