Nearly three months in prison for telling a joke in UK

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One for our American friends with their culture of free speech:

Have any of our foreign forumites read about the case of Matthew Jones, a Lancashire teenager (who lives not that far from me) who has been arrested and jailed for nearly three months for telling jokes about a young child who was recently raped and murdered (in a pretty nasty case all round) on his Facebook page?

This chap was apparently arrested after a mob of fifty people turned up at his house and started threatening his mother. A sign of the things to come.

I'm sorry, but "jokes" like his, no matter how "offensive" or tasteless (and by all accounts, these ones were pretty hackneyed), should lead to someone going to prison for them. We're sending people to prison for comments that other people are "offended" by - not because this idiot has actually used them to harass those involved with the case (which, by all accounts, he never did) but because he "offended" the hurt feelings of the mob. This chap was guilty of nothing apart from being an idiot - my God, if we start trying to lock people up on what other people are "offended" by, we may as well lock up most of the country because we've all said something that someone else can be "offended" or "hurt" by at one point or another. The worst part is people are that imbecilic that they AGREE with this judgement by the court!

Free speech in the UK is increasingly dying off and being given to the most vociferous and intolerant individuals in a society I fear.

It's definitely a waste of resources sending them to prison. Some sort of fine or community service would be far more effective.

Why? Why any legal punishment at all?

The best punishment for an idiot like this is for him to be taken to task by family, friends and acquaintances about his antics. People making their opinions known peacefully about his 'jokes' would be a lot healthier than bringing in the courts.

IMO, it's a very dangerous road we're going down equating simple disagreeable social behaviour with criminal acts.

Well yeah, but if there's going to be a punishment, at least make them contribute something instead of wasting money. I agree it's setting a dangerous precedent with regards to freedom of speech, but I'm of the view that freedom of speech doesn't include the right to grossly offend. We can say what we want to say in a way that avoids doing that.

My point is that there shouldn't be any form of legal or violent punishment just for being "offensive". If he had actually messaged the grieving family and sent them abusive "jokes", I might agree with you. However, he didn't. He didn't go anywhere near the family. He posted jokes about a popular subject in the media. The same as people did when Princess Diana died, or the Muhammad cartoons went on air, or the 9/11 attacks. Dark, brutal, gallows humour can be used to get through an experience. It's all very subjective anyway - what's "outrageously offensive" to one person is near-the-knuckle but comedy gold to another. It's an intangible. You're trying to legislate simply for hurt feelings, not deliberate attempts to bully others.

There's a huge difference between targeting someone/a family for harassment and simply being an idiot.

I'm not arguing for complete freedom of speech - people should be prohibited from stirring up violent mobs and fomenting violent disorder, from divulging security secrets and for things like that. In general, though, people should be able to say what they damn well like. And they should face the social consequences of doing so, too.

People have a right to be offended, of course, but no-one has the right not to be offended.



And who decides what is "grossly offensive"? The mob decides. It's subjective - that's the whole point.

What you're suggesting is that opinions, unpopular opinions, may be suppressed at the will of the mob. They aren't allowed to be aired and then debunked, ridiculed or appreciated at will. They're just to be censored. You're not allowed to say that, because some people find it offensive.



Not in the likes of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan you can't. Try being a believer of democracy in North Korea or free-market Hayekian capitalism in the former USSR. These opinions greatly offend the regimes and their grip on power.

Perhaps we should go back to executing people for witchcraft, as we did in my local area in the 16th century? The vast majority of people back then thought that being against such things were grossly offensive, too. They still execute people for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia.

That's the problem with legislating for "offence" - it hands the levers of power to the bigoted, the vindictive, the religiously fanatical, the violent, the mobs, the hysterical people, the people with a personal grudge against someone.

Nah I'm just saying that posting deliberately nasty remarks about a missing child is clearly offensive and has no "message" (I guess it was meant to be funny???) so no freedom of expression is being denied, only the freedom to cause offence. In other cases where language and intent is more ambiguous, it becomes less easy, and as you say can become heavily subjective rather than objective. My point is that if there is something to be said, 99% of the time it can be said without resorting to grossly offensive or shocking remarks. Obviously some people will always find offence where none was intended, and that is a problem. I'm not in necessarily in favour of legal repercussions though, but I don't particularly object to them in cases like this.. although as I said before I do worry about the precedent it sets. I am totally in favour of freedom of speech but you have to draw the line somewhere.

You know, when Thomas Paine wrote "The Age of Reason", Galileo postulated that in fact the Earth revolved around the sun, when Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, when Gandhi campaigned for India's freedom from British colonial rule, when people spoke out against Nazi ideology, when people today argue that drawing cartoons should not be a death penalty offense and when people spoke out against institutionalized racism in South Africa, they grossly offended a lot of people.

