The Right to Not Be Offended?

elmarko · 16 May 2012 at 14:28

The Halk said:
I think they're about as low as it gets, and I'd be happy if they were illegal. However I can't think of legislation that would apply to them, but not to (what I would consider) legitimate protests. I think we may have to suffer them in order to have free speech.

People do need to learn how to not be offended, Westboro Baptish Church are just insane trolls, and people should realise that they shouldn't care what they think.

However this section 5 stuff... the examples page on the website in my first post lists some circumstances where it wasn't premeditated like a protest, but where something you say can be a criminal offence.

I totally agree.

While I hate everything about the Westbro Baptist Church they should be allowed to protest (but not peoples funerals, as that's invading a private ceremony imo) - but they should be allowed to do it in a peaceful way in a public place (But special allowances should be made for peoples homes, or funerals & the like).

It's the price we pay for freedom of speech, we can't say "Freedom of speech for all! (unless I don't agree with you) that's not freedom of speech.

It's easy to defend when we agree with the message, harder if it involves suffering the worst it has to offer (but something we must do).

Do we want to live in an authoritarian state all of the sudden or something?

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:29

realBabelfish said:
ambiguous. were you being the arse or were you the one feeling a collar?

ROFL! I got a laugh out of that. Burnsy was not arrested - unless it was his day off he was the one doing the arresting

Gilly · 16 May 2012 at 14:30

Where do you guys get the impression that we have freedom of speech?

MrMoonX · 16 May 2012 at 14:30

police will love this, just gives them more power to detain people

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:30

Gilly said:
Where do you guys get the impression that we have freedom of speech?

We only have relative freedom of speech, not total. This section 5 though hampers what we have.

Burnsy2023 · 16 May 2012 at 14:35

The Halk said:
Why wouldn't you be able to use breach of the peace for that?

Not really due to the way the offence works as it's common law. You can get the court to "bind over" someone to prevent it happening again, but not really fine people in the way we do with S5. Being able to FPN someone also means that there are cases where we don't need to arrest.

Burnsy2023 · 16 May 2012 at 14:36

realBabelfish said:
ambiguous. were you being the arse or were you the one feeling a collar?

if you are a collar feeler how do you feel about all the photographers being harassed by the police? not great for public relations.

I'm not sure what you mean by "collar feeler" but I don't agree with photographers being harassed.

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:39

Burnsy2023 said:
Not really due to the way the offence works as it's common law. You can get the court to "bind over" someone to prevent it happening again, but not really fine people in the way we do with S5. Being able to FPN someone also means that there are cases where we don't need to arrest.

Well, that's right over my head.

A bit of googling though and I think I understand you now. FPN - Fixed Penalty Notice.

So basically S5 allows you more latitude to deal with the perp (any time I say that I think Judge Dredd), and allows a fixed penalty to be issued, while Breach of the Peace isn't as useful.

I do sympathise, but all the same I don't agree that it's justification for new laws. Breach of the Peace seems to cover much of anything the new laws that came in seem to cover... perhaps Breach of the Peace needs to be revisited to make sure it's suitably robust for the police and courts to use.

I'm certainly ignorant when it comes to criminals and the law, I've never protested anything in my life, however I think the right to protest is important, and our (relative) freedom of speech is important.

As a police officer, do you agree with what David Davis et all are saying in that S5 is ambiguous and could be misused? Edit : Eh, make that as a person who has experience and wisdom with law enforcement. I think "as a police officer" makes it sound like I'm asking for an official statement, which I am not.

Burnsy2023 · 16 May 2012 at 14:40

MrMoonX said:
police will love this, just gives them more power to detain people

More power? We've had S5 for years.

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:41

Burnsy2023 said:
I'm not sure what you mean by "collar feeler" but I don't agree with photographers being harassed.

He meant it was unclear if you were being arrested, or if you were the collar feeler. It's from the idiom having your collar felt, or in other words getting arrested - as if the arresting officer grabbed them by the collar of their shirt to apprehend them.

andi · 16 May 2012 at 14:43

The Halk said:
Why wouldn't you be able to use breach of the peace for that?

Unless harm was done, or was likely to be done, to a person, or to a person's property in their presence, or a person was in fear of being harmed, it wasn't a breach of the peace.

Plus BoP is a complicated and brings up a load of trouble, that s5 doesn't.

shoes · 16 May 2012 at 14:43

Everyone should chill the **** out - the government and media would have us believe we're all delicate and sensitive - this simply isn't the case. If people choose to be so easily offended that is THEIR problem, not everyone else's.

I'm sick of all this PC, softly softly nonsense, it's doing absolutely nothing for society.

