Humpty Dumpty said it first;

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

The Judge got it spot on. This was a specific threar in time and place, and could not be ignored by any respectable authority. Thats why Paul was escorted off his workplace.
However, we should not be intimidated by general threats of terrorism, but go about our daily business without fear, because fate could strike us at any time. Its a rik that we all have to take. Otherwise the terrorist has won.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11784603

Thank God we don't live in China....imagine anything like that happening here.

Where a case relies on what an 'ordinary' person might think, then ordinary people should decide - a jury.

This case has raised much public debate, not of all it confined to Twitter. It has led to a great deal of concern regarding the scope of section 127 and the implications for freedom of speech. Whether this blogpost, the author’s tweeting and the Twitter campaigns are a helpful addition to the debate is more questionable.
It’s worth remembering that a useful debate can be had only when there are two sides to the argument. We have, on the one hand, this author’s contribution – that of the defence solicitor. It would seem sensible to conclude – from his status and from his comments before and after the event – that he is far from an impartial observer on this topic. He has described last week’s case as [and I paraphrase] lost before it began. After the hearing, he posted a link to another case by the same judge. His commentary has called into question the process and motivations of the police and the CPS (though no abuse of process point has, I understand, ever been taken in this case). The tenor of his comments – reflecting, one would assume, his liberal (with a small ‘l’) world view – is an inherent suspicion of the criminal justice system.
With that in mind, it’s worth remembering that we don’t have in this debate a view from the ‘other side’. We don’t have a blogpost explaining why the police took this case to the CPS. We don’t have a blogpost explaining the reasoning behind the decision to prosecute. We don’t have a blogpost explaining why the District Judge found Chambers guilty. We don’t have a blogpost from the much-criticised Judge Davies explaining why she dismissed the appeal. We don’t even yet have the judgement of last week’s hearing.
And this is important: respect for the criminal justice system matters. That’s not to say that the criminal justice system should be beyond scrutiny. And it’s not to say that this law may not need to be examined. After all, in a justice or legislative system reliant upon day in-day out human judgements, mistakes will no doubt be made. But it is to say that the scrutiny shouldn’t take the form solely of a one-handed social media campaign with few facts and imperfect information.
The author claims that what constitutes ‘a message or other material of a grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character’ is “effectively whatever the police and CPS say it is”. Given what he writes elsewhere in his post (including in the next sentence), I’m sure he knows that not to be the case. He suggests that the ambit of section 127 should be determined by parliamentary debates in 1930 and 1984; I’m sure he knows that this is not – legally – the determining factor (nor, indeed, should it be). He says that he does not know of a single communications lawyer who is not horrified at this unexpected development; it would be interesting to know what the body of criminal lawyers believe.
There is nothing in this case to suggest that the police, CPS or courts were doing other than what they should be doing: investigating, prosecuting and trying the guilty. Whether Chambers should be guilty of any offence is a worthy debate; but it’s a debate involving parliament – not the criminal justice system. This author, I believe, attacks the wrong target.
The author notes at the beginning of his piece that he is a solicitor, a servant of the court and subject to professional rules of conduct. Bearing that in mind, he should consider whether he is attacking the correct target and whether he is in danger of wrongly bringing the criminal justice system into disrepute.

You're right in that the absence of the judgement does make assessing the decision somewhat hard. But with all respect to the criminal justice system, if it is finding guilt where essentially there should be none, that is simply wrong. It is not acceptable to say people should accept or live with their convictions. Convictions matter. It may not be the end of the world, but it is not justice.

@qaz There are reams of articles about this case dating back to March. David Allen Green publishes his own blog at http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/. Before he was instructed in this case he explained it in great detail. Go have a look. He interviewed the CPS who explained why they proceeded in this manner.

swatantra nandanwar

A neighbour of mine (a middle aged woman and Magistrate) has just tweeted to her friends "I will cheerfully strangle my plumber when he eventually gets back from lunch".

Recognising it as a specific threat in time and place and with no time for the police to get here I ran across the road and shot her. Tradesmen can now sleep soundly.

Matt, I did read that the CPS first thought the offence to be strict liability. (It doesn't actually mean that the defendant can only plead guilty; I think the definition is that the offence does not require proof of any knowledge or fault on the part of defendant; mens rea does not have to be proved.) The CPS often makes mistakes like this; to be fair, there is a great deal of criminal law and a good deal of ambiguity; but they should do their homework first. The defendant's legal representative should check too; and a magistrates' court will establish whether it is or not before a plea is taken. But, the error doesn't do much for the PR of the CPS, does it !

