Good luck Harry The Owl

[BoreOfWhabylon]

Court case today.

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop

Oooh. Reading these tweets, the judge, despite saying he's only recently discovered Twitter, has grasped the issue pretty bloody quickly.

Can I ask a stupid question? If it's possible to commit a hate crime even when there's no victim with a limerick, doesn't that mean that all the "Die in a fire" and other nasty tweets about GC women in general are also hate crimes when they're not directed at anyone in particular?

Is the public gallery full, BTW?

Yes it's full apparently.

And no, Against women is okay as hate crime law does actually include sex.
CPS site here lists disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity

The thing is.

If TRAs (and MRAs) get their way on this, won't many of them then have records for anti-homosexual/homophobic/lesphobic/racist/anti-religious outbursts on AND offline?

I’m in court. Full house had to wait for someone to leave.

Slightly amused at the Judge getting to grips with the er, 'relaxed ettiquette' of social media. Imagine if he came to site called 'Mumsnet' and witnessed the argybargy here

Heard the report on R4. Harry did well. The burglary thing from the other guy ( male sounding voice) was weird and made no sense.

Judge repeats this. So even if no objective evidence of hate, if a subjective report received it must be reported - Counsel - these are the plain words of the policy. Judge - I will have to hear from the police about this. #FairCopJR

No objective evidence of hate yet it’s still a crime? These are frightening times. Good luck Harry.

Can I ask a stupid question? If it's possible to commit a hate crime even when there's no victim with a limerick, doesn't that mean that all the "Die in a fire" and other nasty tweets about GC women in general are also hate crimes when they're not directed at anyone in particular?

Even if it was directed to a particular woman or even every woman it wouldn't be classed as a hate crime or incident as we are the only protected chatacteristic not covered under these laws.
Making misogyny a hate crime is will never happen as it is constant and everywhere.
The only reason certain parties are pushing it to be made a crime are so it can be used by penis havers.

Oo MrsSnippyPants...

Well done.

Under that policy what's to stop anyone making a completely false report just to get back at someone they have a grudge against?

These are excellent tweets, by the way. The argument is clear and well presented.

Which is also why twitter etc allow males to threaten females with rape and incite violence, yet we can't mention biological facts

Judge - Freedom means the right to be told what we do not wish to hear. This is jurisprudence of ECtHR and the US Supreme Court

No objective evidence of hate yet it’s still a crime?

Not quite. A recordable incident for hate strand monitoring purposes.

The test is, in plain English - "in the eye of the beholder". For all other crime or recordable incident, the test is "in the eye of a reasonable person".

Harry's case partly hinges on the fact that the police use this loosened standard to record on indivduals, not simply anonymised totals for statistics purposes.

Judge - Freedom means the right to be told what we do not wish to hear.

Now that is an interesting phrase in context. I'm on tenterhooks.

Under that policy what's to stop anyone making a completely false report just to get back at someone they have a grudge against?

Square root of fuck all, so far as I can see.

If Harry wins this it could potentially be massive, in terms of precedent.

Good luck Harry.

@Whatsnewpussyhat Thank you - I sort of hoped that wasn't the case... is there a court case or group pushing to make misogyny a hate crime?

Under that policy what's to stop anyone making a completely false report just to get back at someone they have a grudge against?

Exactly. And won’t it mean that the police will be so paralyzed investigating Twitter that they won’t be able to focus on violent crimes happening offline?

Judge - Freedom means the right to be told what we do not wish to hear.

That’s a great definition. This is the core issue. Freedom of speech and thought.

Just wanted to add another good luck. Desperately hoping for the right outcome.

The test is, in plain English - "in the eye of the beholder". For all other crime or recordable incident, the test is "in the eye of a reasonable person".

(Sorry to quote myself!)

So, for example, the laws on self defence rely on what a "reasonable person" would do in any given situation. Were this "eye of the beholder" standard to apply - you'd have an automatic defence on any violent crime you committed against a person because of how you, no matter how unreasonably, perceived them.

Counsel - agree. And it is used in the context of a debate. refers to 'open season on transgender community' Judge - this is not evidence, this is polemicism.

What does polemicism mean?

Important to remember the respondents also have a go and the judge will have to put awkward questions then, too...