In a shocking disregard for freedom of expression, Neil Phillips from Rugeley, Staffordshire, was arrested last week after he made tasteless jokes about Nelson Mandela on the internet. Or was he?
In a shocking disregard for freedom of expression, Neil Phillips from Rugeley, Staffordshire, was arrested last week after making tasteless jokes about Nelson Mandela on the internet.
Or so the Daily Mail reported last Thursday.
A sandwich shop owner endured eight hours of questioning by police and had his computer seized for three weeks – after making tasteless Nelson Mandela jokes on the internet.
Neil Phillips, who runs Crumbs in Rugeley, Staffordshire, says he was also finger-printed and DNA-swabbed after officers received complaints about what he insists were harmless gags.
In one online post, the 44-year-old wrote: ‘My PC takes so long to shut down I’ve decided to call it Nelson Mandela.’
Mandela, the former South African leader, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, died on Thursday, aged 95.
He said: ‘It was an awful experience. I was fingerprinted, they took DNA and my computer.
‘It was a couple of jokes, Bernard Manning type.
‘There was no hatred.”
Poor Mr Phillips.
In reality, however, Neil Phillips was not arrested for making online wise cracks about the former South African President and anti-apartheid hero at all. Rather, a complaint was made to the police about him for hate speech which was directed toward local Muslims.
According to the man who reported Mr Phillips to the police, Nelson Mandela was mentioned, but was not central to the complaint made against Mr Phillips.
Below is a copy of the letter of complaint sent to the police.
And here are a few examples are why the complaints were made.
The only ‘joke’ the Mail noticed:
This wasn’t the only inaccuracy in the Mail’s piece. Further down the article we read the following:
“Mr Phillips admitted to once being a member of the far-right BNP, but quit 25 years ago.”
Unfortunately for the Mail and Mr Phillips this also isn’t true, as a local newspaper clipping from 1999 attests. In a letter to the Rugeley Mercury from 1999, Mr Phillips boasted that the BNP were “growing in Rugely and here to stay”.
“…we are receiving excellent support from our fellow residents,” Mr Phillips added.
Contrary to what he told the Daily Mail, then, Mr Phillips did not leave the BNP 25 years ago – he was still a member 14 years ago and perhaps even later.
So it was less a case of ‘man locked up for Mandela jokes’, and more ‘lying ex-BNP member questioned after allegedly making string of anti-muslim online remarks’.
This is not to say that Mr Phillips’ arrest wasn’t rather illiberal, just that the original story by the Mail was wildly inaccurate.
Not like the Mail to get the basic facts wrong on a story now, is it?
30 Responses to “The man who wasn’t actually arrested for joking about Nelson Mandela”
Flaming Fairy
Did I say it was OK?
Nope. It’s just not that important in this instance. Making unpleasant remarks about Muslims online should not lead to arrest. THAT is far more important
TM
To the Middle class on the Left and Right, the white Working class are now the ‘enemy within’, there to be despised for all being supposedly racist and despised for not being as cultured and as sophisticated and as privileged as they are. The Left patronise us and want to lead us, and the Right want to obliterate us and turn us into cheap labour or the very reason for their policies, as being that we are all chavs and workshy and drunken louts and, well you’ve probably heard about all that in the Daily Mail. The Middle class have hatred and contempt for the Working class for a number of reasons. First they exploit us and contribute to the culture of low wages and dead end jobs by staying silent so they can prosper themselves, tacitly accepting the tax evasion of the rich. Then, to assuage their Middle class guilt at the policies of empire, they become all loving towards black people and Asian people and immigrants, to prove how non racist they all are (pathologically obsessed with the old non racist bit aren’t they?) which translates as anyone non white being able to do anything racist or unpleasant against white people, and somehow not being racist or unpleasant at the same time?!! It’s magic!!! And the real agenda has nothing to do with black rights or Muslim rights, it is really to turn the poor whites here against the poor ethnic minorities like they have in the US, so that we are preoccupied with each other and don’t notice the Middle class carving out the best careers, housing, education and general life chances for themselves, whilst the rest of us, of whatever ethnicity, fight over the crumbs and turn our frustrations on each other. That is the real agenda folks. It is as cynical and as insipid as that. That’s why I am not taken in by Left or Right. They are all largely a part of the same system.
DaveAtherton20
Strawman argument. Tim Jones abused his status as a Councillor and barrister to get his collar felt. No wonder he was not charged.
DaveAtherton20
TM I think you make some good points here. The left’s hypocrisy is the most gut wrenching.
Trofim
Hate speech? What a nonsense. If I say I hate Nick Griffin, is it hate speech, but not bad hate speech? If I say I love Al Qaeda – is it love speech, the wrong kind of love speech or hate speech? If the concept of hate speech is valid, then so must the concepts of not nice speech, slightly unpleasant speech, very unpleasant, fairly nice speech and so on.