Freedom of speech must include the right to grossly offend, in fact its the reason for freedom of expression to exist. When someone is offended, they elect to take offense because their view their morals or values as having been insulted, however as morals and values can be "wrong" I can give examples, such as being cool with slavery or racism, they need to be rightfully offended.

Your statement that one can state what one needs to without "grossly offending" is wrong, because how someone phrases something, is not the sole source of offense, what is being said is what often offends, not how its said.

Is it somewhat annoying that freedom to offend also includes people like the as*hole referenced in the original post? Yes it is, however it's a small price to pay in order to have free expression when you actually need it. In your world, who decides what constitutes "gross offense"?

If it's public consensus, then we have an issue because, as Bertrand Russell said "Just because a belief has been widely held, is not evidence that it is not utterly absurd."

If it's up to individuals to decide, then we have an even bigger issue, because while it may offend certain groups within the Islamic faith to have cartoons drawn of their prophet, it offends the hell out of me that a cartoonist now have to live with security guards for the rest of his life.

The price of freedom of expression is that once in a while we have our delicate sensibilities offended, be it by a comedian such as Lenny Bruce who was put in jail for performing at a comedy show. Be it by a zealot of a preacher who decides to burn a quran, by a woman wearing a pair of shorts that are cut off just below her navel, or by an author who writes a book.

Yeah yeah I mostly agree with all that but I don't think it's what we're really talking about in this instance - there's no ambiguity about the intent of the "jokes" about a missing child - they were intended to shock and disturb. Common sense tells us where to draw the line, if you cross that line, there are repercussions. I disagree that you can't usually phrase what you want to say without grossly offending someone - at least you can put effort in how you phrase something so as to cause minimal offence. I think so many conflicts in history have been caused by a bad choice of words and misunderstandings!

That's not my point, I don't care if you phrase it;

"Catholic Priests raped kids"
"Catholic priests molested children"
Or with Latin vernacular "No child's behind left"

It would still grossly offend a Catholic zealot. Whether or not something offends or grossly offends someone is just as much up to the person being offended as the one doing the offending. Thus there is always 2 sets or more of subjective interpretations involved in such an exchange and thus it cannot be established objectively.

The only things I'll say about "common sense" it's that it's not very common and makes very little sense.

Sure' I'm offended at the jokes too, mainly because they weren't funny and I was promised jokes.

What babies, in today's society being "offended" is worst than death. People that believe in this type of stuff are the worst totalitarians.

Well, for better or for worse, Parliament has decided that using a public electronic communications network to send a grossly offensive message is a crime. I don't think that there is any question that he sent the messages, nor that the messages were grossly offensive (by any reasonable, objective standard). So the question becomes, "is this an area where Parliament ought to have legislated?"

As a first principle we must remember that free expression is not an absolute right. There are a long list of exceptions that are pretty much universally recognized as reasonable limits on free expression:

-Incitement to violence
-libel, slander and defamation
-"fighting words" or offensive speech
-threats
-expression owned by others
-child pornography

There is also a list of exceptions to free expression that are more controversial:

-obscenity
-hate speech

If a person knows, or ought properly to know, that the expression that the person is making is likely to result in violence, then that person is properly restricted. Now, in this case, it appears clear that these postings led directly to the appearance of the mob at his door. Was this a foreseeable result? That's a question for the court, and we are little likely to have the evidence in front of us to make that judgement.

A better example would be...

"All Catholic priests rape kids!"
vs
"There is clearly a problem within the Catholic church concerning child abuse"


One is thoughtful and accurate, another is silly and untrue.

I just believe that any subject can be talked about in a calm, rational and civilised manner. I never feel the need to deliberately offend people.. but maybe I'm just idealistic.

To reductio ad absurdum you, this means that the Danish cartoonist should be penalized for drawing cartoons, the makers of the film "innocence of the muslims" likewise, as would be the case with Abe Lincoln and the slaves, Nelson Mandela and apartheid, The founding Fathers of the United States, Galileo, Joan of Arc and a whole host of other people.

And one is consistent with my argument and one is a straw man argument.

What became of the mob that went round to his house? Surely there were public order concerns regarding their behaviour?

I'm giving you an example of two different ways a person might choose to express themselves, just as you gave examples, I am entitled to as well. One is reasonable one is not (in my view). I'm simply explaining my position on the matter so you might better understand my position. People often say deliberately stupid antagonising things - you're defending their right to do so, I respect that. Myself, I don't really have the patience for it these days - people know wrong from right and if they don't.. they soon learn.