
Originally Posted by
KerrAvon
I'm not missing the point at all, Ellis. You aren't addressing it. Of course there is a difference between people on terrorism watch lists and the types of crimes that Tommy Robinson has been accused and convicted off, but why should that make any difference to the reliability of the state, which you put at 100% when dealing with the former, but say is essentially biased and unreliable when dealing with Robinson? The only HUGE difference is your attitude to the same, where it suits you to make the 100% reliability point about terrorism watch lists, but doesn’t where you are talking about Robinson. What is your explanation for that?
It would have been far more surprising if he’d been granted bail.
We don’t know the details, but it’s fair to assume that three men in the Kent case who got bail had no offending history or breaching bail conditions. A fourth was remanded in custody, presumably because he had something in his history that justified that within the terms of the Bail Act. With a case of that type, a frequent consideration of bail would be the delay in the matter being charged – we know there is DNA evidence in the case (which wouldn’t have much of a bearing on the ‘consent’ defence that was run), which means that it is highly likely that there would be a significant delay in the investigation (instant DNA results are restricted to TV dramas) and they would have been bailed off by the police. If a defendant keeps out of trouble and complies with any pre-charge bail conditions and turns up when required before he is charged, it can then be an uphill battle to persuade a court that they are not suitable for bail.
In any event, unless it was the same court and bench that dealt with Robinson and the Kent defendants it’s meaningless to try to draw conclusions from the different outcomes.
If you are concerned about the risk that the Canterbury defendants pose, you must be furious with Robinson for his contempt of court. The contempt rules are there to protect the integrity of court proceedings and breaching them can endanger trials and/or convictions.
I’ve not seen a video where Robinson is shoved into a wall. I can see that he appears to stumble against it, but can’t see whether that is down to accident, the deliberate act of the person with the blue T-shirt or Carroll who appears to take exception to person with the blue shirt and starts pushing him. I then see the person in the blue shirt react to Carroll in what I’m sure he would claim to be an act of self-defence.
It’s a pity that we don’t have a reverse angle of what happened, but on the basis of the recording that we do have, I’d say that there is as much evidence of an assault by Carroll as there is against the man in the blue shirt. I don’t think the prosecution could secure a conviction against either of them on the basis of that video recording alone.
In any event, Robinson and Carrol are likely to be pleased with the way their ‘charity walk’ to the scene of the murder of Lee Rigby via the East London mosque went. Nearly four years on and the recording is still being bandied about on the internet as evidence of the biased and unreliable (but otherwise s 100% reliable) nature of the state in their dealings with them. And it’s not as though the outcome came as a surprise to them – according to the report of the incident in The Independent When asked yesterday on Twitter what weather he was expecting for [the day of the ‘charity walk’], Robinson had replied: "I’ll be in a cell by lunch time so won't matter. Ha ha" He also appears to have been well prepared fort events given that he appears to have been mic’d up for his ‘charity walk’ – take a look at the line of the neck of his t shirt.
I know nothing about any incident in which Robinson was thrown out of a pub, but I suspect it’s a bit like the position on bail where he has to live with the consequences of his past behaviour.
Please address the point that I made rather than one I didn't. For clarity, I'm saying that you are being biased when you say that the state is 100% accurate and reliable when it comes to Muslim watch lists but not when it comes to dealing with Robinson.