Mat Bowles

This brightens my day. Fundamentalist campaigner Stephen Green may have to declare bankruptcy as a result of the court case I covered last December. He has apparently asked us licence payers to cover the costs:

in the interests of goodwill and justice

Seriously. This petty little fundamentalist bigot who misused a long outdated law as part of his personal crusade against freedom of expression now wants to be let off the costs of the case in the name of "goodwill".

No Mr Green, you lost any goodwill when you continued your petty campaign long past any sensible point. You lost our goodwill when you declared your intent to appeal against the ruling in a petty and vindictive manner. You want justice Mr Green? You've got it. Pay up, the justice system demands those who bring frivolous cases pay the costs when they lose. Your own Press Release doesn't even manage to persuade me:

'It should be enough for Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday that they got away with blasphemy, insulting God and the Lord Jesus Christ, at least in this life. For these rich, powerful men to pursue me into the bankruptcy courts over money I don't have would be vindictive.'

Both sets of solicitors have also threatened to chase the donors who gave the money for the original action, but it is far from clear that a court would allow that. Even if it did, Green is adamant that he will protect the donors' identity, even if that puts him in contempt of court.

'I should go to prison rather than reveal their names, even if I could remember who they were,' he told both Thompson and Thoday.

It's no more vindictive than the way you waged your national campaign against the Opera, picketed theatres, threatened charities and called for boycotts of stores, persuading Sainsbury's and Woolworths to withdraw the DVDs out of fear of protests from your annoying coterie of fellow extremists.

You complain about the money the BBC 'wastes' on things you disapprove of (such as a Gaelic TV channel, the digital services, etc) but now want it to waste money covering the costs of your pettiness? No. You brought the case. Time to pay the piper.

For those interested, there's an online petition and a Facebook group as well.

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This post now cross-posted to Liberal Conspiracy by request.

There are some days, y'know, when the British legal system does us all proud. Two different stories today. Stripogram copper walks on offensive weapon rap | The Register:

Kennedy was dragged before the beak at Aberdeen sheriff court on the offensive weapons rap. However, Sheriff Kenneth Stewart ruled he had no case to answer.

Because arresting a strippogram for 'impersonating a police officer', being forced to drop those charges then chasing him for something else is a really good use of resources. But, much more importantly. BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Springer opera court fight fails:

two senior judges at the High Court said the 1968 Theatres Act prevented any prosecution for blasphemy in relation to public performances of plays - and the 1990 Broadcasting Act prevented any prosecution in relation to broadcasts.

They said it was reasonable to conclude Jerry Springer - The Opera "in context" could not be considered as blasphemous, as it was not aimed at Christianity, but was a parody of the chat show genre.

That's right, the courts have told "Christian" Voice director Stephen Green to go fuck himself--and this has to be a good thing, his extremist nonsense gives sensible people of faith a really bad name. More context on him and his censorship campaign at an old post of mine.