to think the 'common law/freeman on the land' thing is a whole load of bollocks?

[qwertypop]

I've come across a few people over the last few years that take it very seriously and bang on at length about how the police and courts have no authority over them as they are self declared 'freemen'. Something to do with common law being the only true law in Britain, I think? And not having to wear bike helmets or pay for TV licenses or repay your debts also seem important to the ones I've had the dubious pleasure of meeting.

A couple I met at the weekend have taken the biscuit though and not registered their baby's birth because apparently this will mean said baby grows up to be a 'freeman' (she's actually a girl but the term appears to be freeman anyway). They believe quite firmly that to register her birth will mean that the law assumes her and her name (which is a fucking corker, of course) are one and the same and that only by NOT registering her birth can she be free to be a human being. Quite what this actually means is a mystery to me and tbh the mumbo jumbo they gave me by way of an answer leads me to suspect they don't really know either

I've tried to read up on it but all the info I can find is written in a style you'd expect of an paranoid, delusional, and possibly hallucinating chimpanzee let loose with a legal dictionary.

So AIBU to think this is bollocky woo of the most fucking ridiculous type? Or is someone going to come along and actually enlighten me as to wtf its all about, preferably in plain English with no pseudo-legalese?

I'm pretty sure there's a hefty fine for not registering your child's birth within a certain time frame! The midwives told us about it when DS was born.

So they've gone beyond The Man and onto serious paranoia?

Where do they stand on CCTV and GCHQ looking at all their emails?

I gave the mother my number and told her to call and we could meet up with the children if they were in the area again (they were a traveller couple). I suspect this whole not-registering thing wasn't really her idea even though she's going along with it and talking the talk. She seemed a bit more, um, sane and quiet than the man who was a loud arrogant loon.

Actual LOL there on the RationalWiki page at a judge dismissing someones freeman claim as 'absolute gibberish'

Oh for fuck's sake.

As long as they use no money (well ours, not pig teeth), use no utilities, no healthcare, no sewer etc - basically if they aren't living on public land, shitting in a hole, wearing hand felted hair clothes, drinking rain water and eating forage they can piss off. Were they? Because otherwise you might as well strain a dog turd to get sense.

Such cock. Why capitalize? Why didn't she just write "I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M TALKING ABOUT LOL THAT MEANS, LAND OVER LAW, I'm going to spout some faux Freemason language now because HATS AND MAGIC. SOOOOOOULS" don't make me sick into my own scorn.

NotDavidTennant - that 'successes' section is excellent. Very informative.

Anyone who has ever been bothered by this nonsense and fancies a longish but good read may like to try

www.canlii.ca/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012/2012abqb571/2012abqb571.pdf

Good luck to them on their daughter ever being able to vote, drive a car legally, have any form of passport, even get an education and on ever claiming benefits or working.

Ok missed your next post after the Chapman rubbish.

But really - 'I'll use the bits I like but won't pay or adhere to the rules' No, fuck off.

Oh gods. I've met a number of these wazzocks doing magistrates court work - thankfully not seen one for ages, but they're usually middle aged men who are absolutely convinced that speeding fines (and any other FPN) are illegal because of Magna Carta (or the Bill of Rights or possibly just because they made this shit up), because they have the right to be tried before a jury of their peers and not subjected to a FPN.

Which they do.

A bench of lay magistrates will be delighted to give them a huge fine and costs and victim surcharge in place of the "illegal" fixed penalty notice.

They're massively patronising and always terribly surprised to be found guilty.

And yes, the courts do hate them. Not because the courts are sharks but because they're timewasting, internally inconsistent, smug twats who think their speeding fine is a feudal issue.

The ones I know of are really way out there. They seem to come to their ideology by way of wanting to avoid their debts, then get drawn right in. I knew one who used to drive his rubbish to the tip, so he could avoid using council services and remain a free man. Free from paying council tax that is. I imagine they will be home schooling their unregistered child, which is quite scary for her.

I know I shouldn't try and rationally analyse that shit, but there is no legal requirement for a contract to be signed and in writing. Just saying so she can edit the details like.

First time I've heard of this particular brand of twattery. Just . I guess if they lived in America they would live in the backwoods of Montana collecting guns and not pay taxes. Oh how do these geniuses actually live? Travellers, in cars,licences,petrol, food,clothes? My gob has never been so smacked.

I hope the mum does get to come for coffee with you. If only to rest her ears. Some good friends will be a prop to her health.

Thing is it's all fun and games until a life sorry, human with a living soul is harmed by such ideology and what it often goes hand in hand with. So yes I belittle but it's only because I'm always angry when I'm furious.

Also because I'm pissed off that if I don't get to live by my made up rules that become real just by wishing and talking about them a lot (a tactic that never worked with imaginary tigers either) then nobody else does. Because mine are most assuredly better than these. And I don't give a fig if your soul is living, dead or on the bottom of your shoe (I'm sad that doesn't translate from speech...language is totally a feudal issue).

