KEEP QUIET OR FACE ARREST
Peter Hitchens on how the law
is being used to curb free speech — and thought
LIKE the canaries in coalmines that fell from their perches at the earliest whiff of poison gas, eccentrics and outsiders are the first to suffer when intolerance grows and repressive conformism spreads. Such people can easily be isolated by mockery or contempt. They do not trim their views diplomatically to suit the occasion. Thus they are more likely than most to attract the attentions of would-be thought police. But what can happen to them can eventually happen to you, too. And that is why those in favour of liberty and democracy should be supporting the unlikely cause of Harry Hammond, a 69-year-old sufferer from Asperger's Syndrome who likes to preach the Gospel in the open air of Bournemouth, whether anyone is listening to him or not.
Mr Hammond was prosecuted last month with the special zeal that our criminal-justice system reserves for the law-abiding types who fall into its clutches. He was fined £300, plus £395 costs, by Wimborne magistrates' court after they convicted him for breaching the Public Order Act of 1986. This made it an offence to display any writing, sign or other visible representation that is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm and distress thereby. Mr Hammond's crime was to display a placard — now destroyed by order of the bench — on which was written: 'Stop immorality. Stop homosexuality. Stop lesbianism.' Plainly this message was annoying to some. But the Tory MPs who passed this law might be surprised that such sentiments are now legally classified as threatening, abusive or insulting, or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.
As Mr Hammond hoisted his six-word manifesto in the centre of town on a busy Saturday last October, a small crowd gathered round him, partly hecklers but mostly curious onlookers. The hecklers were rough with him. A young woman tried to tug the placard from his hands. During this tussle, Mr Hammond fell flat on his back and had to be helped to his feet by security guards from a nearby shop. Soon afterwards, Mr Hammond's enlightened liberal critics flung clods of earth at him, one striking him on the chest and one on the head. Another of these campaigners for tolerance crept up behind Mr Hammond and emptied a bottle of water over his bald cranium. It seems to have been a rather nasty case of spiteful and cowardly bullying, indulged in by arrogant and unkind young people with no respect for the old and no pity for a bemused and besieged fellow-creature.
Yet when the police were called, it was Mr Hammond who was arrested. There had, you see, been complaints from homosexuals about the placard. One of the objectors was Sean Tapper, an articulate and intelligent young man who saw the words as a personal attack on his way of life. He stresses that he had nothing to do with the attacks on Mr Hammond, but justifies his complaint by saying. 'I don't personally feel myself to be immoral.' He thinks that Mr Hammond's views could lead to violence against homosexuals. He is unmoved by arguments that the placard did not use inflammatory language and referred to homosexuality, which is behaviour, rather than homosexuals, who are people.
Mr Hammond's case may well be the most bizarre arrest in the history of English policing, since the two officers involved disagreed over what to do. A more experienced male constable, Wayne Elliott, thought that Mr Hammond should be protected. His younger female colleague, Nicola Gandy, thought that he should be taken in. Her view prevailed, but at the trial the two officers — incredibly — gave evidence on opposite sides, PC Elliott appearing for the defence, while PC Gandy spoke for the prosecution. PC Gandy has since defended her actions by saying, 'He was provoking and inciting violence with highly inappropriate behaviour. My agenda was to try to maintain the peace. I was not very impressed with Mr Hammond's conduct. I don't think he is a very good representative of the Christian faith.'
The quarrel between the two constables neatly sums up the difference between the old law, which was concerned about what people did, and the new one, which is far too interested in what people think and say. Mr Hammond's story recalls the 1999 case of Mr George Staunton, a 79-year-old war veteran who went out one night and painted two slogans on the wall of a condemned building in Toxteth. They said 'Free Speech for England' and 'Remember the 1945 War'. He was arrested and charged with racially aggravated criminal damage, a worrying insight into what the police now classify as racially prejudiced sentiment. But in his case the charges were dropped before they ever came to court. Mr Hammond was not so lucky, and must now wait many months before an appeal can be heard. Nor is there any guarantee that an increasingly left-wing bench of judges will find in his favour. In his case, the Human Rights Act proved as useless in the defence of traditional views as it is useful in advancing radical ones. It may well be the law of England that if your spoken or written beliefs might irritate a passing homosexual, it is illegal to express them.
Imagine the effect that such a law would have. If condemnation of an action is deemed to be insulting to anyone who does that action, then almost all absolute morality is outlawed. Those who write about such issues, as I do, often receive censorious letters claiming that our articles have insulted the writer. No matter that we have never heard of this individual and have made a general statement about unmarried mothers, employment quotas, homosexuality or whatever it is. These sensitive people have all taken it personally. This conveniently means that they do not have to argue their case. It also means that a legitimate opinion about a type of behaviour is magically transmuted into so-called hate-speech, so offensive to certain persons that it is likely to provoke them to fury. The implication is that it ought not to have been said or written. Such attitudes are already in power on most British university campuses, where the sexual-liberation lobby has almost completely silenced its opponents and where student-union officials have been known to unplug the microphones of speakers who transgress their speech codes.
Did you really think that freedom and democracy would be dismantled by people who openly declared that they wanted censorship and tyranny? The new totalitarianism comes robed in righteous outrage, but it still holds a gag in its hand.
Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday.
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