Nick Hogan has become the first person in Britain—and one of the first in the world—to be imprisoned for taking a stand against the smoking ban. He has been given a six month prison sentence for non-payment of a £10,000 fine. His crime was allowing people to smoke on his own property.
Both the fine and the prison sentence are completely disproportionate to the offence but it has been clear from the outset that the authorities intended to make an example of Hogan. The offence itself—"allowing people to smoke"—is absurd and has no place in a civilised society; the state has no right to force individuals to act as policemen.
The excessive fine of £3,000 was bolstered by ludicrously high court costs and further penalties. In my view, Hogan was right to refuse to pay it. In taking a stand he may have expected some sort of custodial sentence. Nobody could have expected a sentence of six months. A quick Google search shows us what company Nick Hogan has been placed amongst...
Brighton woman jailed after campaign of violence
A woman who carried out a campaign of violence and intimidation against council tenants has been jailed. Shirley Miles, 45, has been given a two-month prison sentence for anti-social behaviour.
During her terror campaign at a number of council properties in Kemp Town, Brighton, Miles abused two vulnerable tenants, using a razor blade toattack and cut a tenant's face and body.
She also caused criminal damage to council property and stole property and money.
Three months
Dungiven man jailed for three months
A Dungiven man convicted of sexual offences has been sent to jail for three months and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register for seven years.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of gross indecency with a child and indecent assault on a female.
Four months
Merseyside teenager jailed for four months for 'despicable and horrendous' animal cruelty
A MERSEYSIDE teenager was sent to jail for four months for setting dogs on defenceless animals and filming them being ripped to pieces.
Six months
Baby beater jailed for six months
A man who was caught on camera repeatedly punching a friend's sleeping baby has been jailed for six months.
Hogan's 'crime' was, above all, a political protest so perhaps it would be better to compare his sentence against other political protesters. Like Greenpeace, for example, who cause criminal damage and yet are still acquitted:
Not guilty: the Greenpeace activists who used climate change as a legal defence
Six Greenpeace climate change activists have been cleared of causing £30,000 of criminal damage at a coal-fired power station in a verdict that is expected to embarrass the government and lead to more direct action protests against energy companies.
Note that these people admitted to causing £30,000 worth of damage. Despite being manifestly guilty, they were acquitted because their defence was, effectively, that global warming was sufficient provocation.
This is not a unique case. Take this one from 2001...
Trident protesters found not guilty
Two anti-nuclear protesters who entered a dockyard planning to disarm one of Britain's Trident submarines with an axe were yesterday cleared of conspiracy to cause criminal damage.
Sylvia Boyes, 57, from Keighley, West Yorkshire, and River - formerly Keith Wright - 45, from Manchester, admitted that they plotted to damage HMS Vengeance while it was docked at Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, in November 1999.
But they denied criminal damage, claiming their actions were justifed because nuclear weapons were immoral and illegal under international law. They argued politicians could not be trusted with Britain's nuclear arsenal, so civilians had to act to stop disaster.
Or this from 1996...
£1.5m Hawk attack women freed
Four women walked free from Liverpool Crown Court yesterday after a jury found them not guilty of criminal charges despite their admission that they did more than pounds 1.5m worth of damage to a Hawk warplane.
They broke into hangar 358 and used hammers to damage the plane in 25 places. All four claimed their actions were justified because the Hawk was destined for Indonesia, where it would be used against the civilians of East Timor.
The three cases above involved a jury trial, something that Hogan was not afforded. The disgraceful treatment dished out to a decent man who has caused no harm to anybody is further proof that the idea of equality before the law is a dead concept in Britain. If you have a politically correct excuse for your crimes, you are set free. If not, you are thrown to the dogs.
Leg-Iron has more on this.
Mr Hogan is a political prisoner in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThis government have shown their true coulours.
And it is not a pretty sight.
Disgusting. I'm a middle-class academic. Never been in trouble with the law, quite like having a potter round my garden in the summer. But this whole smoking issue has angered me so much over the last few years that I have become, well, there's only one word for it - "radicalised".
ReplyDeleteIf I had the contacts I would happily use violence against the corrupt dictators overseeing us now.
Of course, if I, yes, me!, am feeling like this, what the Hell are people who traditionally undertook terrorist action feeling like?
My rage is literally growing by the day.
I too am a proffesional.
ReplyDeleteBut when I was a boy I worked in a steel works.
We knew how to fight back then.
We are going to have to do it again.
Or this warped government are going to get worse.
This government have stepped across the line.
Jailing a man because he chose to allow choice in his own premisis.
An Englishmans home is his castle.
Labour are invading that space.
Free this man .
This is an injustice of the worst kind.
Imho, people will not really wake up to creeping totalitarianism until they, and their family members or friends, are directly affected by it - the parents next door being arrested for allowing their 17yo son a glass of wine,for example, or a younger child of a brother-in-law being kidnapped by the state after being allowed a packet or crisps. For as long as these stories appear only on the lobotomy box in the corner they will not seem real, and will be forgotten within a minute. We have some way to go yet, I think, but totalitarianism will continue to encroach. Wouldn't want to be a politician when the penny finally drops.
