As the Guardian report this morning:
Jersey's former health minister has been sentenced to three months in prison after refusing to take down articles on his blog making serious allegations against a number of people on the island.
Stuart Syvret, described by one judge as "a thorn in the side of the [Jersey] establishment", did not attend the court hearing in the royal court in St Helier on Monday but was arrested at his home after locking himself in his flat.
As the paper also note:
According to John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, Syvret has been unfairly prosecuted for revealing information in the public interest, including evidence that a nurse on the island may have killed some of his patients.
Hemming accuses the Jersey judiciary of behaving oppressively by misusing the Data Protection Act in order to silence its critics.
And, tellingly:
None of the four individuals named has ever attempted to sue Syvret for defamation. Instead, the data protection commissioner in Jersey, Emma Martins, has prosecuted him under the Data Protection Act.
She argues, highly unusually, that Syvret is the "data controller" of his blog (a position usually held in a large corporation) and that he has no right to name and shame people on his blog, whether or not the information he reveals about them is correct.
And as they note:
The Guardian spoke to Syvret on Friday after he learned of his sentence. He claimed to have locked himself in his flat and said: "I am about to become a political prisoner in Jersey — again, for whistleblowing, for being a dissident."
Now let me be clear: I have no personal reason to defend Syvret who had me investigated by Jersey police on the basis of entirely false accusations several years ago. I am all too well aware of just how much a pain Syvret can be. But I will completely defend his right to free speech - and if those who claim he has offended them have taken no action to challenge him, which is their right, then for the state to step in as it has done here is completely and utterly wrong.
But not just wrong: it is the sure sign of a police state in operation. That is what Jersey is, in my opinion. And where Jersey goes the UK has a horrible habit of following. The UK's gagging law will allow this in the UK soon. Is that coincidence? Maybe if one is talking direct causation, but with regard to intent I doubt it.
Are we beginning to witness the real end of free speech and with it democracy? It certainly seems possible.
PS What chance, I wonder, that I could go to Jersey now and avoid arrest? I'd have to think about it
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I don’t agree with the words you use tellingly. How is a nurse supposed to be able to sue anyone. What resources do you feel they can use. Even if they haven’t done something they are accused of.
In the UK we don’t get legal aid for slander or liable.
It’s libel
It’s interesting how their investigation of child abuse and maybe murder disappeared and we later find Savile was a visitor yet seemingly few or no charges and the UK Newspapers seemed to bury it.
I am not sure the Guardian has reported this correctly. See the attached note prepared by the lawyers acting for the aggrieved parties:
http://www.applebyglobal.com/publication-pdf-versions/e-alerts/bloggers-and-data-protection—new-law-and-judicial-guidance-in-jersey-ealert-(september-2013).pdf
This clearly states that “certain of the indviduals” served Stop Processing Notices on Syvret and that the Jersey Data Protection Commissioner (correctly in my view) assisted them with enforcing their rights. The court held that the distress and damage caused to these individuals was distressing and extreme.
Surely therefore refusal to remove these distressing and defamatory remarks can only correctly result in a judgment of contempt of court?
So the case did not need to be proven? It was just considered not right to comment? Is that freedom of speech? What sort of law is that where upsetting someone is not allowed?
“What sort of law is that where upsetting someone is not allowed?”
Haven’t you been paying attention to the criminalization of ‘saying mean things’ in the UK?
Yes, and I oppose it
Richard
This was about personal information (i.e. a police report and medical details) being put on-line. The DP Law was quite rightly used to request that the information be removed.
I stick by my position
What chance is there that you can stay here and avoid arrest? Have you thought about that?
Is there a prison on Jersey ?
If so, does it only take Jersey prisoners or from all over UK?
I ask because Jersey law seems to differ markedly from that in the rest of the UK. It would seem hard for the warders to differentiate.
In the interests of fairness, the full story is as follows:
Stuart Syvret has been jailed for contempt of court, not directly for articles published on his blog.
He was instructed to remove information about individuals which made unfounded accusations against those same individuals. The alternative for the 4 individuals would have been for those individuals to launch libel/defamation actions against him, however as Syvret is effectively bankrupt, and has spent the last 18 months living on benefits, there was little to be gained by doing so. He refused the court’s order to remove the accusations, and was found in contempt.
He then failed to appear in court to answer the charges arising from his refusal to remove the statements, and was thus found to be in contempt again.
He has stated that he does not recognise the authority of the local legal system, and believes he is therefore immune from prosecution on the charges.
And my point is that this is inconsistent with free speech
As I have said – Syvret can be a complete pain – but that is not the point and freedom of speech is
No one knows if what Syvret said was right or wrong – he was simply not allowed to say it, and that is the mark of a police state
Freedom of speech does not extend to publishing personal details (i.e. medical details) on-line.
