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”
TimJones
What those who criticise me do not appear to have grasped is that Phillips was orchestrating hatred against Muslims. There were others who followed his lead, but I did not report the followers. (If class is relevant, please note that I reported the middle-class ringleader, not working-class followers.)
This stoking-up of hatred does real harm to society. Law-abiding Muslims are vilified and in extreme cases attacked. That provokes a reaction and in extreme cases leads to those reacting also joining extremist groups.
This is exactly what terrorists want: a reaction which ends up recruiting people to their cause.
Dave Atherton has falsely smeared me on twitter and is doing this here. His “Tim Jones abused his status as a Councillor and barrister to get his collar felt” is yet another wholly false smear. I did not disclose that I was either a councillor or a barrister and there is no reason why the police concerned should have known either – I had never (to the best of my knowledge and belief) seen them before. I don’t practice criminal law. As for getting “his collar felt”, I did not express any opinion as to what the police should do or do anything to seek to influence how they handled the matter. I do think they acted properly in respect of something that causes real harm to community relations; but how they acted was not based on any request from me to act in a particular way.
TM
What harms community relations is the casualization of the labour market at the bottom and the acceptance amongst the political classes and those who are affluent that it’s OK to pay low wages, to create lots of dead end jobs and exploit people on zero hours contracts, as long as it is only poor people, Working class people and immigrants. This doesn’t seem to affect the Middle class or the wealthy though does it? There is always money for those with affluent careers and money for millionaires tax breaks and many other benefits the rich seem to effortlessly get. Not so with the poor, the disabled and the pensioners dying of hypothermia. And that goes for all poor people, whatever their colour, ethnicity or religion. Class ALWAYS matters, which is why the Left and the Right avoid debating it but will talk about racism and sexism and so on all day. The issue that underpins all injustice is usually economic in nature and class plays a large part in that.
DaveAtherton20
” Phillips was orchestrating hatred against Muslims.” are Phillips’ lawyers reading this? These are serious allegations, and has Phillips been convicted, charged or out on bail for this offence?
As a barrister I would expect more temperate language, based on prima facie evidence. Not the indifferent, at best tasteless, rubbish above.
I think the fascist bigot here is you.
BTW your comment has been screenshot.
Cole
Calling Tim Jones a fascist bigot really is pathetic. Do grow up and stop bandying these terms around.
robertcp
The Mail story was inaccurate, Phillips is a tasteless fool, he probably has racist tendencies but he should not have been arrested.