Quote of the day
“Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
- a ‘tweet’ from Paul Chambers, 26, when heavy snowfall recently threatened to scupper his travel plans. Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn’t see the funny side. A week after posting the message on Twitter, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat. After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and has, he says, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. “I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post. I’m the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine.” He has been bailed until 11th February, when he will be told whether or not he will be charged with conspiring to create a bomb hoax. In the interim, detectives have confiscated his iPhone, laptop and home computer. (full story HERE)
Section 44 misused again? What a surprise..
I think ‘brain cells misused again’ would be more accurate.
I’m not sure the police in this case have any brain cells, LfaT. Or if they have them, they aren’t using them…
There are places in this world where he may not have seen daylight again for years.
Obviously a joke and obviously a sense of humour failure on the part of the police.
Face it, a real terrorist is not about to tweet to the world (knowing he can be traced) that he’s going to blow up Doncaster airport.
“Robin Hood Airport” … Ahhh brings back childhood memories from when it used to be RAF Finningley & the wonderful Air Shows held there ..
The problem now appears to be that anyone in the Police caught in possession of a sense of humour runs the risk of being severely dealt with ..
Sheesh, LFAT, two tricky ones in one day!
Seems to me that crucial in this silly affair is the EFFECT that the Twitter had. That is to say, did the cops really, really believe it and spend loads of time and resources on it (likely offence of wasting police time)? Was there a genuine security scare at the airport similarly necessitating expenditure/resources? Were people at any point genuinely put in fear? If so, I can see that some sort of sanction may be appropriate.
I must say it’s easy nowadays to come across words or actions which the originator finds oh-so-funny that, in fact, others find tedious and distinctly unfunny. And when things go belly up, how often do we hear bleated, ‘I was only joking’?
If it were merely the case that some Jobsworth was offended or the cops were just arse-covering, then that’s a different case again.
And there’s also the question of proportionality. When it’s ascertained that the perpetrator of a crap ‘joke’ is not in fact a terrorist, and only Jobsworth was offended. Maybe we’re in slap-on-wrist-territory.
At the end of the day we need to know ALL the circumstances.
However, how about this one? You’re at 35,000 feet and one of two lusty guys has had a G & T too many but you don’t know this. He gets up and, for a ‘joke’, shouts out that he’s got a bomb and is going to blow up the plane. Or he leaves a note in the toilet saying the same thing; take your pick. It all ends up he says he was only joking. Do you:-
a) slap him on the shoulder, saying, ‘You’re a card, you got me there’, or,
b) hope and expect that the authorities will throw the book at him in due course?
Remember, you now know he was joking.
Or am I just getting old?
Should the authorities throw the book at the man in Talwin’s example?
Yes. He’s on the plane, his behaviour is rowdy and out of control. Those are offences. When the plane lands, he should be charged.
But we’re talking about someone not at the airport, not talking to the airport or anyone in it, and a week later, the authorities swing into action, arrest him and remove his equipment and his published words all because they can.
I know which I find most frightening…
Maybe naming the airport after Robin Hood wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Remember the assassination of the Mountbattens? It could never happen in Ireland.
Remember 9/11? It could never happen in America.
Remember 7/7? It could never happen in the UK.
If I was still in uniform, I would be daily shitting bricks and hoping it didn’t happen on my watch because the UK has more than it’s fair share of loonies, f***wits and oddballs.
And…….
I’m supposed to know, beyond all reasonable doubt, that some infantile loser is making a joke with a threatening twit?
Remember that, as the IRA said to Baroness Thatcher “You have to be lucky every time- we have to be lucky once.
ME? I’d rather that 100 reality-challenged Chambers had a seriously hard time than one person died from an IED placed at an Airport.
@JuliaM – Of my (admittedly pretty poor comparison) comment about the aircraft ‘joke’. You say, ‘These are offences. When the plane lands, he should be charged’. I’m almost certain that threats to cause an explosion are also a specific offence.
However my main feeling in all this is that Chambers’ joke at the most basic level is just plain unfunny. And that he did it ‘to amuse his friends’, is thinly disguised, post hoc arse-covering.
Next month I shall fly from Manchester and Heathrow airports. If poor weather or, more likely, BA strikes cause my flights to be delayed or cancelled shall I, to amuse my friends, post a message somewhere saying that I’m going to blow up an airport or, perhaps, for a bit of originality, kidnap Willie Walsh’s wife (assuming he has one)? Will others join in by sharing my friends’ amusement?
Do I think Chambers is a terrorist? No, not now. Do I think he is an insufferable pratt? For sure. But at any stage did my sides split at what he did? And, honestly, did any one else’s?
How would blowing up the airport assist him with the snow?