welcome back to the channel i am the barrister for this sunday morning sunday the 13th of february 2022 for an exclusive for you on alex bellfield you may have noticed that alex belfield has temporarily at least disappeared from youtube that’s because alex billfield has been given a temporary suspension by youtube and i have an exclusive comment from him for you because i reached out to him for comment about this so i thought to talk to you a little bit in this video about what many of you may think he’s been suspended for and what some of the case law at least suggests so yesterday evening i reached out to alex belfield for comment and this is what he says i’m eternally grateful to youtube they bought my house and paid for my freedom i’m indebted but my time is up so we’re going to launch secret voice of reason club from february the 28th sign up at the mailing list at alex bellfield.com that link is in the description and it’s on screen now so i thought i’d talk to you about what some people might think this all might be about and quite clearly it might be about public comment that people find offensive now there are certain situations where online harassment and bullying can indeed amount to criminal offences indeed i have a live talk coming up at 10 o’clock this morning with dr shaham das who is a consultant forensic psychiatrist from a psych for sore minds however simply making offensive comments online is not usually by itself something that would amount to a criminal offence allow me to explain and without going into too much detail all of this revolves around the communications act of 2003 specifically section 127 which talks about credible threats of violence or damage where a communication falls to be within that section indeed there was a report published by the committee for media and sport but it primarily deals with what might amount to child abuse images or hateful adult comment and things of that nature furthermore the director of public prosecutions has also issued interim guidelines for use by the cps in such cases however what is a particular interest in this situation is the case of chambers and dpp of 2012 in the high court where the judge made the following comments a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated or may reasonably be expected to see it falls outside of section 127 for the simple reason that the message lacks menace the dpp also points out that there should be a very high threshold for what would come within this sort of communication online stating that millions of communications are sent via social media every day and that if statutory provisions were provided to all of them it would be a very large number of cases before the courts but also a chilling effect on freedom of speech and to that end back in the case of chambers and dpp the judge can also be quoted to say the following satirical or iconoclastic or rude comment the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters banter or humor should not be restricted by section 127 of the communications act even if distasteful to some or painful for those subjected to it of course it would be a very different situation if there were specific targeting harassment stalking blackmail and other cases that might provoke the law for public order such as racial hatred so obviously there is a lot more to be said and discussed in this area lots more cases and of course i don’t condone online bullying and harassment and these kind of things but there is a distinction between what might be considered harassment or bullying and that which is and always should be free speech so as always i try to set out some of the legal position on it so you can understand it a little bit better so please do like the video and subscribe if you want to see more of my content check out some of my other videos and as always thank you for watching
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