We have all seen the TV shows, and felt with both sides of the Victorian houses that had an upstairs and downstairs in London, places like Downton Abbey or were merely in Brideshead and we decided to revisit them. Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery, Brendan Coyle, Jim Carter, Maggie Smith, Jeremy Irons, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Ian Ogilvy and Anthony Andrews. Some of the biggest stars have been identified and idolised with this Victorian era view, some even in more than one of these series. We have felt for the high side and the low side, yet in all these times, there was always a feel of justice and acceptance for both sides. So why on earth the utter idiocy and non-acceptable acts of Lord Philipps, 4th Viscunt St Davids (pun with the additional missing ‘right’ and ‘honourable’ intended) Rhodri Colwyn Philipps decided to state “£5,000 for the first person to ‘accidentally’ run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant.” on social media is completely beyond me. I myself have been mostly outspoken in favour of Brexit, yet that does not take away the right of any Bremainer to voice their issues. Now I admit that plenty of those do not really voice it that clear, complete or correct. Yet it is still their right and of course those who fail to make the decent point will work in my Brexit favour and I was on the fence for the longest of time. It was the voice of Mark Carney in the House of Lords who got me from Brexit and moved me towards neutral on the fence. In the end the lack of insightfulness by Mario Draghi as he decided to print a trillion euro’s and wantonly spend it on no one knows what pushed me clearly back into the Brexit field. These issues all matter, because anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller had every right to campaign for her Bremain conviction. In all this, we might also ask a few questions regarding senior district judge Emma Arbuthnot at this point. That is based on the following in the article we see the quote “Mine includes, torturing Tony Blair, Hilary Clinton, Isis, Dave (PM) the forgettable, Murdoch … Oh and that hideous jumped up immigrant Gina Miller.“, which was the one that was found racially aggravating. Yet when we see the other responses, like “Please will someone smoke this ghastly insult to our country? Why should I pay tax to feed these monkeys? A return to Planet of the Apes is not acceptable” another vocal attack on Gina Miller. Now, the judge found that this was not menacing and acquitted Lord Phillips of the charge related to that post. So in this case let’s take a step back to the 14th of march when we see (at https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/14/face-off-mps-and-social-media-giants-online-hate-speech-facebook-twitter), where we see “Social Media companies including Twitter, Facebook and Google have come under pressure from MPs for failing to take tougher action to tackle hate speech online” so as we see people like Yvette Cooper taking cheap shots at technological complicated issues to get a few easy points before the election, it seems that in regards to Gina Miller, UK’s little Yvette seems to be either really really quiet, or the media decided just to not take notice of her. Is that not weird too? It is all a little too sanctimonious to me.
Another post from this Lord Thingamajig was “I will open the bidding. £2,000 in cash for the first person to carve Arnold Sube into pieces, piece of shit” which was seen by her honour to be ‘menacing’ but not ‘racially aggravated’. Let’s take you through the legality. In the assault side we see ‘the actus reus of assault is committed when one person causes another to apprehend or fear that force is about to be used to cause some degree of personal contact and possible injury. There must be some quality of reasonableness to the apprehension on the part of the victim‘. So this is supposedly a lord, a wealthy man and for all intent and purpose an intolerable buffoon (read: legally speaking a man who is not very nice). In support I offer R v Ireland [1997] 3 WLR 534, “The defendant made a series of silent telephone calls over three months to three different women. He was convicted under s.47 Offences against the Person Act 1861. He appealed contending that silence cannot amount to an assault and that psychiatric injury is not bodily harm“, yet in social media, empty screens have no value and the specific part “Holroyd J. to a jury that “no words or singing are equivalent to an assault”: Meade’s and Belt’s case 1 (1823) 1 Lew. C.C. 184” could also give rise that poetry and prose within social media texts could carry the same weight, allowing for less defence by the defending abuser on social media, especially if that person would try to rely on some obscure dark comedy aspect. In addition to the earlier given, as the quote included ‘£2,000 in cash for the first person‘ making it a contest (read: race to the target) and here we see again in the case R v Ireland [1997] 3 WLR 534 the issue given as ‘to fear an immediate application of force‘ now comes into play with £2,000 and with 20,000 dimes it would become anyone’s dime to relieve economic hardship, which is overwhelming to many people in the UK.
