Letters From A Tory Daily views on British politics and the Conservative Party from a centre-right thinker who writes letters on his blog to politicians, journalists and many others.

Dear BBC,

Your anti-fascist agenda is thinly veiled these days and your delight at the jail sentences handed out to two rather unsavoury individuals yesterday was obvious enough.  What you failed to realise, however, was that these jail terms demonstrated how seriously the free speech of British citizens is now being curbed.

In a landmark case, neo-Nazis Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle are the first Britons to be convicted of inciting racial hatred via a foreign website, having printed leaflets and controlled websites in the US featuring racist material, for which Sheppard was jailed for 4 years, 10 months and Whittle for 2 years, 4 months.  The court heard the investigation into the pair began when a complaint about an anti-Semitic comic book called Tales of the Holohoax was made to the police in 2004 after it was pushed through the door of a synagogue in Blackpool, Lancashire. It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard, 51, a former BNP organiser kicked out of the far-right party after he was jailed in 2000 for distributing a racially inflammatory election leaflet.  The spotlight fell on the publishing activities of Sheppard,  from North Yorkshire, whose online ramblings took in a hatred of women and a morbid fixation with cannibalism.  But a police investigation discovered that his prime motivation was racism and he dedicated himself to producing what prosecutors called “obnoxious and abhorrent” books, pamphlets and web pages.  On his website, Sheppard employed Whittle, 42, from Lancashire, as a columnist under a pseudonym.  Although their vitriol was variously directed at black, Asian and other non-whites, most of the material was anti-Semitic.  One leaflet claimed that Auschwitz had been a holiday camp provided by a benevolent Nazi regime for Europe’s Jewish population.  Another story was illustrated with photographs of dead Jews. Sheppard also wrote that Holocaust victim Anne Frank’s diary was “evil”. 

Reviewing lawyer Mari Reid, of the Crown Prosecution Service’s counter-terrorism division, said members of the public were entitled under the law to hold racist and extreme views, but ”what they are not entitled to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner either intending to stir up racial hatred or in circumstances where it is likely racial hatred will be stirred up.”  The defence put up by Sheppard and Whittle was pretty tame.  They argued that the online material did not fall under the jurisdiction of UK law because Sheppard’s site was hosted on servers in California, and I’m glad that was ignored.  The defence’s claim that their writings were merely satirical also got thrown out.  Sheppard was found guilty of 11 offences and Whittle was found guilty of five offences back in July 2008 while Sheppard was found guilty of a further five charges in January 2009.  Ironically, before the jury in the first trial could return verdicts, both men with a racist past fled to Los Angeles International airport and attempted to claim political asylum. 

More than anything else, this story emphasises to me why ‘inciting hatred’ laws are so dangerous.  These two men are complete idiots for sure, and their views on Auschwitz and goodness knows what else are unbelievable – but why should it be against the law for these men to express such views?  Mari Reid from the CPS tried to claim that they were entitled to their views but couldn’t publish or distribute them because it was “likely racial hatred will be stirred up” – what does that even mean?  Because someone might be offended, they cannot express their opinions?  Because other people don’t agree with their opinions, they must therefore be silenced?  How utterly shameful and what a damning indictment of this country.  Introducing ‘hatred’ laws, be it on religion, race or homosexuality, is just avoiding the problem.  These people hold such outrageously stupid opinions because we as a society are not tackling the ignorance that fosters these views.  Trying to legislate against what people think will never, ever, ever solve the underlying problem, which is that we are failing to educate people properly and create a tolerant, integrated society.

You can make a song and dance about how wonderful it is that these evil woman-hating Nazi-loving fascists have gone to jail, but believe me when I say that there are thousands more people of a similar ilk out there, and more will keep appearing unless we stop pretending that you pass a law to make these people disappear.  Just like political parties holding views that you disagree with, you have to tackle the problem head on and challenge what they believe in instead of burying their opinions in the hope that no-one else will find out.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory