The court ruled that the actions of Isabella Sorley and John
Nimmo fell into the “grossly offensive” category when they threatened
campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez over her part in calls to put Jane Austen on $17
banknotes.
Their tweeted assertions that “I will find you” made the
harassment more credible and unnerving, and the judge accepted that the
persistent campaign had a “life-changing impact”. The pair were sentenced to
jail for their trolling, yet plenty of cases don’t make it to court.
Once just a fad,
Twitter is developing into a powerful form of communication
The difficulty in sifting the acceptable from the illegal is
that the fi ne line between “grossly offensive” and merely offensive is
subjective. While the troll who posted a homophobic tweet about diver Tom Daley
hasn’t been charged, the student who made vile remarks about footballer Fabrice
Muamba after he collapsed during a game (“LOL. F*** Muamba he’s dead!!! #Haha”)
was sentenced to two months in jail.
As much as the law, public opinion seems to dictate whether
an ill-thought-out post could see you in the dock, but it’s hard to predict
what will outrage social networks.
“Prosecutorial discretion has a big role to
play. The CPS requires action to be in the public interest, and that can be
subjective, as is what’s ‘grossly offensive’,” says Adam Rendle, an associate
with law firm Taylor Wessing. “That level of subjectivity over whether an
offence has been committed at all - where one person’s gross offence is
another’s sick humour - can make the law look silly.” Criminal action can also
be taken over posts that could incite violence or hate crimes, with the riots
of 2011 providing plenty of overtime for police, as they followed up on posts
that suggested where rioters should meet to take part in disturbances. Perry
Sutcliffe-Keenan and Jordan Blackshaw, for example, were sentenced to four
years under the Serious Crimes Act after both created Facebook events
attempting to arrange meeting points for riots. No-one except the police turned
up, but the judge still wanted to set an example.
Contempt Of Court
Court reporters are taught on their first
day in the job not to break court orders or name sex-offence victims, but on
Twitter there’s no instruction into the nuances of contempt of court.
In 2012, nine people were fined for
tweeting the name of the victim in a rape case that found footballer Ched Evans
guilty. The nine people, who pleaded guilty, all said they didn’t know that
naming sexual-assault victims was prohibited, but - as with other offences -
ignorance is no defence.
Given the instructions provided to a jury,
it’s unlikely that juror Joanne Fraill could claim ignorance when she also
faced contempt-of-court charges after contacting the defendant in a
multimillion-pound drug case via Facebook.
..contacting
the defendant in a multimillion-pound drug case via Facebook.
“Her contact with the acquitted defendant, as well as her
repeated searches on the internet, constituted flagrant breaches of the orders
made by the judge for the proper conduct of the trial,” the judge said in his
ruling.
The trial collapsed as a result of her actions, and the High
Court judge expressed his anger by handing out an eight-month prison sentence.
Defamation
While threats, harassment and incitement are criminal
matters, social media is also a rich seam of income for lawyers specialising in
defamation. Sally Bercow’s expensive run-in with Lord McAlpine - in which a
judge ruled that the wife of the House of Commons speaker had falsely accused
McAlpine of paedophilia - is perhaps the highest-profile example, but anyone
can face ruinous costs for libelling online.
In February, Alistair Dempster was hit with a $15,000 libel
damages bill for his part in a campaign against an Old Etonian who had bought
and taken over the village pub. Dempster and proprietor Christopher Horne fell
out over the running of The Bell, and Dempster took to Facebook to air his
frustration.
Alistair Dempster
was hit with a $15,000 libel damages
bill for his part in a campaign against an Old Etonian
He rebranded the pub’s Facebook page “Toad of Bellenders -
how not to run a Cotswold pub”, where Horne was repeatedly referred to as “Toad
of Toad Hall”. Things quickly got out of hand, with posters making allegations
concerning Horne’s sobriety and sexual habits; highlighting how what probably
started as a laugh among pub locals ballooned into something more costly in the
cold light of a courtroom.
