Tasteless, disrespectful, mindless but is it really a crime worth police involvement?

How come no-one gets arrested in Lewes? They burn a wide range of effigies every year.

Erm.. Lewes is in the leafy South Downs, Grenfel is in a shitty part of LunDun.

Think the answers there TBH.

Totally disrespectful to those that lost thier lives/homes/possessions/lifestyles.

Don’t think the perps GAS though, even handing themselves into Plod does nothing to mitigate the anger/angst of those affected.

Because the Lewes effigy burnings aren’t massively racist?

Please show some respect for those who lost their lives.  Comparing them to effigies – really?

Poor taste in the extreme but I can’t see how the Police can prove ‘intent’ which is required by Section 4A of the Public Order Act.

Disrespectful and indeed tasteless. Not quite sure if it is a matter for the law.

I was burnt in effigy once on YouTube (true story).

Please show some respect for those who lost their lives. Comparing them to effigies – really?

I am not suggesting that it was in anyway correct. I just find the level of reporting surprising.

An effigy is the depiction of a person that is then burnt on a bonfire.

Because the Lewes effigy burnings aren’t massively racist?

Not racist but some are certainly bigoted.

I can’t see how the Police can prove ‘intent’ which is required by Section 4A of the Public Order Act.

a lot might revolve around the ‘Shared on Social Media’ which can be ‘shared amongst themselves’ or ‘made available to be found’ or can be something more targeted.

I was hearing on the news that the offended party had to have present at the event for it to warrant a crime. It was done at a private party. I’m sure lots of things go on at private partys that the general public wouldn’t approve of but that doesn’t make it illegal.

but is it really a crime worth police involvement?

Poor taste in the extreme but I can’t see how the Police can prove ‘intent’ which is required by Section 4A of the Public Order Act.

They can easily step down to section 5 which doesn’t require intent, but it does require you to be “in-public”, so not if sure it’s ever been used for things seen on the internet.

Seems like something under the communications act would be more appropriate?

Just bantz, innit.

I am not suggesting that it was in anyway correct. I just find the level of reporting surprising.

An effigy is the depiction of a person that is then burnt on a bonfire.

I know you’re not.  It just seems a strange comparison as the Grenfell video is reenacting actual events.

Thoughtless, poor taste, and suggests they are shit personalities, but a crime for something done in private?

I’m not keen on seeing thought crimes criminalised. Black humour has always existed.

Making them apologise in person to the survivors would be appropriate though.

Bear in mind this happened on the day when we are encouraged to publicly celebrate the grisly execution of a human, and children are dancing round a bonfire with his burning effigy.

I can see why people are upset but why are we even talking about this? surely tell them it was a daft thing to do and move on?

wasted resources.

It seems to me that we’re giving attention seekers exactly what they want.

They can easily step down to section 5 which doesn’t require intent, but it does require you to be “in-public”, so not if sure it’s ever been used for things seen on the internet.

Seems like something under the communications act would be more appropriate?

Section 5 says it has to be:

within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.

Bear in mind this happened on the day when we are encouraged to publicly celebrate the grisly execution of a human, and children are dancing round a bonfire with his burning effigy.

Yes, does seem slightly ironic….

Very hard to criminalise black humour / poor taste though, which is probably what this was.

Bear in mind this happened on the day when we are encouraged to publicly celebrate the grisly execution of a human

Firework night was set up to celebrate the Survival of the King, not the execution of Fawkes. 5th November Act 1605. If we wanted to celebrate the death of Fawkes it would be done on the Jan 31st.
<h3 class=”LC20lb”></h3>

Bear in mind this happened on the day when we are encouraged to publicly celebrate the grisly execution of a human, and children are dancing round a bonfire with his burning effigy.

well…..technically we’re celebrating the foiling of a plot to blow up parliament with all inside, and thought crime aside that does seem ironic given the esteem with which we generally hold the current inhabitants.