Soon we won't be able to complain about a bad meal in a restaurant in case we offend the chef, or speak our mind in public.

If we're not careful we'll slowly become like China, and I don't think that's a very good precedent at all.

In the mean time, **** you

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:45

andi said:
Unless harm was done, or was likely to be done, to a person, or to a person's property in their presence, or a person was in fear of being harmed, it wasn't a breach of the peace.

Plus BoP is a complicated and brings up a load of trouble, that s5 doesn't.

I see! In that case I misunderstand breach of the peace. I've just done a wikipedia check and it seems that there's significant difference between Scots and English law on it. In Scots law it's "conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community."

I was broadly aware of that (at least in the spirit it's written) and had wrongly assumed it existed in roughly the same form in England.

Burnsy2023 · 16 May 2012 at 14:46

The Halk said:
Well, that's right over my head. A bit of googling though and I think I understand you now. FPN - Fixed Penalty Notice.

So basically S5 allows you more latitude to deal with the perp (any time I say that I think Judge Dredd), and allows a fixed penalty to be issued, while Breach of the Peace isn't as useful.

Breach of the peace is more about preventing disorder rather than necessarily dealing with something afterwards.

The Halk said:
I do sympathise, but all the same I don't agree that it's justification for new laws. Breach of the Peace seems to cover much of anything the new laws that came in seem to cover... perhaps Breach of the Peace needs to be revisited to make sure it's suitably robust for the police and courts to use.

Section 5 POA has been on the statute books since the mid 80s. The site wants this to be repealed.

The Halk said:
As a police officer, do you agree with what David Davis et all are saying in that S5 is ambiguous and could be misused? Edit : Eh, make that as a person who has experience and wisdom with law enforcement. I think "as a police officer" makes it sound like I'm asking for an official statement, which I am not.

I don't doubt that it probably has been misused on occasion but so has other statutes and we're forgetting all the times when we have used it in situations most people would agree with. A lot of the examples the site uses is when the Police have simply made mistakes, which we all do on occasion.

Burnsy2023 · 16 May 2012 at 14:49

shoes said:
Everyone should chill the **** out - the government and media would have us believe we're all delicate and sensitive - this simply isn't the case. If people choose to be so easily offended that is THEIR problem, not everyone else's.

I'm sick of all this PC, softly softly nonsense, it's doing absolutely nothing for society.

Soon we won't be able to complain about a bad meal in a restaurant in case we offend the chef, or speak our mind in public.

If we're not careful we'll slowly become like China, and I don't think that's a very good precedent at all.

In the mean time, **** you

So you would tolerate poppy burning as a protest?

Burnsy2023 · 16 May 2012 at 14:50

andi said:
Unless harm was done, or was likely to be done, to a person, or to a person's property in their presence, or a person was in fear of being harmed, it wasn't a breach of the peace.

Plus BoP is a complicated and brings up a load of trouble, that s5 doesn't.

Agreed.

Bear in mind I am speaking about E&W, Scotland has weird BOP laws that I don't understand.

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:51

Burnsy2023 said:
So you would tolerate poppy burning as a protest?

It depends on context, but I think in principle we have to. If it disturbs an event - for example a remembrance day service then I think not. If it's just simply a protest where people are burning poppies, then I'd question their qualifications to remain in the human race, but I don't know how we could make it illegal without passing judgement and I'm pretty sure that we shouldn't be judging people's opinions like that.

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 14:53

Burnsy2023 said:
Agreed.

Bear in mind I am speaking about E&W, Scotland has weird BOP laws that I don't understand.

It's your weird English BoP law that doesn't make sense

(can I get arrested under S5 for that?)

Seriously though I wasn't aware there was a difference, but it seems your law is a completely different thing entirely. What an eye opener!

Here it is in Wikipedia, a quick interesting read.

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 14:54

isnt a lot of this down to the attending officer(s) to decide the best outcome. if they believe there is nothing gained by whacking a fine on them they will just politly ask them to move on?
from my understanding (and this is from roadwars and the likes) there is a lot of paperwork involved in handing out FPN and stuff, that the police wont just go round handing them out just because. although the legislation is there, i dont think that means it will be heavily enforced.
this however is just my opinion, which counts for nothing in terms of reality, so please dont moan at me.

elmarko · 16 May 2012 at 14:55

Burnsy2023 said:
So you would tolerate poppy burning as a protest?

Personally I would, just the same as they would have to tolerate Koran burners in protest to them - but to be honest, people burning things as sign of protest leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Don't we already have a law that forbids starting a fire in a public place (that way it doesn't curtail freedom of speech, just idiotic literal flame-baiting).