British Blogger fined for ‘grossly offensive and menacing messages’
Written on April 30, 2008 – 3:28 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
A blogger from Wales has just learned the difference between ‘Freedom of Speech’ and ‘grossly offensive and menacing messages’. After being arrested and charged with over 19 theft offenses 24 year old Gavin Brent used his personal blog to ‘let of steam’. He wrote that he was being mistreated by the officers who arrested him.
Apparently one of the officers had later told him why one of the arresting officers wasn’t present when Brent was charged: he was at home with his new-born baby. The blogger decided to end his post with a dramatic message:
“P.S. - D.C. Lloyd, God help your new-born baby”
Mr Brent explained to the courts that he simply meant that he hoped that the police officer would treat his new-born baby better than he had treated mr Brent. Detective constable Steve Lloyd, and his wife, read it differently and accused the blogger of threatening them and their child.
Brent claimed “You can write on websites because it’s freedom of speech.” The court disagreed and convicted the blogger for his ‘menacing’ rant and fined him £150 with £364 costs. The original blog entry has been removed but Brent is still blogging about his adventures so far.
It sometimes seems like bloggers can say anything they want on their blogs. The ‘Publish’ button is just one click away and mistakes are easily fixed. Besides, most blogs aren’t read by anyone except he blogger (and his mother?) so who cares what you write? Reality is that your words are out there for anyone to read and often forever. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean you can insult, slander or misrepresent subjects. Voicing an opinion and threatening are two very different things.
The fact that you can say and write anything on your blog doesn’t mean you should.
I hope you like that post!
Do you have a start-up that we should write about? Contact us! Thanks for visiting and hope you come back again!
Email
Facebook
Netlog
Linkedin
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
[...] CENSORSHIP: U.K. blogger arrested, convicted, fined, for complaining about officer’s treatment… The words in question were “P.S. D.C. Lloyd God help your new-born baby.” Yup. He might kill a baby. We better arrest him. Fuck Britain. Just fuck them all. Orwell was right. Read Gavin’s recount here: http://buyerhell.com/wordpress/?p=6 (tags: politics censorship bloggers arrests convictions fines babies officers AbuseOfAuthority menacing bullshit charges GavinBrent) [...]
[...] the fact that some of these arrests have been happening in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, supposed bastions of democracy and free [...]
[...] girls, and the beginning of 2008 saw an arrest in the UK after one Gavin Best used his blog to threaten a police officer’s family following his arrest for a large number of [...]