Did he? Really?
Where?
Syvret published on his website the police report which contained medical details regarding the nurse in question. Syvret seems to have had a go at redacting the story but the nurse’s name can still be found at the moment on his website. The blog dated Thursday, 19 March 2009
You could stand up as a champion of free speech and publish it if you like.
Others better informed than I do not share your view
I believe Jersey is using this as an opportunity to silence discussion
“it is the sure sign of a police state in operation. That is what Jersey is, in my opinion.”
Syvret was prosecuted for naming a Nurse who had been investigated by the police and cleared of the accusations that Syvret made that she was a serial killer. Are you arguing that Syvret should be free to do this?
The Jersey Judicial system seems to have bent over backwards* in its dealings with Syvret only finally jailing him when he wouldn’t pay a court fine and refused to do any of the community service he had originally been sentenced to.
To compare this to a “Police State” is absurd and devalues that accusation when laid against those countries that deserve it.
Chris
*20 separate hearings in the Magistrate’s Court lasting 35 days in total, nine hearings in the Royal Court lasting 15 days, and three days in the Jersey Court of Appeal.
I have no comment on the case at all. I know Syvret abused me. He may have abused others.
But the remedy is not destroying free speech
We need more of that. If we’d have had it Savile could not have got away with his crimes
Chris,
John Hemming MP had already stated the names of these four applicants last year under his Parliamentary Privilege. Their full names are not a secret.
The head of Jersey’s Data Protection office initiated the invitation to these four men to work together with her office to spearhead their case and, in the opinion of many of us following this case, the men were seemingly used by Jersey’s government as proxies by those who wanted to finally silence Stuart Syvret’s blog, and to send a warning to other Jersey bloggers. There were apparently no costs incurred by the four, personally. The full costs to the public, though known to be extravagant, have yet be openly disclosed despite a number of direct questions asked in States Sessions.
It does not look good for Jersey that in the previous Summary Judgement the UK Judge admitted that prior, similar court orders had not caused the names on the blog to be removed, but the Judge clearly stated that he did not recommend taking this case any further against Stuart Syvret. Nevertheless, Jersey’s Data Protection Office proceeded to obtain a new Court Order demanding a three month sentence for Stuart Syvret’s failure to comply. It seems rather obvious that UK courts do not wish to have to defend Jersey’s bizarre misuse of the Data Protection Law, but they had mistakenly expected Jersey to have already dropped this untenable case before this latest action. Now, the UK may be especially unhappy with the global publicity alluding to political prisoners and internet censorship, especially when connected to high profile child abuse whistleblowers.
An obviously important concern for both Jersey and the UK is that in each of these court actions concerning the blog, all evidence of the veracity of the allegations against the four men was prohibited. The Judge repeatedly declared that any truth of the allegations could not be considered relevant or be used as a defense by the “Data Controller,” as the blogger was legally described. However, the four names on the blog are already known, re-published from other places now, including from inside the US far beyond Jersey’s legal reach, with firm Constitutional protection.
This was an extremely reckless action by Jersey authorities and a likely “own goal.” If they do not understand that, they must be blind to what exists outside their island.
Note: Some comments relating to the allegations made were edited from this comment as they were not felt relevant to the argument here
It is clear from the Jimmy Savile case and before him, Robert Maxwell, that the press was afraid to publish what it believed to be true because the libel laws favour the rich by putting the burden of proof on the person making the accusation.
But this is not the case with Syvret. He has made his point, his claim has been investigated and the authorities have not brought charges against the nurse in question.
Put it another way. Do you think a person has a right to stand outside another’s house with a placard saying “X is a paedophile” and shout “paedo” at the house all day long, even after the police have investigated the matter and found there is insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution?
Is that really the sort of right to free speech that you want to protect? Or is it just bullying?
As you should well know – there is much, much more to this
If medical details have been published they should not have been
But you are well aware that much is not published in Jersey that should be
You should ask why
You have no comment on the case? Then how can you be in a position to comment on the allegations, abuse and harm caused by Syvret to his victims and the existence of laws to prevent this? You have lost this one, I’m afraid.
I am saying that on the basis of what I read the approach used was wrong and I maintain that view now
Lionel
your problem is that the law in Jersey seems to have been used so frequently to silence that which is inconvenient or embarrassing that it will take a brave witness to argue that, in this case, it was wholly appropriate.
Richard was too polite, but I will use the phrase “Caesar’s Wife”.
If you are so sure that Mr Syvret has written the truth about these 4 people then you repeat all his claims on your blog and invite them to sue you?
