UK FDR People We Need Your Help

[Chauncey Tinker]

I am a little bit ****** *** right now.  I feel that our liberties are being eroded day by day.  Are we going to sit around bemoaning what is going on or are we going to do something about it?  The London Mayor has gained about £2 million to set up a "hate crime" (thought police) hub to monitor social media.

I wrote about a recent case of the kind of "police" work that will be done by such a unit:

https://chaunceytinker.wordpress.com/2016/08/23/its-no-longer-a-free-country/

If you agree with me that these kind of online comments should not be prosecuted (I am kind of taking that as a given) then please consider helping me out with the following plan:

Step 1 - If anyone lives in or may be visiting in the Manchester area perhaps you could do some detective work on the ground and find a way that we can contact Mr. Bennett.  The objective as explained in my post is to make contact with Mr. Bennett and establish whether he wants to appeal the conviction.  Wythenshawe is an area with 100,000 inhabitants and unfortunately Stephen Bennetts are as common as crickets in a meadow.  I searched in vain in Facebook and the online directory inquiries so far.  I am a bit hampered because I am trying to maintain my anonymity due to the outspoken views I express at my blog, and I live a long way away from the area.  I know there are a lot of sharp cookies out there in FDR land so I'm sure we can figure out a way somehow between us.

Step 2 - If we can once establish that Mr. Bennett wants to appeal, then we set up a crowdfund for his legal bills to try and get him the best possible lawyer.  I think a crowdfund should be administered by more than one person so that people can be confident its not a scam.  I have my own doubts about the strength of the legal case against him and I suspect an appeal might well succeed, although I am a layman with no legal knowledge beyond what the internet tells me.  Any monies left over from the crowdfund would be used to fund another case - I confidently predict that there are going to be many more such cases in the near future.

Step 3 - Publicize the crowdfund as widely as possible.  Maybe we could get Stefan to do a shout-out on the call in show.  First things first though, we need to find out if Mr. Bennett wants to appeal at all.  Of course if he doesn't then we can apply the same plan with another suitably dubious case.

Note that the case has been widely publicized for example on Breitbart (London) and many other places, there are clearly significant numbers of people who share my concerns about the case.  As I argued in the post:

This case may not seem that significant but precedents are being set by cases like this and we need to let the authorities know that we're not going to let our liberties be taken away from us.  LAWFARE is being waged against the lovers of freedom, and we must fight back in kind.  Lets set our own precedent by appealing this case right up to the Supreme Court if we can.
 

[mcandrewrants]

Hey, 

 

I think you need another case, it sounds like he's admitted something which would make an appeal very difficult. I'm no legal expert mind.

 

"Bennett later admitted an offence under the Malicious Communications Act."

 

From the Manchester evening news article you linked to. 

 

I might be able to help with web properties like setting up the crowd funding (I have experience doing that), websites, FB pages and all that fun stuff. I'm a marketer by trade and I do this sort of stuff in my sleep. It's up to you though, I grew up in the North East but I live in Australia at the moment so there's a big time difference.  

 

To reach out to him, unless anybody here knows how to find people you can post a job on one of the freelancing websites. People Per Hour is a good UK based one. I've used it a few times, the quality is far better than the most popular ones like freelancer.com. Same skills as doxxing really just without the public disclosure of the address details.

 

Anyway best of luck

Dan

[Chauncey Tinker]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion and for your offer to help with the web stuff, I have no experience with crowdfunding so even advice on that could be a big help.

Where they say "admitted" I can't take that seriously because when we have a law that criminalizes "grossly offensive" comments then all that it takes for someone to commit such an offence is for someone else to claim they are "grossly offended" by what they said.  As a blogger I can tell you I am being "grossly offended" by things people are saying to me and about me multiple times every single day.  We can't have laws this vague, its just not reasonable.  Also there have been cases where people have "admitted" murder but eventually their conviction was quashed because they were found to be mentally ill and had "admitted" to something they had not done.  The authorities can bring an awful lot of pressure to bear on a suspect.

I would like to try to pursue in any case at least as far as establishing what we can do for sure, I suppose a good lawyer would be able to answer that question almost immediately.  It will in any case be more desirable to get involved before any future convictions.  My idea is that monies would be sitting there waiting for the eventuality that someone needs help.  As I said, I expect the number of cases to increase because the government is making loud noises about "stamping out hate".  I see a huge amount of "hate" every day.  There's no way the government can apply such vague laws fairly, and I strongly suspect they don't even intend to.

I will keep this thread updated with developments.
 

Thanks again.

[Chauncey Tinker]

Re. the appeal, I found this (it was a crown court case according to the article):

https://www.gov.uk/appeal-against-sentence-conviction/crown-court-verdict

This states "You can appeal against your conviction, sentence or both. It doesn’t matter if you pleaded guilty or not guilty."  So an appeal would have been possible against the conviction and sentence in fact.  Unfortunately there is a 28 day time limit (incredibly unreasonable) which is very nearly up or may already be.  The article doesn't state the date of conviction but it was dated 5 Aug so only two days left although the above page does state:

 

"You might be able to ask for an extension if there’s a good reason why you couldn’t send your application in on time. The form tells you how to do this."

 

I guess its just possible there is a chance he could ask for an extension on the grounds he wasn't aware anyone else cared about the case and that a crowdfund might be available.

 

Just a general point because some people think an appeal can result in a worse sentence.   It also says: "Your original sentence or conviction will stay the same." Therefore according to that I don't think there is a risk of him getting a worse sentence in fact.