Times Online November 10, 2006
Nick Griffin and Nick Collett at court today - it was their second trial on the same charges (Scott Heppell/AFP/Getty Images)
BNP leader celebrates acquittal outside race hate trial
By Philippe Naughton
The leader of the far-Right British National Party attacked Tony Blair and his Left-Wing "toadies in the BBC" today after being acquitted on two charges of stirring up racial hatred.
Addressing supporters outside Leeds Crown Court, Welshman Nick Griffin also demanded the resignation of Colin Cramphorn, the Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire police, for wasting police time and money pursuing the case while the 7/7 bombers were preparing their atrocities on his patch.
The not-guilty verdict in the retrial of Mr Griffin, 46, and the BNP publicity manager Mark Collett, 26, sent their supporters into a frenzy of cheering outside the court, where BNP members started chanting "freedom, freedom" as they waited for Mr Griffin to emerge.
After leaving the court, Mr Griffin took up a megaphone to attack the Government, the Crown Prosecution Service and the BBC, whose undercover report on a meeting in a Yorkshire pub two years had prompted the charges.
Mr Griffin, of Llanerfyl, Powys, Wales, was found not guilty on a charge of using words or behaviour intended to stir up racial hatred and an alternative charge of using words or behaviour likely to stir up racial hatred. Mr Collett was found not guilty on four similar charges.
"Something's just happened to show Tony Blair and the government toadies in the BBC that they can take our taxes, but they cannot take our hearts, they cannot take our tongues and they cannot take our freedom," Mr Griffin declared.
Mr Collett, a former Leeds University student and head of the BNP youth wing, said that the score after the retrial was "BNP 2 - BBC nil".
He added: "I was hauled over the coals for describing Asian criminals as Asians and their white victims as white. That is not a crime - that is the truth.
"The BBC have abused their position. They are a politically correct, politically biased organisation which has wasted taxpayers’ money to bring two people in a legal democratic peaceful political party to court over speaking nothing more than the truth.
"And even if we had gone to jail, I wouldn’t have minded going to the jail over truth."
During the retrial, the jury of five men and seven women heard extracts from a speech Mr Griffin made in the Reservoir Tavern, Keighley, on January 19, 2004, in which he described Islam as "this wicked, vicious faith" and said that Muslims were turning Britain into a "multi-racial hell hole" and described .
The court heard that Mr Collett addressed the gathering on the same evening, saying: "Let’s show these ethnics the door in 2004."
Mr Griffin has told the jury that his speech was not an attack on Asians in general, but on Muslims. The defence also argued that since he was speaking at a private meeting, he could not be accused of trying to stir up hatred among the public - although neither men seemed careful to moderate their language after today's court victory.
During the 2004 speech Mr Griffin had drawn attention to the reported problem of Muslim gangs attacking young white girls in the area, and he blamed Islam and the Koran for their behaviour.
He told the court: "This isn’t a racial thing. It’s not an Asian thing. It’s a cultural and religious thing."
He said that his study of Islam and the Koran had led him to believe that the idea of moderate Islam was a "politically correct nonsense" but that his criticism of Islam was not a cover for a hatred of all Asians.
Mr Griffin has told the court that until the late 1990s "the party, even myself to a certain extent, could be described as racist", but this was no longer the case". Mr Collett said his speeches were only intended to motivate party members to take part in "legal and democratic" campaigning.
The retrial was heard at a time of heightened racial tensions and a parallel political debate on the rights and wrongs of Muslim women wearing the veil in British public life.
Summing up yesterday, the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Norman Jones QC, said: "Issues have arisen during this case which have drawn attention to politics and religion.
"This case is not about whether the political beliefs of the BNP are right or wrong. It’s not about whether assertions made about Islam are right or wrong. Those are issues to be debated in different arenas."
He continued: "We live in a democratic society which jealously protects the rights of its citizens to freedom of expression, to free speech. That does not mean it is limited to speaking only the acceptable, popular or politically correct things. It extends to the unpopular, to those which many people may find unacceptable, unpalatable and sensitive.
"Along with those rights come rights and duties not to abuse them."
Speaking outside the courtroom, Mr Griffin once again accused young Muslim men of ganging up to attack British women of other faiths and races, describing it as the "final taboo".
He also attacked Mr Cramphorn, the West Yorkshire police chief, for having dedicated "three or four" officers full-time for up to six months to investigate Mr Griffin's speeches at a time when Mohammed Siddique Khan and the other 7/7 bombers were planning their attacks on the London transport system.
Speaking of the victims of those attacks, he said: "The fact they were all horribly blown to pieces is in part the fault of Colin Cramphorn."
As he spoke a cordon of police in high-visibility reflective jackets kept the BNP supporters away from a group of anti-fascist protesters gathered across the street.
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