Lessons from the "Twitter Joke Trial" for Seckford and friends

Yesterday Paul Chambers was finally cleared of sending a “menacing” communication under s127 of the Communications Act 2003.

As is well documented Chambers sent the following tweet:

“Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I am blowing the airport sky high!!”

Incredibly sending this tweet ended up with Chambers arrested and then convicted damaging his career and wasting literally months of his life.

By continuing the appeal Paul Chambers and his lawyer David Allen Green have done us all a favour by producing a High Court ruling on this kind of situation that sets a precedent and should hopefully prevent others going through the ordeal that he did.

As ever the full judgement is useful and interesting to read. Written by the Lord Chief Justice, the most senior Judge in England and Wales there are two particularly interesting sections to the judgement that I wanted to draw attention to.

Firstly the nature of Twitter and Tweets which seems to be mis-understood by many. This is discussed here:

“Tweets” include expressions of opinion, assertions of fact, gossip, jokes (bad ones as well as good ones), descriptions of what the user is or has been doing, or where he has been, or intends to go. Effectively it may communicate any information at all that the user wishes to send, and for some users, at any rate, it represents no more and no less than conversation without speech.  

The conversational nature of twitter, the fact that it is more like a conversation is a key point. It cannot and should not be taken as something akin to a newspaper article like a regular website or a blog post like this is.

Even more significantly Lord Judge discusses the creation of the offence itself:

The 2003 Act did not create some newly minted interference with the first of President Roosevelt’s essential freedoms – freedom of speech and expression. Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it should and no doubt will continue at their customary level, quite undiminished by this legislation. Given the submissions by Mr Cooper, we should perhaps add that for those who have the inclination to use “Twitter” for the purpose, Shakespeare can be quoted unbowdlerised, and with Edgar, at the end of King Lear, they are free to speak not what they ought to say, but what they feel. 

So there is a lesson here for those who seek to use legislation such as this - or indeed claims of harassment - in order to interfere with freedom of speech.

I do hope the Seckford Foundation and their friends are listening carefully.

Those who seek to complain about the use of Twitter for instance by contacting people’s employer, or schools where they are a Governor better make sure they have never themselves made a bad joke or sworn down the pub. As Judge says Twitter represents no more and no less than conversation without speech.


And those that seek to define menace or distress in such a way as to turn political campaigning or indeed journalism into “harassment” need to remember that freedom of speech means the freedom to make Satirical, or iconoclastic, or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it.


As John Kampfur writes in The Guardian:

The authorities are not solely to blame for this state of affairs. We the public, both Twitter-using and non-Twitter-using, have elevated taking offence to a human right. We see hurt and danger around every corner and lurking in every missive. For sure, some are beyond the pale. One or two might be prosecutable. But, for the most part we should develop a thicker skin, keep calm and carry on.

Quite. I hope you are listening Messers Watson and Finbow!

Seckford Foundation make light of real act of harassment against campaigner

A Suffolk anti-free school campaigner was recently shouted at in the street, sworn at and had campaign leaflets snatched from him and thrown to the ground. In my view this is clearly a real act of harassment.

You might remember that the Seckford Foundation sent me a long legally worded letter from their lawyer Chair of Governors, Roger Finbow alleging that I had “harassed” Seckford staff. What I was supposed to have done was make phone calls persistently asking for information, written blog articles and “chased” Seckford Director Graham Watson who was driven off out of the back entrance of Lowestoft Town Hall in a powerful Mercedes. When I say chase I was on foot!!

I guess as far as these allegations go I am guilty as charged but I have consistently maintained this is investigative journalism and political campaigning and not harassment.

I have agreed to avoid telephoning Seckford except to leave brief messages not least out of respect for their poor junior staff who appear to be used to “shield” senior staff who refuse to answer the phone.

You would therefore imagine that Roger Finbow would be horrified by hearing about this much more dramatic incident. Indeed I am certain this incident would not only legally count as harassment if repeated but would be a public order offence and assault.

However Finbow dismissed this incident once it was brought to his attention with these words:

Roger Finbow 

Finally, I must address the point you make about having been sworn at and barracked, and having had leaflets taken from you and thrown on the ground. I am sure you are not making the implication that these acts, which I deplore, were perpetrated by representatives of the Seckford Foundation. They were not and never will be. I suspect you probably discovered that there are at least some members of the local community who disagree with you.

Now nobody is suggesting that the Seckford Foundation have either carried out these actions directly or expressly asked others to do so. Indeed the “victim” here says he would never seek any redress as he thinks you need a thick skin if you are engaged in this kind of thing which is a fair point.

As a Director of Ipswich Town football club though Finbow will be no stranger to taking responsibility for the actions of supporters. Just as a football club cannot abscond responsibility for the bad behaviour of its fans I do not think the Seckford Foundatiion can for those who support its free schools. So far we have seen:

• Anti-free school campaign posters ripped down (Ixworth)
• Verbal abuse of campaigners and grabbing of leaflets (above)
• Anonymous letters sent to employers/schools
• Anonymous phone calls made to employers/schools
• Complaints made to employers/schools designed to stop people campaigning by members of local campaign groups

In every single one of these cases Seckford wash their hands of the behaviour and effectively say “nothing to do with us Guv”.

