Transwoman cleared of threatening Joanna Cherry

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d42d2a9c-1f41-11ee-97d4-77262736e260?shareToken=17827238e30d669bd67b20a14c32f2de

'A woman who posted an alleged threatening comment about the SNP MP Joanna Cherry online has been found not guilty.
Eve Shaw, also known Adam Shaw, was said to have made the comment about the MP for Edinburgh South West during a Twitter conversation with a friend.
Shaw, 28, replied to a news article post about Cherry with the comment “STG [swear to God] I am gonna pop Joanna Cherry” at 5.23pm on January 22 last year, Edinburgh sheriff court was told.'

I thought the thread was about Shaw's threat to "pop" Joanna Cherry? What a stretch to bring irrelevant, theoretical toilet scenarios into it. Pathetic derail attempt.
Back on topic.

I interpreted that this person was going to do me violence. ‘Pop’ refers to a gun shot or taking a pop at someone. I have to take these things seriously as two members of parliament have been murdered since I became an MP. Joanna Cherry.

Rosie Cooper, then MP, was also nearly murdered. This Sherrif has given a green light to use terms like " pop", "wack" and so on, to threaten people, particularly women. What a piss-poor, ill considered, explanation for his decision.

Me too and it's not Mr Izzard.

Not in those heels.

Can she appeal? Why are tw a sacred caste for the judiciary.

Nobody wants toilet police. How about trans women just show a basic respect for women and stay out of female toilets as we have requested repeatedly? That's a much simpler solution than toilet police.
But it seems that simply respecting women's privacy is somehow far too complicated 🙄

Goodness - derailing a discussion about threats of violence against a woman politician. Desperate times eh?

Threatening violence against women appears to be a feature at the moment - eg Barker and the support he got from that crowd. No wonder women don't want to share spaces with them.

I don't like the term "cis".
If additional words are ever necessary to further define a woman, then "actual" or "real" would be much more appropriate. IMO.

"ok, another question is how can you tell?"
LOL!
According to an article in the press this week (was it the Telegraph?) - we can smell them!

I hope JC appeals against this decision.

Sad but true 😢

Doubt as to guilt - is that a technical issue about whether Eve/Adam actually sent the message?

Haven't read the judgment, but it's likely to be doubt about intention. To convict the prosecution needed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was an intention to commit the offence.

Probably no grounds for appeal. Appeals are for where the judge got the law wrong. The law seems pretty straightforward here. The argument was over the issue of fact - what was intended by the message - and there's no right to appeal findings of fact.

You seem to be aware here that one or some women can't consent to a man/ men entering women's single sex spaces on behalf of all women.

You are so close, just the last few dot to join.

Quite. People who think we couldn't go the way of Afghanistan or Iran aren't paying attention.

I think the fact that 'pop' has so many different meanings that whilst if read in conjunction with other tweets (not saying that's the case here but I'd assume someone from JC side took a deeper look at the guys tweets as a whole to determine risk level) you could be pretty sure the tweeter meant one thing yet if it was just looked at in isolation then it's just to ambiguous and gives the accused (and the sheriff) a lot more wiggle room to say that's not how it was meant.

But the game will end if those last few dots are ever connected!

But additional words shouldn’t be necessary! Actual woman…real woman…The word “woman” suffices, every time.

But at least Merlin is using it properly this time to distinguish transwomen from other men.

Notably, Cherry has in prior cases like this advocated for free speech here.

She chose to represent as a political choice, a woman who had been very scarily abusing her colleagues and political opponents, saying "I will stop at nothing" and going to their places of work and tweeting pictures of herself there in sinister masks mocking them. (Marion Millar, who had also directed a significant amount of abuse on the lesbian police officer who arrested her, including saying she must be biased against her by virtue of being LGBT.)

Cherry has also chosen to promote and politicise this -- she used the assumption of guilt here in her column to attack her colleague Mhairi Black last week. She has attacked her colleagues in the past for expressing support, sympathy and condemnation of threats. She has subsequently claimed that no colleagues offered support, sympathy and condemnation for those threats. She has claimed this is terrible while being conspicuously quiet on threats received by those she disagrees with, including those who expressed support for her.

Security should never be politicised. It's really disappointing that Cherry has done, many times, as well as allegedly putting in false security threats against SNP staff which were leaked to the press. I am incredibly glad she is okay and all threats should be investigated. It is interesting to see this described as "a very serious attempt on her" under oath, when it clearly was no attempt.

The Millar case shows her to be utterly hypocritical here. She's attacked her colleagues on this a lot. She literally prevented the police from acting on malicious communications in the past

In general, witnesses are not able to appeals in cases between other parties.

Outright libel.

Brilliant post @Boiledbeetle

I did very VERY extensive research as well so I'm confident in my ability to tell the difference

Merl you have been told this before- please try to remember this time- calling a forum member cis when they do not identify that way is a delectable offence on Mumsnet.

You’re lucky the majority here won’t report posts but you are breaking talk guidelines and really your posts should be deleted.

Delectable offences is Tunnocks, on the other thread.

Or even a deletable, in case of any confusion thanks to autocorrect 😂

Perhaps it's my feeble lady brain but I don't understand how one can be cleared of an offence when one has been caught red-handed. Is it that the offence was deemed not to be an offence or that the offence isn't actually an offence because of the person doing the offending?