I take no side on that issue and do not know the rights or wrongs
I know Stuart Syvret can get things very wrong
I am saying Jersey is dealing with the issue wholly inappropriately
Do not confuse the two issues, deliberately
Mr. M., how do you think the Jersey authorities should have dealt with the issue?
There is a simple answer to that question
Jersey, or the complainants, should have gone to Syvret’s ISP (it won’t be hard to find) and presnted evidence of wrong doing or libel if there was any
ISP’s in my experience then always demand that the offensive items be removed and if not pull the plug
That may be summary justice: they do it only when legal action is threatened to protect themselves though
They then leave the legal system to sort the matter out
Jersey could have done that but chose not to do so. This issue could have been closed that way a long time ago but wasn’t.
That’s why there is much more to this issue than appears to be the case at face value
Richard if you read the court case its been presided by a UK Judge for starters and like you said, Syvret can get it very wrong.
The case is not the issue
It’s Jersey law is the issue
Going to the ISPs would have been just as useless as Stuart is defiant, stubborn and self destructive. He would simply have listed the private data elsewhere.
Then the process could have been repeated
But as has been noted, much of it is, apparently, elsewhere anyway
I agree with a lot of what you say about the ethics of the finance industry but you are being flogged a dead horse here Richard. Stuart Syvret has accused scores of people right to the top of corruption and heinous crime yet has never once walked into a Police Station anywhere with any evidence to back anything up. With this case he never once turned up to any hearings, he never challenged the court being held in Camera and all he ever did was mock the justice system even as far as London whilst throughout the whole process. He is a crazy fool and anybody who had done the same could only expect to be sent to prison.
I have said Syvret has been wrong often
But Jersey is wrong too
Three things:
1) The initial court order was a simple request that the offending material on his blog be removed. Essentially exactly the same as what you said should be done, except this was a direct request to Syvret rather than going over his head to the ISP. If anything this is an even lighter and more transparent approach than you suggested.
2) Syvret was then arrested and jailed for twice committing contempt of court (once for ignoring court order, once for failing to turn up to court). This is the SECOND time he has committed this offense and been jailed for it, hense the longer 3 month sentence. It must be underlined it is this contempt of court which was the reason for the jailing, not the blogging. In 2009 it was for fleeing Jersey to the UK instead of removing personal information of an individual in the middle of a police investigation. I repeat: Syvret is being jailed for his complete inability to abide by court decisions, not for blogging.
3)Earlier in this debate on several occassions you simply dismiss the points made from others due to your own Jersey souces disagreeing with them. Instead of just saying “no”, present your own side or cede the point.
My point is that if there was a court order they could have gone to the ISP
Jailing Syvret is absurd in that case
And that’s why I think this is a set up
Because that’s what it looks to be
Who would want to set Stuart up?
Not the establishment. Without the publicity this has afforded him he would be completely off the radar.
I suspect the court order does not have jurisdiction outside of Jersey and so going to the ISP would be pointless.
ISPs would always listen to the likes of Carter Ruck
Let’s not be silly
They jailed Syvret for disobeying a court order twice. That’s not absurd, it’s general practice across the Western World. What would be the point in courts if people could just disobey whenever they felt like it?
My argument is that they went about this the wrong way from the outset
What have Carter Ruck got to do with a Jersey Court Order not having jurisdiction over a USA based ISP?
I think you’ll find most ISPs do not like well constructed lawyer’s letters
It seems the UK impose prison sentences in similar circumstances…..
“Kate and Gerry McCann
Carter-Ruck brought a successful application for contempt of Court against an individual who had repeatedly published false and highly defamatory allegations about the couple, in breach of formal undertakings which he had given to the Court in 2009. Recognising the seriousness and persistency of the individual’s conduct, the Court imposed a three-month suspended prison sentence. The individual has subsequently agreed to withdraw an appeal of the committal order, to abide by his undertakings in future and to pay costs to the Claimants.”
I was not aware of that
I note the sentence was suspended
But I agree, Syvret is refusing to cooperate
I do not agree that this is an appropriate action for the UK either
Jersey a Police state – not quite but getting there.
With a passive civil society, a state captured by Finance and complicit media (all on the pay roll), there is little to prevent oppression by the State.
Whilst the Jersey authorities have no local check on their vindictiveness, they do need to be mindful of their image in London and internationally. Their indelicacies are usually indulged provided no one hears the screams behind the thick granite walls.
The façade of Bourgeois respectability must be maintained to reassure those whose wealth they handle. Trickles of blood coming from beneath the cell doors are not good for business confidence.
“The most pernicious and detestable of human beings are iniquitous magistrates.”
John Shebbeare, “An authentic narrative of the oppression of the Islanders of Jersey” (1771)