So I suppose we just make up an identity for the doctor then? Because yeah, yeah, routine clinics/checks/vaccinations but she's in trouble if she clocks her head or breaks a leg.

Veronica: of the Chapman family

Freeman try this in court, it never ends well.

One of John Hemming's cronies (wot, John Hemming attracting conspiraloons, I hear you say?!) Elizabeth Watson tried this with the Vicky Haigh case. Tried to represent herself to the judge as Elizabeth of the Watson family, and not under the court's jurisdiction.

She got nine months.

Another one of Hemming's mates Norman Scarth, went to court as Norman of the Family Scarth and also spent some time as a guest of Her Majesty.

The UK Human Rights blog had a good breakdown of the Freeman phenomenon and why taking their 'legal' advice is a very very bad thing.

I've come across these types before in my previous job and yes it's a load of nonsense. However it's easier to dismiss and roll your eyes when it's just some bumptious smart arse spouting woo about common law to try and get out of paying a speeding fine.

However, what you describe OP sounds very concerning and there could be potential child protection issues there.

Not a Freeman issue exactly but a few years ago I volunteered at a welfare advice centre and we had a client in his late-forties whose mother had never registered his birth. He was at actual risk of being deported as it was quite likely that she'd smuggled him into the UK as a toddler from the Caribbean. And he had health issues but was struggling to access NHS treatment. He'd been dumped in care as a child so no one had ever cared enough to sort the paperwork out. He'd never had a proper education, was penniless but couldn't access benefits as he didn't formally exist. We had to get the local MP involved who had to go to the Home Office who agreed to treat it as an exceptional case in order to resolve matters.

It is scary, but there are people who are quite serious about this. I remember listening to this long explanation of why you are legally dead once you are seven years old. The capital letter thing came into it somewhere.

It turned out they'd read the law that said someone who was missing (lost at sea for example) could be declared dead after seven years and they'd misunderstood it,

I shouldn't laugh though. I've met people who talk to some 2,000 year old dead guy and his mum.

I think it was a group of them who caused a brouhaha at a County Court not far from here a few years back for trying to perform a citizens arrest on the Judge who was dealing with non payment of council tax. The Judge was apparently in "breach of the magna carta" or some such. They even (totally illegally but what do I know being such a mug and using my name) filmed their efforts and put them on YouTube.

Bet they still had to pay their council tax though.

Never heard of people like this

I love this sort of stuff. They have no idea about Common Law. As someone said it's the law which has evolved through the courts rather than statue.

In Scotland it originates from Roman Law, the institutes of the emperor Justinian and the writings of legal philosophers/judges/academics known as the institutional writers.

Scots Law until fairly recently dealt with the most serious crime under Common Law not statute.

How strange. Parliamentary sovereignty has been established in the UK's unwritten constitution for centuries, at least since the Danelaw started establishing piecemeal judge-made law (which is what the common law is). Legislation always has primacy over the common law and thus Parliament can legislate to change the common law if it wishes. Many areas of common law have some legislation at the very least.

Considering how the world is full of people who claim to hate lawyers, its also remarkably full of non-lawyers who claim to understand the law better than lawyers because they have read something somewhere once.

They are usually unaware of exceptions or other rules of law which trump it. My favourite is "health and safety" when there is no workplace for the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to apply in!

This part is amusing nonsense: "that only human beings, blessed with a living soul, can make a CLAIM!" Companies, charities, etc also have legal personality and therefore can claim and be claimed against. That concept has been around since at least Roman times and probably Greek or before.

This one: "If the answer is "Civil", then the response is "Please explain the CONTRACT. Will you provide FULL DISCLOSURE, what is the CONSIDERATION, and will you provide the SIGNATURE of a human being with a living soul?" Repeats the mistake above and shows a charming lack of knowledge of the law of tort. It does appear to refer to an inability of English law to recognise voluntary unilateral gratuitous obligations, which are ironically enshrined in Scots statutory law.

I've actually come across a few people like this (in AP Facebook groups). Many of them have either way lived in squats or a house left to them by family (so get round the whole rent/mortgage/bills thing) and not registeringa birth is fine to them since they don't believe in school or medicine either. Its the crackpot version of in for a penny, in for a pound.

SnowinBerlin there is a current case involving a woman called "Kim" whose parents must have had the misfortune of dealing with a registrar who was a fan of Rudyard Kipling. The name was taken as a boy's name (although goodness knows how they squared it with what was on the paper from the hospital query if you have a home birth without a midwife what do you do?)

She's apparently having a terrible time trying to get it corrected as an adult

Yes " a contract has to be in writing" is one of my favourites.

"I don't have a lease/employment contract"- er yes if the facts fit, you do.