Anyone seen woman arrested for saying f****t in a private text message?

Free speech does not and shojld never incident hate crime. Free speech doesn’t mean you get to call someone really grotesques names.

Can you not communicate without CAPITALS?

In the article she says it’s used where she lived for a ‘weak person!’ Not homophbic. Don’t believe that though. I think it’s quite common knowledge that it’s homophobic slang

No it doesn't. Neither word should be a criminal offence to say. They should obviously be unacceptable in society. But not criminalised.

I do wish the police would concentrate their limited resources on people who commit actual violence.

I think you’ll see more and more of this as time goes by. We’ve been quite relaxed on hate speech on social media or messages and I bet they’ll start really clamping down on it

can someone confirm though….

in the article it stated that she sent tha word to a woman who original attacked her I thought it said??? Did anyone else get that? Did I misread it?

Ahh right. I'd not seen the Piers Morgan interview and for the sake of my blood pressure I'm not intending to look for it....

If that's her account then obviously I accept it's what she said.

Magistrates hear relatively low level criminal cases and have limited powers to pass custodial sentences. Something north of 90% of cases are dealt with by 'Mags'.

I guess if the offence was an 'either way' one, she'd elected to go to the Crown Court and plead not guilty but was convicted then a custodial sentence was a possibility.

Juries are a feature of the Crown Court though they are occasionally used elsewhere, the Coroner may use them for example.

I'm not necessarily an advocate of HMG's floated changes to Juries but there's a lot of tosh and hyperbole from people who should know better.

No that term causes huge distress and needs to be treated the same way as the n word.

I think it should only be a criminal offence if someone was in reasonable fear of imminent physical harm.

Which they presumably weren't. As it was a text and not referring to the recipient.

Can anyone who's digested the facts on this case confirm that she was charged for using the f word as it's homophobic? Or was the charge against her because of the numerous malicious texts she sent her friend? If the friend is the victim, it hardly seems likely to be the former.

Glinner had flown in from the US voluntarily to attend his trial so he wasn't a flight risk and the police knew they'd be able to find him at the court. There was absolutely no need to deploy five officers to arrest him at the airport for three tweets.

I meant it's not right morally, nor is it right as in people who are gay are weak, because they're not. Like I said one of my best friends is gay (calls himself a f*g all the time) and my daughter is gay.

Pleading not guilty is only advisable if she is able to prove culturally that the term used is not homophobic and is an acceptable, well used term (which it may be) and commonly used in her area without any homophobic intention. If she is represented well, I would expect her to argue this ‘slur’ and was taken out of context, and for there to robust debate in court. We need greater clarification generally about language and the use of within the courts, and the extent in which it can be applied. This case will likely take place in a magistrates court, and will be listed for trial assuming she pleads not guilty.

Separately, I would hope this young woman will raise a formal police complaint, and request a full investigation regarding the conduct of the police officers at the time of her arrest. The way she has been treated, assuming the reports are accurate, is completely unacceptable, and a breach of her human rights.

No I didn't miss it and If you meant "it's not right" in that she's lying that faggot means sometime different where she comes from, then I agree with you, her explanation is not right.

If you meant, as I assume you did, that her explanation is morally not right but they content of it is true, then no I think that's bullshit. The fact that terms like faggot and gay are used to mean things are inferior is intrinsically homophobic and anyone arguing otherwise is irredeemably thick or acting in bad faith.

And she wasn't arrested for wrong speech or wrong think, she was arrested because she sent a barrage of malicious texts to someone.

As for the ten officers, that seems excessive but I'm unclear where that number has come from.

As the police are generally unarmed in the UK, stating that he was arrested by armed police imples that they sent in armed police specifically for him when that's not the case.

It's just slightly dishonest

Jesus, people. You're probably fine to keep using all your homophobic and racist language in your private conversations as long as you try not to break any laws.

No, but justifying the tiniest part of my post doesn't make any sense when you look at the context of the entire post.

"It's not right," did you miss that bit in your speech? And does she deserve to be arrested by ELEVEN officers for using offensive words in a private conversation?

Looking forward to future justifications of
"Calling people a jew round my way just means they're tight, it's not got anything to do with hateful stereotypes about Jewish people."
The Nazis used to arrest people for saying the wrong thing or thinking the wrong thing, are you happy to be heading that way?

It's not. It's not news to anyone. Because it's not an offence on its own.

Similarly saying I'll kill you is not an offence in and of itself.

Picking up a handbag is not an offence either.

Walking through a door is not an offence.

All can form part of an offence depending on context and facts.

Sorry, do I have to respond to everything in your post?

I was just adding context to the armed police comment, so that people understand that the police weren't armed because of any threat he may have been, but just as standard procedure at an airport

Cool, let me clear that up for you. Yes, you can use offensive terms in a private conversation. No crime committed. Whether it's "ok" probably depends on your view of hate speech, but it's not a crime. So you're safe to go ahead and use slurs when you talk to friends at home, or casually arrange to meet up with them, or chat about events of the day, if that's what you want to do.

If you commit and plead guilty to the offense of malicious communications - sending distressing and alarming messages to someone - and some of those communications contain hate speech, then that will have an impact on your sentence.

Ok, and the rest?

"Also, she's from Merseyside and says the f word is used a lot for someone who is weak, she's right, it is. So is the word "gay". It's not right, but it's common language used. I've said worse in private messages. Hell one of my best friends is in my contacts as ..... f**t."

Yes..... And why is it that it is used to mean weak.... Or different .... Effeminate... Because it's a homophobic slur that likens these negative traits as being the preserve of homosexuals.

Hell of a defense to say "God no, I wasn't saying he's actually gay or that that's anything wrong with being gay what a horrible thing to accuse me of.......I'm just saying he's so weak me that he must be gay/a fa*t."

Looking forward to future justifications of
"Calling people a jew round my way just means they're tight, it's not got anything to do with hateful stereotypes about Jewish people."

She was assaulted. Reported her attacker. But it was she who was arrested for calling him a word to someone else while he’s roaming free. This should have been dismissed or the ‘friend’ fined for wasting police time. Why on earth was she arrested for this?

Yep, those jury trials looking less advisable by the minute.
"a criminal offence or aggravating [sic]" are 2 different things