Matt, I wasn't trying to suggest that the author of this blog or the author of the 'fated tweet' were encouraging the spartacus campaign per se. I can see how it may have read that way and I apologise if it did.

Also, I fully appreciate that convictions (whether imprisonable or not) can ruin lives, particularly in these days of CRB checks, and I don't make light off that at all.
I wish we could live in a world of no wrongful convictions, but it is very unlikely in any criminal justice system, especially I think an adversarial one (but that is another debate).

I am not so convinced that Paul lost his job because of the conviction. I don't know. Maybe the employer has a strict policy on this. If, however, they are sensible enough to look at the nature of the conviction then they might well have thought a warning sufficient. Could it possibly be that the evidence at the trial indicated him to be using twitter in working hours ? As I say, I dont know. If the conviction alone is the cause of his dismissal then that is harsh indeed.

I write the following at considerable personal risk:

@(Rolo Tamasi) Bedforshire, eh? Why don't you do the rest of us a favour and shoot Nadine Dorries. I'm not even joking.

@(swatantra nandanwar) You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Perhaps you should stick to not researching facts instead of weighing in on a subject that is over your head.

If, as Matt asserts, the CPS thought this to be a liability offence and therefore there was no intent required, and no proof of menace needed, this is a dangerous precedent to set. Henceforth, anyone posting to any social networking site needs to consider very carefully what they post, as even some stray punctuation could lead to an offence unwittingly being committed.

Makes you think though, doesn't it? An angry post sent to a spouse/family member over an open site (i.e. unprotected tweets) could lead to criminal proceedings, a criminal record, a substantial financial penalty and any number of other, unforeseen implications.

This law MUST be challenged before many more needless prosecutions are brought before an already overextended court system and more otherwise lawabiding people end up stigmatised with an undeserved record.

Can anyone help me with the definition of menacing as applied by UK courts?

I’m particularly interested in the application of the definition to the theoretical third party “ordinary person”. Do they need to feel that there is a risk of harm to themselves or just that there appears to be threat of harm to someone else who is unknown?

To illustrate the point, consider communications between participants in online multi-player shooter games seen by someone who does not appreciate the context.

We may have to build more courts.

No, Im not in Beds, just trying to comply with the established etiquette.

BTW I think the blog and twitter accounts of the person you refer to are a hoax. The pictures are nothing like the MP.

Amid all the hullabaloo and hyperbole that has accompanied this case, the fact remains, Paul should not have sent that tweet. I was'nt surprised by the outcome of the appeal. What is surprising is that a respected liberal lawyer and blogger has decided along with the rest of the blogosphere to make this into some kind of cause celebre.

The bandwagon that was #iamspartacus, became tiresome and cliched by Friday. I for one would'nt have contemplated sending a tweet that made reference to blowing up a specific target. Not funny and No joke in this day and age. Furthermore to use the excuse that it was just a joke is like the excuse the kid in the playground would use.

Freedom of speech is the basis of our democracy but incitement to terrorism or murder is for the courts to decide whether they are funny or not. This case has been prejudiced now and would surely affect any High Court appeal. My advice to Mr Chambers after the original verdict would have been take your medicine and accept the times we live in.

PPS: Inspired by Rolo & Matt.

I am not surprised that the reply here is from someone who does not have the courage to stand by their words. Bad law and bad application of law fundamentally undermines the rule of law, and it's support from the people who agree to be governed by it. As a layman I certainly have less respect for the Judicial system than ever before.
The fact that the #IamSpartacus 'campaign' became tiresome and cliché by the following day WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF IT.
Your advice to Paul is extremely unfortunate for everyone, in that it would set a precedent for everyone involved in any form of social media. Fortunately, the Twitter has an inherent sense of Justice and how common sense should be applied to it. We will not stand for this nonsense and we will not shut up and 'take our medicine' like the sheep you wish us to be.

Perhaps there is a fundamental problem with s.127 which also affects other legislation in that legislators are seeking to apply to electronic communication laws that were designed for older modes of communication. Rather than just adapting existing legislation to cover that by electronic means it would be better to have a wholesale review of all the implications of current day communications systems and to have new legislation based on that.
The whole are of intellectual property rights seems to be crying out for such legislation too.