ReplyDeleteWhen will the 'sheeple' wake up to this Nazi totalitarianism.
ReplyDeleteA clever Government that can divide and rule by means of a smoking ban thus pitting anti-smokers against smokers will rule the Country with a dictatorship.
While we are busy fighting among ourselves they will be robbing us blind.
Clever cunts.
One post above is absolutely true of myself too in recent times:
ReplyDelete"But this whole smoking issue has angered me so much over the last few years that I have become, well, there's only one word for it - "radicalised"."
Normal, decent, law abiding citizens have HAD ENOUGH of these unjust laws & actions - LAWS THAT WE WERE NOT GIVEN THE CHANCE TO FOR OR AGAINST! Democracy? Can anyone remember what that means anymore?
Bring on the general election! Let's show Nick Hogan that we're all behind him - vote Labour OUT!!
Thursday, 25 February 2010
ReplyDeleteWeak Justice
ANDREW Boyd, manager of rock star Pete Doherty, was jailed for 12 months today after leaving a Hadleigh man fighting for his life following a collision with a car. Boyd, 42, was also banned from driving for three years, for being the driver involved in a hit-and-run in Benton Street, Hadleigh, which left Chris Corder with life-changing injuries Mr Corder, of Benton Street, was left in a coma with traumatic brain injuries and will need constant care for the remainder of his life. Five months after the accident the 42-year-old is still in a coma at Colman Hospital in Norwich. Boyd, of Lady Margaret Road in London, was sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court after previously admitting dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of an injury collision and failing to report an injury collision. He also admitted driving without insurance and driving without reasonable consideration.
Effectively, if Mr. Hogan had instead chosen to beat one of his patrons to a bloody pulp, he would have received less time in jail than he has for allowing people to smoke.
ReplyDeleteWS.
Forgive me for double posting, but I'd like to give attention to a point made by a US restaurateur.
ReplyDeleteSince the government is in such dire need of revenue, and since all of these pubs that are going out of business are really lying, and the profits have increased, can these pub owners then offer their business for sale to the government at fair market value?
If not, why not? Is it because that would be overt instead of covert communism?
Why should the UK government force pub owners to be law enforcement officials when law enforcement is better left to the government? And since smoke-free pubs are so profitable, why wouldn't the government want to compensate the present owners, so the government and own and run them?
I think we all know how horrible it would be for the UK to have government-run pubs.
Given that view, Nick Hogan has been put into jail for six months because he refused to cooperate with what ultimately amounts to a form of slavery.
WS.
My wife lived under USSR control till she was 13. She came and lived in the UK but returned to her own country because she saw how the UK was changing for the worse. ln 13 years this government has brought in over 4000 regs on the statute books that now criminalises people in many different ways.
ReplyDeleteAs she said " We had no choice, apart from death and incarceration, to lose our freedoms. The USSR came as liberators and stayed but your country give up their freedoms willingly. Why?????"
When former Soviet bloc citizens view themselves as more democratic than the UK it would be wise to take notice ... and action, as did Mr Hogan. For that l salute him.
Donation button on Old Holborn's blog. Pay with Paypal or card to help Nick pay the ridiculous costs they imposed. Once he's paid he's free to go. Not only can we get Nick out but we can truly stick it to the system. Imagine how the Stasi will feel once Nick walks free within a week because despite their manipulations of the law, the people won't stand for it.
ReplyDeleteFree Nick AND show the bastards in power what we think of their bans. ASH and their ilk may have the funding and the ears of the slackjaws in Parliament, but we have right and strength and dignity on ours, things they simply can't understand.
Please donate at Old Holborn's blog.
Mr A.
Now is the time to take a stand as Nick Hogan has done. Enough is enough. We now have the 'crime' of, in effect, allowing people to use a legal product on one's own property. By logical implication, if a law were brought in banning smoking around children, we could be incarcerated for smoking in our own homes - and ASH has it in its sights. I'm asking for support to be registered on the "Taking Liberties" site (Nick Hogan thread) for a kind of smokers' union!
ReplyDeleteWent to my GP last week - I have hbp. They'll blame it on smoking. I blame it on the state of constant rage I feel.
Jay
I, too, am a middle class academic who has been radicalised. I have never had as much as a parking ticket, but now doesn't feel part of this society. This law will not be changed unless there are more like Mr Hogan willing to make a stand. That is why the hunting ban effectively does not exist and will soon be gone. I don't think Forest is an efective campaigning group. We need fewer words and more action.
ReplyDeleteYou can Donate over at Old Holborns Blog.
ReplyDeletehttp://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2010/02/nick-hogan-jailed-over-no-smoking-ban.html
Seems that perhaps Mr. Fawkes might have had the right idea after all...
ReplyDeleteAmiable dispatch and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you as your information.
ReplyDelete