UK court: free speech encompasses the right to offend

Some may think it unkind to call this person "a pig in a wig". Or offensive. Or even "abusive". But it's OK, according to the Court of Appeal of the United Kingdom!

Britain's Daily Mail reports just now on a November decision of the court in the case of Regina v. Scottow.  The appellant, Kate Scottow, from Hitchin in Hertfordshire, had been found guilty earlier this year under the 2003 Communications Act of addressing Sterfanie Hayden, a "transgendered woman" as a man, and calling him/her a "racist" and a "pig in the wig."

[I don't know which personal pronoun to use here. Ed.] Hayden, 47, reported the online remarks to the Old Bill, who duly arrested Miss Scottow at her home in front of her daughter, 10, and son, 20 months. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson later called the arrest and prosecution "an abuse of power."

District judge Margaret Dodds didn't see it that way, convicting Miss Scottow (a self-described "radical feminist") last February, and handing her two-year conditional discharge plus "compensation" of £1,000 ($1350 in real money).

Presiding over Miss Scottow's appeal, Lord Justice Bean [Was he "Mr Bean", before his elevation to the bench? Ed.] and Mr Justice Warby said, "Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having." They added that "free speech encompasses the right to offend, and indeed to abuse another." 

Mr Justice Warby explained that the relevant parts of the Communications Act "were not intended by Parliament to criminalise forms of expression, the content of which is no worse than annoying or inconvenient in nature." He also suggested that the prosecution had been an "unjustified state interference with free speech."

Lord Justice Bean said the appeal illustrated the need for decision-makers in the criminal justice system to have regard to issues of freedom of speech. The judgment from two senior members of the judiciary will set a precedent for future cases involving freedom of speech.

The vindicated Miss Scottow told The Daily Telegraph, "It was necessary to enshrine one of the most fundamental rights of every living being in a democratic society – the right to freedom of speech that is now routinely attacked..."' But [Whatever, Ed.] Hayden said, "This is... a kick in the teeth to the entire LGBT community." Walt sez a kick in a more southerly body part would not have been out of order. Is that offensive?