But they have set the tone of debate that has made this kind of behaviour seem acceptable to their supporters. Graham Watson goes on the radio saying campaigners “set a bad example to children” and an anonymous letter arrives days later saying exactly the same thing of me at the small primary school I have been Chair of Governors at for six years.

Seckford need to get their own house in order. Instead of pretending to be the “victim” they need to take steps to control the behaviour of their “useful" local supporters.

The IPS Launch at Bungay Library

Just over a year ago Mark Bee as the newly elected Leader of Suffolk County Council visited Bungay Library and was handed a “scrapbook”. He made a speech promising to listen to what was by that stage a very large number of people who had opposed the library plans that Suffolk County Council had proposed.

Indeed the success of the library campaign had played a big part in the sudden “retirement” of Bee’s predecessor as leader, Jeremy Pembroke. The discredited Chief Executive Andrea Hill was next to go.

What happened after that led directly to today’s signing of the contract between the County Council and the new Suffolk Libraries IPS.

On Friday Mark Bee returned with the scrapbook to a happier event. He gave a short and appropriate speech welcoming the fact libraries were still all open. I was particularly pleased to see that he recognised the work of staff.

But one person got a lot of credit. Sylvia Knights who a year ago was the person challenging Mark Bee. Now like several other campaigners she is a member of the IPS Board. 

So are the campaigners now “poachers turned gamekeepers?”. I don’t think so. Behind the scenes there has been a lot of work and a great deal of negotiation with the County Council. I think as more and more details emerge the deal they have struck with the Council will be seen to be a good one.

Josiah Meldrum one of the original Bungay campaigners is I feel right to point some of the irony out out in a paper available on Wikisuffolk Hurrah! The Libraries have been saved! (By the very people who were happy to see them closed…) 

Tonight I attended the signing of the contract that sees Suffolk County Council hand over some (but not all) of its responsibilities for libraries to a new Industrial and Provident Society (IPS). The new IPS has a board made up of representatives of Suffolk libraries and is chaired by Shona Bendix of SALC: it seems to be a very competent body and I wish it well. But as I ate canapés, drank wine and spoke with fellow library campaigners in the library tonight and I couldn’t help but reflect on how we came to be here in the first place and wondered if, in the end, it all been worth it.

Certainly for many of the local political elite it was well worth it. Mark Bee, the new SCC leader (who arguably and ironically only holds that position because of the work of campaigners fighting to protect Suffolk public services), is able to celebrate his success in saving the library service… from his own party. He describes the divested library service as a ‘national first’ – but doesn’t ask why we in Suffolk needed to be the first. Peter Aldous, MP for Waveney, clearly has a lot of work on his hands if he’s to hang onto his marginal seat at the next election and any good news is, well, good news - so no wonder he was pleased to turn up this evening. Likewise Therese Coffey MP, who’s had a messy week defending herself for accepting Olympic tickets from those hero’s (and architects) of Andrea Hill and Jeremy Pembroke’s New Strategic Direction, BT.

And then there were our local politicians, County Councilor David Ritchie and Bungay Town Council. As soon as they heard about the library consultation they understood the threat and immediately sprang into action, forming a working group, challenging SCC and… no, hang on… that’s what you’d think if you were at the IPS launch this evening, but is that what really happened? Certainly new councilors like Sylvia Knights (on the Board of the new IPS) and Richard Vinton have always fully backed the library and are on the council in no small part because of their role in the campaign. But what about others? Current Mayor Terry Reeve has certainly always spoken up for the library and as part of the working group immediately fought hard for holding SCC to account and the previous Mayor Simon Woods is also a keen advocate and was involved from the start. 

Josiah’s paper has an interesting email trail of what really happened at the start of the campaign.
The truth certainly does not match the impression we got today. At whilst it is right to welcome where we have got to now, we need to be under no illusions that when services are under threat a strong campaign is going to be the only way to save them. The "great and the good” cannot be relied on to act without this.

Rosehill Readers continue to sound a note of caution in a statement issued to this Blog they say:

The emphasis from Suffolk County Council is once again on saving buildings “the Suffolk solution means all libraries have been saved”. Whilst this is excellent news for local communities throughout Suffolk, we can’t help but wonder if the council and the managers of the IPS realise that a library service – what happens IN the library – is just as vital as the building remaining open. They are making promises that the level of service won’t change but the cut of one third of total funding from the Council means that the service is being hollowed out with paid staff made redundant and not replaced at all; how can a library service fully function without a full complement of fully trained staff? How long before parts of the service have to be cancelled because the already stretched staff can’t spare the time to run them?

We hope that Suffolk County Council isn’t prematurely congratulating itself on a scheme that hasn’t been proven to work and wish all Suffolk library staff the best of luck in this new venture 

The challenge is going to be making sure SCC continue to fund the service adequately. If I am right and they have good a good deal now with the May 2013 County Council elections looming it might be slightly harder to achieve next time round. Indeed it took some personnel changes on the Board this time to ensure things progressed in the interests of the service.

The Board of the IPS deserve credit for the support they have already shown for Suffolk’s libraries. After the wobbles at the start they have achieved a great deal and long may it continue!