Soldato
He should have just gone a burgling, he would have walked with a slapped wrist and a £1 a week fine.
Guy got arrested for making racist comments on twitter about Muamba
- Thread starter exhashdotdot
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Soldato
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Has the chap,who said all th soldiers should die been sentenced yet?
Will be intresting to see the comparison.
Is my taxmoney best spent having this chap,in jail whilst people who assault, batter and rob houses get communtiy orders.
I do wonder.
Will be intresting to see the comparison.
Is my taxmoney best spent having this chap,in jail whilst people who assault, batter and rob houses get communtiy orders.
I do wonder.
Associate
Exactly. Interesting to note what the judge had to say:
Sentencing Stacey at Swansea Magistrates' Court, District Judge John Charles told him: "In my view, there is no alternative to an immediate prison sentence.
"It was not the football world who was praying for [Muamba].... everybody was praying for his life."
Am I alone in thinking the above is completely irrelevant? That's as good as admitting he's being jailed to appease the general public. Oh, and I wasn't praying for Muamba's life so his claim that everybody was doing so is a lie. The judge is an idiot.
By the way, please don't assume that by not praying for him, I wanted the guy dead. *sighs*
Associate
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I havent read the specific comments which were posted by the defendant but IMO he should've offered a plea to s127 malicious communication act 2003 which I posted earlier in the thred. It has the same sentencing powers (6 months maximum custody on summary conviction) so no doubt he would've got the same sentence of 56 days bu at the very least his previous convictions wouldn't have labelled him a racist.
S127 has been in the media recently in relation to a troll who posted about a girl who comitted suicide basically disgracefully stating that she deserved it.....
Inciting racial hatred IMO goes further. This is intended for cases where people call people witches etc like in the middle ages! It involves rallying troops to out the witch etc.
Associate
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By the time his appeal is dealt with he will have served his sentence....
Associate
I havent read the specific comments which were posted by the defendant but IMO he should've offered a plea to s127 malicious communication act 2003 which I posted earlier in the thred. It has the same sentencing powers (6 months maximum custody on summary conviction) so no doubt he would've got the same sentence of 56 days bu at the very least his previous convictions wouldn't have labelled him a racist.
S127 has been in the media recently in relation to a troll who posted about a girl who comitted suicide basically disgracefully stating that she deserved it.....
Inciting racial hatred IMO goes further. This is intended for cases where people call people witches etc like in the middle ages! It involves rallying troops to out the witch etc.
Agreed. It's not as if he was trying to instigate a race war. At a time when we badly need young people in this country to contribute to society in a positive way, he's been completely removed from it. Furthermore, any chance of him contributing in the future have been more or less destroyed by this reactionary judge.
Dark days...
Agreed. It's not as if he was trying to instigate a race war. At a time when we badly need young people in this country to contribute to society in a positive way, he's been completely removed from it. Furthermore, any chance of him contributing in the future have been more or less destroyed by this reactionary judge.
Dark days...
I don't want anyone as dumb as him in my society.
Associate
I don't want anyone as dumb as him in my society.
Ha, then we're going to need a lot more prisons!
Soldato
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surely sending them to scotland would be against there human rights, some form of twisted torture!
Man of Honour
As was pointed out he chose to plead guilty which rather negates the possibility of that defence. Alternatively you could point to the fact he claimed his Twitter account had been hacked which suggests he was aware that his statements were unacceptable - there's maybe an argument that he was making the claims in response to the reaction on Twitter and at the time of making the statements on Twitter he wasn't aware it might be threatening... but I'm not sure I'd want to test that premise as it looks like a bit of a Hail Mary shot.
Leaving aside the direct question of whether prison time is the correct level of sanction here I've got some issues with the claims that there are other worse things said which aren't punished or are punished less severely - it's essentially a variation on the "but he did it too Miss" defence. You can read it as an argument that the others haven't been given a sufficient punishment as easily as you can read it as an argument to reduce the punishment in the instant case which is why it's a pretty poor line of reasoning to go with - in general just because someone has 'got away with it (or worse)' does not automatically mean that it's right for the person who was punished to get away with it too.
Soldato
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Dunno if the guilty plea amounted to a mea culpa. Would that be the circumstance, sentencing to maximum penalty by Judge Almighty would be rather ridiculous.
Hitch, come back...
Man of Honour
The issue of whether the sentencing is appropriate doesn't link to whether the defence is available. There's also the question of whether the proposed defence is intended to be only exculpatory, mitigatory or if it can be used for the latter in case of the former failing.
The judge may or may not have taken it into account but again that would be a seperate issue from whether the lawyer should have proceeded with a defence of "my client's a bit dim hence his statements weren't intended to offend or be abusive".
Soldato
Personally, I think he's a distasteful racist little oink (who requires educating), but I think it's a price we have to pay for living in a society which (claims to) value free speech.
Not disagreeing with what you said but wanted to pick up on the subject of "pleeing dumb".
I actually feel that people who are meant to know better should get harder penalties. For example, this person whas a university student, he had an education that is of high quality. He should have known better which shows even more intent to his action, it's not like he is an uneducated urchin-drain-dwelling-hobo, where you can expect such vile behaviour from. It's about perception too.
Considering the above, his sentence was proportional and effective (he won't do it again I think). Oh, and there's nothing wrong with being made an example of.
Associate
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Sledge hammer to crack a nut springs to mind!
I completely fail to see why his comments require a legal punishment. People are saying that free speech doesn't mean consequence free speech but the public reaction to this, along with possible sanctions from groups he's associated with (the football club he plays for, his university) mean he wouldn't just "get away with it". What value to society is there to locking the guy up? Does that make racism go away? Does it suddenly make Muamba better?
Soldato