Bercow lost

[Xenia]

Not a good decision for free speech.....extends innuendo a bit far in my view so I suppose she might appeal.

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2013/1342.html

Has she tweeted about the decision?

OneHandFlapping: "Whether or not we like Sally Bercow is completely irrelevant. Surely no-one's saying that only people we like should be treated fairly by the justice system?"

I was going to make this same point. People seem to be letting their dislike of Sally Bercow run away with them. I suspect there'd have been a different response if it was Stephen Fry.

My view is that by the time Bercow wrote her tweet, the cat was already out of the bag. Twitter displays topics that are "trending" down the right hand side of the screen. So anybody who logged onto Twitter that day would have seen that Lord McAlpine was trending - in other words, that hundreds of people had already posted tweets about him. Her tweet nudged people towards the fact it was trending, but the truth is that the rumour was already out there and it was very very easy for people to find out what it was if they were interested.

Whether the rumour was already out there is irrelevant.

The London Riotors, to give an example of 'mass activity', did not all get let off because 'everyone else was doing it'.

She gave weight to the rumours.

If she had left out the innocent face bit, would there have still been a case against her? Was it essentially about that?

There has never been free speech, and never will be.
And I am very glad about that.
Else I can walk up to a child and say whatever horribleness I like.
Or write about a child, or adult and say whatever horribleness I like.

claig yes, I believe that if she hadn't put 'innocent face' then her question would have been open to interpretation. A genuine question about the activity on twitter; A genuine question about Lord McAlpine, etc.

It could be argued that if she wanted to know why he was trending she could have looked at the tweets, but we all know from threads on MN that people often ask 'what's the deal with x' when the information is freely available on the internet, but they just can't be bothered to hunt it down and instead want a summary.

The 'innocent face' element turned it into a bit of a rhetorical question. Instead of asking a question, it was making a statement, even if the statement was an implied one. Or at least, that was the conclusion of the judge - for a statement to be libelous there must be a statement. It was 'innocent face' that turned the question into a statement.

lougle - my point is that by the time Bercow posted her tweet, the damage had already been done. You can't say the same about the rioters.

Alibaba (page 2) thoroughly agree with you and and am pleased that she's got a big bill to go with it. She's now got the notoriety she deserves.

I think it is worrying that Tugendhat found an 'implication' libellous.

He hasn't always been so, shall we say, generously interpretive.

Some damage had been done. She added to that damage - a high profile person giving credence to what could otherwise be seen as idle gossip.

So whether a statement is deemed libellous or not depends on who made it?

I thought justice was blind.

Btw Lougle I think you have explained it excellently.

I just don't like the judgement!

I wonder why Michael Tugendhat the brother of a tory politician (Chris Tugendhat ) with close links to the hierarchy of the tories in the time of McAlpine was chosen to be the judge in the Bercow v McAlpine case?

Justice is blind. The statement would still have been libelous whether or not the person making it was famous. However, the impact is much bigger when it is a high profile person who happens to be married to a person with a high profile political job, who happens to have close to a thousand followers, who themselves may well have several followers...etc.

It's quite possible that had it not been a high-profile person, Lord McAlpine would not have pursued it. That wouldn't be the fault of justice. It would just be the reality that a case cannot be decided if a case hasn't been brought before the judge who decides it.

I think it also depended on the number of followers each person had. There were others who were asked to give a much smaller sum to charity because they had fewer followers.

On your point, LineRunner, I don't think Tugendhat found an implication libelous.

I think he found a statement libelous, and found that the phrase 'innocent face' placed after a question cast sufficient doubt on the question's validity as a question, so as to conclude that the question was in fact a statement.

yes, I believe that if she hadn't put 'innocent face' then her question would have been open to interpretation

The meaning of the "innocent face" is open to interpretation, ie.....any number of people could interpret the meaning differently. It is ambiguous.

Her lawyers suck. I am sure she could have had better representation. Surely it could have been argued differently, or at least I would have attempted to have "interpreted" the intention or meaning of the "innocent face" differently. It could have been argued that the "innocent face" was intended to convey her naivete. ie, she didn't understand what others were implying in their tweets about McA

Lougle: "a high profile person giving credence to what could otherwise be seen as idle gossip."

Going back to my very first point, I don't think anyone would have seen it as idle gossip, because it had the authority of the BBC behind it. It's true that the BBC didn't name the guy, but everyone knew who they meant, which is why they had to pay damages.

That's why I think she was unlucky - she alluded, fairly obliquely, to something that was already in the public domain and had been rubber stamped by the BBC. Hundreds of people were naming Lord McAlpine, including a number of blogs. I'm not sure why the case against Bercow went all the way to court, particularly given that she'd already agreed to settle out of court.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2330809/Lee-Rigby-death-11-people-UK-arrested-making-racist-anti-religious-comments-online-British-soldiers-death.html

I dont know where all this freedom of speech stuff originated, but it just isnt true.

'I'm not sure why the case against Bercow went all the way to court, particularly given that she'd already agreed to settle out of court.'

Possibly in order to set a legal precedent?

but anyone who was truly innocent in asking a question wouldn't even think about stating their innocence, because they would be ignorant of the trouble their question could cause.

It seems she has been found guilty of sarcasm.

Is there a "beyond reasonable doubt" argument over something that is a matter of interpretation?

I agree LineRunner

"beyond reasonable doubt" argument over something that is a matter of interpretation?" seems like a contradiction.

In this case the libel is a civil matter, which means that the judge only has to find 'on the balance of probabilities'. ie. he only has to be 51% convinced that the question/statement was libelous.

If it were criminal, it would have to be 'beyond reasonable doubt.'