More 'speech crime'

[Locutus]

This crap usually work it's way across the Atlantic in bits and pieces. Be advised.

via YFO:

Back in July we had the case of a 17 year old being arrested because he sent a stupid tweet to a sportsman. Now we hear that an unemployed teenager in Chorley has actually been sent to prison for three months because he put up some tasteless jokes about April Jones and Madeleine McCann on his Facebook page. And, as Douglas Murray points out, the mob (there really is no other way of describing it) in court cheered and applauded.

We can ask all the usual questions. Have the police nothing better to do with their time? Is there no crime to investigate and no burglars or shop-lifters to arrest in Chorley? (Woops, no, shop-lifting is rarely considered to be a crime these days as the police are "under-staffed".) Is not our legal system seriously over-stretched? Can the Chorley JP, Dr Bill Hudson, really not think of any crime that is more disgusting or despicable? Has our centuries-old legal system really descended to the level of vigilante mob rule? And so on, and so on.

more insanity:

Your Freedom and Ours: Not again!

Chorley teenager imprisoned for Facebook jokes » Spectator Blogs

h/t sda

 

[Niflmir]

Britain sadly has laws that make the truth basically irrelevant in slander and libel cases. The crime of slander is defined as an attack on the reputation of a person (more or less). Since normal people do not have much of a reputation to speak of, justice in this case is just a shadow the powerful cast over the weak.

Canada is the same: truth is not a defense.

Still, there was a lengthy (US) lawsuit covered over at the Volokh Conspiracy involving a guy trying to get a professor fired by spreading the truth around. Having the truth as a defense doesn't mean much when getting dragged to court is so expensive and time consuming.