Not much.
Not much.
Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer
Only one way to find out...
Another one ...
Struggling to see the harm in that one with the media not quoting what the message was. Again, would have fallen under old harassment laws before then probably.
Seems the accused suggested that the driver was to blame for killing himself and two of his friends:
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The abusive post said the driver in the fatal A10 crash near Hoddesdon, Jack Boyton, who worked at Faces nightclub in the town, was to blame for his own death and those of Ashley Jones, 19, and Harry Ferrand, 17.
...
The offensive post made reference to specific details of the Friday November 9 crash which the author claimed he had heard from a Herts firefighter who attended the scene.
A spokesman for Herts Fire and Rescue Service said: “As the facts are yet to be established and there is an ongoing police investigation, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”
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Perhaps the driver was to blame. Perhaps he wasn't. Either way, I cannot see such idle speculation being an arrestable offence without the Malicious Communications silliness.
Seriously? One post on a public forum is harassment?
Hope is the denial of reality
Again its difficult to judge without seeing what was posted.
No, not really. Unless he was threatening violence against these people, he has the right to say what he wants. Harassment entails a pattern of behavior.
Hope is the denial of reality
No it does not, harassment requires by definition just 2 (or more) instances of a behaviour - and it doesn't have to be threatening (if a behaviour is threatening then it requires just 1 instance to be prosecutable). Its quite possible there were two posts in which case that'd cross the threshold to be eligible for prosecution under harassment laws.
Again its hard to judge without having seen the posts, like jumping to conclusions over the Tom Daley one earlier in the year where the media reported just a snippet and didn't report the death threats initially.
What the fuck is wrong with the UK legal system?
So you can say something on Facebook that bothers people twice and you are violating the law?
I don't know the details of the crash but most "accidents" have an element of driver error. Almost every accident has assigned blame to one party or the other (and even both) in accidents involving multiple vehicles.
The law on harassment predates Facebook and has nothing to do with the Malicious Communications Act, which is used for online-related issues. The threshold in law for Harassment is two instances of something done to cause offense.
I know, but I've expressed beefs before with the UK's low standard for libel and harassment. Combined with the Malicious Communications Act seems to make an even more lethal stew.
That's a disturbingly low threshold.
Indeed. It's very worrying.
How many times do you think the minimum threshold should be in law?
Remember too that the most likely first outcome for Police involvement in this situation is a telling off or a caution, not imprisonment or fines. We don't even imprison people who break into homes.I've been harassed before - called the Police eventually when they started harassing my fiancee too - and the Police dealt with it efficiently: They went to the other parties address and asked them to stop. They did. Having Police turn up on your doorstep asking you to cut it out will most times probably resolve the problem. There was no prosecution but it stopped and that should be enough for a start when most times I suspect its just general idiocy rather than criminal intent.
I'm guessing your harassment wasn't the odd post on your facebook page though.
No it wasn't. But even if it was, an informal chat would IMO be a preferable first step most of the time I suspect than either "its out of our hands" or arrests.
I was once on the other end of it and got a call from the Police. Rather sad but I fell out in a big style with Amanda's sister's boyfriend a few years ago. The sister called Amanda one day and started abusing her, so I sent abusive text messages back. This continued back and forth then she went to the Police with my texts I'd sent. The officer called me and said she'd rather not get involved so could we stop now. I did and two years later I've still never spoken to her again since. Amanda's started to reconcile with her sister thankfully now but her sisters now-husband and I still haven't got involved. Again I think a "cool down" chat was possibly the best outcome for all concerned at the time.
Sounds like the sister is a twat.
And I'm in the USA Coppers! Stick that in your Malicious Commnications Jackboots!
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She is. Though her husband is worse. They probably say the same about me to be fair though. The irony is we were friends before I'd even met Amanda.
This sounds like a job for self control, hanging up the phone, Caller ID, and not answering! Or if you have the service, blocking communication.
. . .
It should require a sustained pattern of abuse directed at the victim and intended to cause some type of psychological harm, after the victim has expressed a desire for it to end. Even then, the only possible punishment should be a restraining order, and any more serious punishments should be attached to violation of that order. I'm not including threats of violence or physical abuse here.
It's not extremely comforting if the police sometimes just let people off with a warning if they still have the option to arrest a person and toss them in jail for two mean statements.
That's not what it says.
I'm mainly going off what you've told me, and what I've seen in this thread. A quick check told me that in the UK harassment can carry up to 6 months of jail time, and you've told me:
Is the threshold something different now?The threshold in law for Harassment is two instances of something done to cause offense.
Well, he wasn't non-white, but when the husband of the Queen died, within 50 minutes you could find posts online that people were fed up with the excessive attention for it on TV.
The threshold in the UK for getting the police involved seems ridiculously low. In Holland you need at least to threaten somebody or write something that can be considered an incitement of violence against people.
Congratulations America
The standard in Britain is having a single bureaucrat believe that a single person in the country might get offended.
Hope is the denial of reality
Well here it's got to be something to the tune of 'Somebody should take care of XXXX' or 'I'm getting ready to shoot up .... '. Merely saying something offensive about somebody is not enough en even libel alone isn't enough, there has to be harmful intent.
I am 100% certain saying something nasty about a person in a contest on TV does not get you the police on your doorstep.
Congratulations America
I'm not sure what you mean by "abusive" here -- I don't imagine you were threatening anyone, were you? Because without a threat, it's hard to imagine how it's harassment to exchange some texts with your girlfriend's sister in an argument justifies police involvement.
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This is the law we're talking about and it's pretty scary to me.
The police got involved because of an exchange of nasty messages between you and your girlfriend's sister?
Congratulations America
No the Police didn't get involved. She went to them and I got a call saying "we don't want to get involved can this stop please".
The problem with the law (and why I opposed it before it went through) is that it should be ok if the bar to "indecent or grossly offensive" is set very high. Too often merely potentially offensive things are getting caught in it though which was inevitable.
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