Although he has been found guilty, it seems to me that as he was acquitted from some parts. Yet these parts are part of a whole, this whole is not just his mere right of communication, it is the abusive approach he makes in all this and as such in the Mens Rea part we need to find that ‘in contact to the other and that contact was caused either intentionally or recklessly‘, well it seems to me that the published texts clearly shows the reckless part, which is evidently seen by thousands if not millions of others. Although the precise places were not given to me, a case could be made that it could have been intentional. You see, some were responses to categories. I am guessing that the ‘naughty ideas on orgasm‘ were in some ‘girly’ page or a given section on sex in for example the Guardian, as such it will be hard to prove that there was ‘intent’, yet reckless had already been established and that was enough.
In all of this there is no given defence. The options offered by the accused on the matter like “It’s not for first generation immigrants to behave the way Gina Miller did” is one I can immediately counter. She is a resident of the UK, a legal one (which has no influence), as such she has a freedom of speech, a freedom of opinion and a right to be politically aligned in any direction. As I stated, I am in opposition of her Bremain view, but it remains a valid view, whether right or wrong is in the eyes of the beholder. In her eyes I am the one with the wrong view on ‘Brexit v Bremain’. In the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/11/man-jail-offering-money-run-over-gina-miller-rhodri-philipps-viscount-brexit) that started all this is also the quote “The judge added: “To some who don’t know you they would perceive the offers of bounty as menacing.”“, her honour seems to step over the issue that there were two money offering events as such there is a pattern, in the second there is the issue that in this economic day and age there is the risk that too many people would take a member of the aristocracy at their word, as such these were two oral contracts towards establishing a criminal act. The fact that I see no mention of this is actually a larger issue. In this we see a lot more at revolvy.com (not sure about the source at present regarding correctness of data). Here we see that he holds half a dozen titles, all inherited. In addition we see “Following a complaint made in November 2016, Philipps was arrested in January 2017 by Metropolitan Police officers investigating online abuse against a 51-year-old woman. In March 2017 he was charged with malicious communications with racially aggravated factors, over alleged threats against Gina Miller, the woman behind a successful legal challenge against the UK government’s intention to give notice to leave the European Union without an act of parliament“, this implies that Rhodri Philipps is an optional repeat offender, a fact that the Guardian did not make mention of.
So as I seem to have wrapped that up neat and decently tight, it seems that any upcoming article on Twitter social media and online hate speech should be thrown in the faces of any MP (literally throw that paper into their faces I mean), with the mention that unless they are a lot more consistent in their actions and silence regarding Gina Miller, they should shut the ‘eff’ up and start doing something useful for a living.
The other part that irritates me a little is the sterility of the event as the article shows. Now, from the Guardian points of view that makes sense, the reality is that this is an emotional situation and as such emotions will run high soon as such it makes sense. In addition, there is nothing wrong with the article that Julia Gregory wrote, yet the fact that I got a lot more issues, events and facts in front of me in about 5 minutes gives rise that the lack of illumination of acts that several papers show in the last 6 months regarding Rhodri Philipps, the 4th Viscount St Davids give rise to a loosely translated ‘structural problem’ with this person and the way how he communicates. Now as stated before we all have the freedom of speech and expression, which is not in question, yet this person bankrupt three times, another implied pending case as well as.
We will hear tomorrow what the man has coming, I wonder if it will be another suspended sentence like in Germany, if that is so that the House of Lords would need to take a sitting on the situation and discuss whether a Viscount should be allowed to hold his title when there is the larger consideration that it allows the person to evade jail sentences. We can all agree that any person, living upstairs or downstairs in the mansion has rights to speak and sometimes is might be grammatically correct, yet it is a lot less refined that that of a London Dockworker; these moments do occur (we all have these issues, especially during a sports match), yet as it is seen in repetition, should a person in such an elevated position of privilege not be held to higher standards? If so, should he be allowed to keep all those titles? In the end the House of Lords would rule against my request, yet it is important to hold that conversation. Merely because this is not some revamping of words and an edited view of some interview, these are the words that he submitted to social media, ready to be seen by thousands and more. In his case we get an actual first that in the consideration of upstairs, downstairs that he is the one who should reside in the basement and the staff members on the first flow, sleeping in a lovely bedroom with a nice view.
To be regarded in high esteem is one thing, to actually live up to it, quite another. In all that it seems to me that Rhodri Colwyn Philipps, 4th Viscount St Davids failed on every level possible, that might be seen as an accomplishment, yet is it the one we should allow for?
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 