(also if you want to be pedantic, he cheated the executioner by falling off the scaffold and breaking his neck, thus avoiding the proper grisly disembowelling and having your balls set on fire bit, but that’s just one of the more irrelevant details I remember from history 30 years ago)

This sums it up.

People who make flammable models to face higher standard of justice than people who make flammable flats

I have seen worse jokes from Frankie Boyle, bad taste maybe, but should we ask everyone who has made a joke in poor taste at a private event apologise to those affected?

I say dry your eyes princess and move on.

Massively disrespectful and very poor taste but not a crime.

If this somehow does get considered a crime then the UK is in a very dark place.

Excellent linkage from Drac there.

Excellent linkage from Drac there.

+1

I think it’s bad taste what they did which isn’t wrong in its own way the mistake was it appearing in social media. Bad taste jokes sometimes need to be private.

A quick morality check

Too many people getting their knickers in a twist.  Yes it was bad taste etc etc.

But did it really need the Prime Minister to make a statement on it or for it to even make the national news…

One has to wonder what bad news they’re trying to bury today, maybe something about a referendum?

In poor taste? yes

funny? no

need to involve the police and post it to every media outlet we can find? come on, people need to get a grip on themselves. Thank god there are no time machines, because the amount of sick jokes that went round school the day after terrible tragedies when I were a lad would have amounted to public executions today…….then someone would have made a joke about it.

They were pretty stupid to post the video to social media, but everyone has to be famous

If it was a mini-Bradford stadium

Or a mini-Hillborough

Or a mini-helicopter-falling-onto-a-Glasgow pub

Or a mini-Heysel

Or a mini-Omagh

Or a mini-Enniskillin

What would people be saying?  Bloody snowflakes.

the mistake was it appearing in social media.

In which case prosecute the BBC who bought this to a massive audience.

This kind of shite is only going to drive ordinary people more and more to the right.

You are all in a very understanding mood this afternoon.

It’s disgusting behaviour and tasteless, but police involvement???

Seems legit to run over a cyclist and lie about it, barely getting a mention on the news, but to offend people, well that’s just criminal….🙄

Personally I’d just name and shame then, I think that’s sufficient. But the idea that this was done only in private is a bit wrong, soon as that gets posted to social media it becomes the public domain, hence interest from the police etc. Which given it’s likely and predictable profile after the social media post, the police have to be looking like they are doing something. It’s how the illusion of the justice system works.

The perpetrators seem to be from the Croydon area. The irony being that they burnt their own town just a few years back.

I see that the Metro has named, shamed and posted photos of them, their house and cars. Which doesn’t seem all that wise a move.

As for prosecuting them – interesting to see where that goes. More saddening is that there are knuckle draggers like this in society, proud to be post such like online. At what point would that have seemed like a good idea?

First news item on R4, then 25mins later an item about 16yo boy stabbed to death in South London, so the police resources are getting diverted from real crime to deal with this crap 😞

I haven’t bothered to watch the video but the impression I got from the media reporting was it was done in a deliberately racist way, rather than just being in bad taste. If actually the video isn’t blatantly racist then this is waste of police time

The irony of this story is that no one would have been offended by this video (which is utterly abhorent and must be deeply upsetting to the survivors) had the media not shared the video. It was originally posted in a Whatsap group so was encrypted and private but someone in that group decided to leak it.

The reference to the Bradford fire is notable because if you recall, Bernard Manning made a jokle about it (not inviting me to your BBQ) and got ripped to shreds for it by the press (and rightly so). He didn’t get arrested though.

So now the police are searching their bins and their houses. But they haven’t been charged.

Shame there wasn’t this kind of Budget when my mate has his bike nicked and literally lead to Police to the stolen bike in the house of the guy selling it… Sadly there was no budget for doing anything about that.

I’m all for harassing people who have done bad things but haven’t broken the law, but can we do that *after* all the criminals have been caught?