This is why people are losing respect for the police...

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I've just had a watch of a guys video who was in the court (I'll link it below).

I think he should have been convicted. Though 5 and a half years seems excessive, especially when compared to other physical crimes against people.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.
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The Law Commission decreed some time ago that the reasonable sentence for those that write continuous poison pen letters should be six months in prison. It seems that the modern equivalent of a poison pen letter scribe now deserves five years and six months in prison. Yet far more physically direct crimes seem to incur much shorter sentences. Quite why this should be is something I cannot fully understand. Is perceived damage to reputation now considered worse than real physical damage to the person?

"In our view, a penalty of six months' imprisonment might very well be justified in the case of a person who persistently sends particularly objectionable poison ..."

 
BowdonUK said:
I've just had a watch of a guys video who was in the court (I'll link it below).

I think he should have been convicted. Though 5 and a half years seems excessive, especially when compared to other physical crimes against people.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music that you love, upload original content and share it all with friends, family and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
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Hes a dreadful **** who only appeals to dreadful **** but yeh five years does seem quite harsh, not that I care that much what him being being a dreadful ****.

Did I mention he is a dreadful **** ?
 
Who is this Alex Belfield? I've seen some of his Youtube and always thought something felt wrong here but really didn't know what to make of it as he always came across as somebody with a deep seated vendetta. Apparently he used to work with the BBC? but I don't ever remember what he was on. Though his voice reminds me of a time but cannot place where...
 
you can stab someone and get less time, kill someone with your car and get less time, actually commit murder and probably only get 2 extra years sentence.
 
For anyone questioning the sentence, if you read the breakdown, the individual guilty verdicts were given consecutively. Two significant charges at two and half years each and two more at thirteen weeks apiece. He could have been facing a lot longer if the jury found him guilty on the rest of the charges or on the main indictment for thise two shorter terms.

I would prefer to see consecutive sentences given in more cases where there is significant impact to victims, be it physical or psychological.

Of course, I fully agree that too many vehicular and violent crimes get ridiculously short sentences. I believe in rehabilitation but you need law and order first and foremost. The judge here is doing the correct thing, the system is failing elsewhere.
 
dcsarge said:
For anyone questioning the sentence, if you read the breakdown, the individual guilty verdicts were given consecutively. Two significant charges at two and half years each and two more at thirteen weeks apiece. He could have been facing a lot longer if the jury found him guilty on the rest of the charges or on the main indictment for thise two shorter terms.

I would prefer to see consecutive sentences given in more cases where there is significant impact to victims, be it physical or psychological.

Of course, I fully agree that too many vehicular and violent crimes get ridiculously short sentences. I believe in rehabilitation but you need law and order first and foremost. The judge here is doing the correct thing, the system is failing elsewhere.
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If I read it right the guy had already ignored multiple court orders to stop what he was doing, and once you ignore any court order the judge tends to get left with not much other than to impost custodial sentences, especially if what you are doing to get those orders involved harm or harassment of others.

If nothing else the court has to try and show that you can't simply ignore the law, and the lower penalties. It's a similar reason you'll sometimes see someone go to jail (albeit typically for a couple of nights max) for actively refusing to pay a small fine.
 
Werewolf said:
If I read it right the guy had already ignored multiple court orders to stop what he was doing, and once you ignore any court order the judge tends to get left with not much other than to impost custodial sentences, especially if what you are doing to get those orders involved harm or harassment of others.

If nothing else the court has to try and show that you can't simply ignore the law, and the lower penalties. It's a similar reason you'll sometimes see someone go to jail (albeit typically for a couple of nights max) for actively refusing to pay a small fine.
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I haven't read anything about previous legal action but you are spot on about how judges feel about such actions.

I have managed to read the full comments from judge in some quiet moments and he the most serious charge was actually over a long enough period that he had to apply the earlier pre-2017 Stalking sentence guildlines.

That meant a maximum of five years on the charge with the resulting two and half years given. It could have been doubled under the newer guidelines. It would also have been longer but he allowed the mitigating factors of remorse, good character references and no previous convictions (paraphrased) to offset the additional time he would have added to the starting point.

As it stands, up to one half the total sentence must be served in prison and the remainder can be on licence, so he may not be in for that long in reality.

He will face up to five years for breaching the restraining orders against any of his victims though, so he better be true to his remorseful words.
 
Apparently he had the chance to have the case heard at the magistrates court but opted for a full crown court hearing. He wouldn't have got that sentence at the magistrates.

I don't think I've seen consecutive sentences given before.

There is also a lot of questions surrounding donations. He's apparently had over £100,000 donated for lawyers and legal advice yet he chose to represent himself in court.

It also came out that he employs 9 people. Which seems excessive for running a small youtube channel.

