INTERNET TROLLS - A LAWYER'S POINT OF VIEW

The Sunday Times must like writing large cheques to charities.

Bennett demonstrates why he was a failure as a solicitor:

"Under the current law, people who subject their victims to (1) sexually offensive,  (2) verbally abusive or  (3) threatening material on the internet can only be prosecuted in magistrates’ courts under the Malicious Communications Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of six months".

Now, if we look at Brenda Leyland's extensive record of tweets:

were they sexually offensive? - NO

were they 'threatening'? - NO

were they 'verbally abusive'? - well, that is a very very grey area of the law.

Sexually offensive? Check - accusing young women of 'peddling their arses', etc., and former PMs of paying to rape children ticks that box. As do many of her other remarks.

Threatening? Check - wanting to slap people, and fantasising about kicking in people's teeth is threatening in anyone's book, especially given her proximity to her victims, and her habit of actively going to their home town.

Verbally offensive? Check, and check again. Those nearly 5,000 tweets are just one long essay in offensiveness and threats.

Six Months, eh? What fun.

There is now a New Law up for the Vote very shortly. Two Years no less. That won't be in The Magistrate's Court. And don't even begin to imagine that it won't pass.

What a fool he is.   If his forum members believe him then they are even bigger ones.

Hounder:


I, personally, am now convinced the McCanns handed that dossier to police.

Wonder what the police investigation into Brenda's death will make of it?

And why, pray tell, would the police 'make' anything of it? I have no idea who did what dossier-handling, and am not greatly interested. No sane person would blame the McCanns for handing that pile of abuse, threats, obscene photoshopping, etc., over to the police.

But it's equally possible that the ST is being sloppy yet again - its glory days are long gone.

Yet again, in the absence of information, the McCann-haters are assuming and jumping to conclusions.

They know NOTHING about Leyland's mental state before her death. Her furious family may have made their anger at her activities, and the embarrassment she had caused them, plain. She may have been brooding about her broken marriages and estranged son, her outraged neighbours may have given her a piece of their minds - anything.

When she was talking to Brunt privately, he may have put her straight on a few of the forum myths she was convinced were Troo Facts, and she finally realised the horror of what she had been doing.

She may have had debts - we just don't know.

But in the absence of facts, the McCann-haters and hounders are yet again inventing sh*te. They would be wiser to take some time to reflect on their own roles in this tragedy, and the sheer wickedness of encouraging gullible people to believe outright lies.

They are not going to have that it was in any way their fault. Nothing ever is. They are devoid of a sense of responsibility. Which is why they ignore the second clause in The Freedom of Speech Act.

"When Madeleine first went missing she used to go over to her home village all the time. She used to go to the local pub and the shops telling everyone what she thought about the family. It seemed very odd behaviour."

So she never hounded the poor McCanns. What she did was bordering on the obsessive at the time

The haters are in total denial, muratfan. Even the inquest won't make a blind bit of difference to them - they'll just decide the coroner is IN IT and invent ever-wilder conspiracy theories, rather than face the truth about the deceased.