@anon

"Should not have sent that Tweet"? Well, from a personal perspective, I'm sure he might feel that given the results. However, it's no part of the law to legislate on bad taste jokes in my view, and this was never more than that.

However, but even if we take the "never should have" bit, then it's would be a person unusually resistent to fallibility, who had not at some time done a few things which they regret. Generally speaking, the consequences don't involve the sledgehammer of the law for something that was of no substantive harm to anybody.

However, the simple truth is that for the vast majority this was not, and never woudl have been seen as a menacing message. Indeed the judge could only postulate a particularly nervous and unadventurous first-flyer couple who might have felt alarmed in the extremely unlikely event that they would have stummbled over a message between a few friends.

The act was directed to those who were deliuberately engaged in a campaign of menacing, not badly-drafted jokes taken out of context.

The "civil disobedience" campaign of IamSpartacus was simply pointing out the absurdity. David Allen Green tried the same approach by encouraging tweeting on Betjamen's wish to rain bombs on my home town.

It's a nonsense, and it has served to undermine the credibility of law and, given that I saw a jokey reference to shooting members of the Royal Family on CharonQC's blog comments, will have zero affect on the vast majority until the next unfortunate gets picked upon because some idiot in the CPS has too much time on his hands.

@callitjustice I would agree that your comments are thoughtful and expressed with moderation, which is very welcome. I'm not so sure about "balanced".

Giving equal weight and respect to two sides of an argument is balanced only if both positions are of equal merit on their faces. I don't think that's the case here.

We have, in this country, an assumption - for better or worse, unwritten - of free speech. Anyone may say whatever they want, in any medium, without fear of retribution from the state, except in certain very narrowly defined circumstances where their speech is seen to cause harm. Even utterances that may be highly controversial, offensive or distressing are not automatically prohibited. This is considered an important and fundamental right.

Relying on this right, it is commonplace in our society for both professional comedians and members of the public to "tell jokes", or make off-the-cuff remarks containing some form of humour or irony, about every one of the most sensitive and potentially distressing issues in life. The most popular topics are sex, death, politics and religion. Fun is poked at our most deeply felt beliefs, hopes and fears. It's what we do.

It is of the utmost importance to recognise that what Paul Chambers said was not only within the boundaries of this normal discourse but a country mile within. It was said among friends on Twitter, never "to" anyone involved with the airport. There is no excuse for anyone who lives in our society and understands its norms to consider it potentially criminal. To bring it to the attention of the courts, without also referring a million other communications every hour, is arbitrary and irrational.

It must further be appreciated that when the judge remarked that an "ordinary person" "would have" considered Paul's utterance "menacing", she was expressing what can only be described as an opinion. Not one piece of evidence has ever been produced to show that any person at any time *was* alarmed or distressed. The member of security staff who, by chance, saw the original tweet did not believe it was a serious threat. The police did not believe it was a serious threat. It was a week before any action was taken at all.

The notion that this "could have" been a real threat to bomb the airport or "would have" been interpreted as such is redundant. We have no need to speculate about it, because we have the facts. It was not taken as a threat.

That is why the CPS could not charge Paul with any of the offences that would normally apply either to a bomb hoax or an actual threat of violence.

The balanced view is that the criminal law should only be applied where there has been wrongdoing. There was none in this case.

The balanced view is that Paul should not have been charged.

The "ordinary person" test is an important point. The question is: which ordinary person? It is always possible to construct an ordinary person from a different context who could see menace -- that is the point of the concern over misuse of section 127. The reality is, many people saw the tweet and saw no menace. The police saw no menace. Constructing a post hoc ordinary person who might see menace is truly worrying.

Let me take this further. I am an atheist, and do freely comment that I find elements of religiously-based laws inappropriate. If an ordinary person who is strongly religious saw those messages, they could legitimately find them menacing to their way of life. Would this make my comments menacing? Possibly yes -- this could now make me a criminal for posting those messages, if a judge or the CPS decided they could select the characteristics they wanted in their ordinary person.

For this assessment to work, the ordinary person needs to be seen as in the context of the person sending the message, not in the context of an imagined very different recipient who might be offended. Did the sender match against an ordinary person in the circumstances? The case needs to be proven that they did not, and I have not heard reports of evidence which convinced me the message was out of line with other ordinary people. Ordinary people do joke, and many ordinary people -- myself included -- would not be offended by a joke at the expense of an English airport's inability to accommodate inclement weather.