He's an extreme case. But it's also set a precedent now for 'soft stalking'. So you don't have to physically turn up at someones house. If you contact someone multiple times and that person feels scared then you're on slippery legal ground.
 
BowdonUK said:
He's an extreme case. But it's also set a precedent now for 'soft stalking'. So you don't have to physically turn up at someones house. If you contact someone multiple times and that person feels scared then you're on slippery legal ground.
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I'm quite torn in this case. Let's say a freelance journalist criticises say an MP or a public figure about unethical behaviour and contacts them about said behaviour. Does this constitute a possible 'soft stalking' legal case now? Because I believe some of his convictions were him reporting certain behaviours of BBC employees. The problem is you don't see the full evidence to make your own assessment.

There is the parameter of 'behaviour intended to maximise fear or distress' but all the same it is quite vague.

About going to Crown Court, yes they always punish you for wasting their time if you're guilty. He has to pay £10k legal costs too because of this too.
 
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BowdonUK said:
Apparently he had the chance to have the case heard at the magistrates court but opted for a full crown court hearing. He wouldn't have got that sentence at the magistrates.

I don't think I've seen consecutive sentences given before.
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It's possible that once the magistrates saw the severity of the evidence they may well have referred it up to the crown court themselves even if he'd chosen a magistrates court when given the option. It's quite common, as the magistrates can/do act as a filter to the Crown court and if they think it might require more than 6 months inside they will refer it pretty much automatically as they are limited to 6 months.

A bit of an own goal for him to be honest.

Re the consecutive sentences, I think it's rare in the UK (unlike the US where it seems the default to ensure you lock someone up for 25 years for several linked very minor offences), but the option is there in case a Judge thinks the longest penalty for the individual offences isn't enough given the severity/nature of them. But as always the Judge can't just choose to do concurrent sentences for fun, he has to be able to show why in the law he thinks they're needed so other judges can see his line of thnking in the event of an appeal (something people rarely seem to get when they complain about a judge being lenient is that the judge has to demonstrate why he gave a sentence).
 
Werewolf said:
But as always the Judge can't just choose to do concurrent sentences for fun, he has to be able to show why in the law he thinks they're needed so other judges can see his line of thnking in the event of an appeal (something people rarely seem to get when they complain about a judge being lenient is that the judge has to demonstrate why he gave a sentence).
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Ita really easy;

He committed this crime, that crime and another crime.

A+B+C=long time.
 
ANDREW GREEN said:
I'm quite torn in this case. Let's say a freelance journalist criticises say an MP or a public figure about unethical behaviour and contacts them about said behaviour. Does this constitute a possible 'soft stalking' legal case now? Because I believe some of his convictions were him reporting certain behaviours of BBC employees.
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I think this case comes down to AB not accepting the answer he was given. It's abit like an ex splitting and not giving an explanation and some people will keep contacting them to ask why they broke up with them.

There is a video that AB had on his own website were he rings up one of the people he's now convicted of stalking and kept asking him who sent the email the person was commenting on, on a tweet. It seems that AB knew who it was but wanted this person to name the person, which he was refusing to do.

At some point a person as to accept a situation, in this case that the guy didn't want to name the email originator. But instead of accepting to the situation AB kept contacting him incessantly asking the same question as well as throwing insults to the guy.

I noticed in the call AB talks about bringing legal action against the guy to force him to reveal the email originator. But from what I can see AB never instigated any legal case against anyone, despites the threats to do so. All the cases, criminal and civil seem to be from others against AB.
 
BowdonUK said:
I think this case comes down to AB not accepting the answer he was given. It's abit like an ex splitting and not giving an explanation and some people will keep contacting them to ask why they broke up with them.

There is a video that AB had on his own website were he rings up one of the people he's now convicted of stalking and kept asking him who sent the email the person was commenting on, on a tweet. It seems that AB knew who it was but wanted this person to name the person, which he was refusing to do.

At some point a person as to accept a situation, in this case that the guy didn't want to name the email originator. But instead of accepting to the situation AB kept contacting him incessantly asking the same question as well as throwing insults to the guy.

I noticed in the call AB talks about bringing legal action against the guy to force him to reveal the email originator. But from what I can see AB never instigated any legal case against anyone, despites the threats to do so. All the cases, criminal and civil seem to be from others against AB.
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TBH I've read quite a bit more of the case today since making my post above and it does seem like he deliberately tried to bully, intimidate and harass the victims systematically. 1 victim apparently didn't tell his wife about being harrassed because she was pregnant as he didn't want to upset her. AB contacted her through facebook, told lies about the victim and sent her a copy of the couples ultrascan in order to intimidate her. He also used photos of the victims child in his youtube videos

So while I initially thought it was harsh, in fact it seems justified because he went out of his way to abuse people
 
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