Grenfell Model Man Not Guilty

[Spicerack]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-49435117

[Spicerack]

Good.

[pixie374]

Ok, good. Not sure where the racist part came in, but glad they got the answer.

[retrocop]

Quite correct decision. Justice has been done. The prosecution evidence was flawed. End of story.
Apparently still lessons to be learnt on evidence disclosure.

[youngmafbog]

Since when has doing something in bad taste been a crime?

[Buenchico]

If "the right to free speech" is to mean anything, it must always encompass "the right to offend".

[ToraToraTora]

we he may be not guilty in the eyes of the law but he's sure guilty of being a monumental Kn0b end.

[spathiphyllum]

The UK doesn't have the right to free speech. It has a right of expression but that still has hate speech boundaries.

[davebro]

/Not sure where the racist part came in/

Some of the figures in the building model were depicted as non-white.

[Old_Geezer]

Free speech still means something even when limits are imposed. And few would support total freedom. Consequently that means someone needs to define a line, and judge if, for example, deliberately being offensive is ok.

[lankeela]

Total waste of taxpayers money. Should never have got this far.

[Mozz71]

//he may be not guilty in the eyes of the law but he's sure guilty of being a monumental Kn0b end.//

This.

[naomi24]

He's a moron - but I agree with lankeela, it is a waste of taxpayers money.

[Gromit]

He was acquitted on a technicality.
They could not be sure that the video that ended up on YouTube was shot by him or someone else. So the case against him might be an error.
It was not a victory for free speech, or the right to offend. It was a badly run investigation that failed because of sloppy treatment of the evidence. A victory against incompetence.

[New Judge]

//Some of the figures in the building model were depicted as non-white.//

That's scarcely surprising, dave, as the residents of the actual building were almost exclusively non-white. Perhaps that aspect was included because he did not include enough non-white figures.

[Deskdiary]

The Police and the CPS were too keen to obtain a conviction because of the delicacy surrounding everything about Grenfell, which resulted in them not undertaking their job properly, so it was incompetence more than anything else.

That said, I always felt very uneasy about this being brought to trial at all; it was tasteless, but where was the crime? (or was it brought under the banner of a 'hate crime', which seems to be the catch-all for offense taken nowadays).

davebro - "Some of the figures in the building model were depicted as non-white." That doesn't make it racist.

[Gromit]

// Just before Ms Arbuthnot left court to consider her verdict at the end of the two-day trial, defence barrister Mark Summers QC revealed he had just been made aware of evidence that a second video was recorded.
He argued it meant there was "absolutely no way" to know which piece of footage had made its way onto YouTube and gone viral.
Clearing Mr Bussetti, Ms Arbuthnot said she could not be sure the video used in the case was taken by him. //

If he didn’t take the offending video, then he cannot be guilty of the crime he was prosecuted for. That does not mean there was no crime, or that justice was done. It means the someone else was possibly guilty, but the prosecution was so farcical, that that person was not in Court.

[New Judge]

Of greater concern to me (far greater than whether this childish escapade gave rise to "offence") is that an acquittal was only secured by the skin of its teeth. Evidence that a second person may have possibly shot the video only arrived after both sides had closed their cases though the police knew of it for a long time. As said earlier, once again the police fell drastically short of their responsibilities to disclose all the evidence they had and not just the bits that suited their case.

[ludwig]

Still, looking on the bright side, the story and his picture's all over the internet, so everyone knows what a twawt he is.

[sanmac]

Is it nowadays considered to be a religious hate-crime to burn a effigy of Guy Fawkes?:)

[ludwig]

// Is it nowadays considered to be a religious hate-crime to burn a effigy of Guy Fawkes?:) //

Pretty much. That's why bonfire night has been slowly phased out, and Halloween has become ridiculous, like it is in the US.