The persecution of Jamie Michael

You probably don’t know the name Jamie Michael, but if you care about freedom of speech, then you should. He is 46 years old. He used to be a Royal Marine. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On 31 July 2024, Jamie made a video called ‘This is what I think’, which he posted on Facebook. In the video, Jamie discussed the stabbings in Southport two days earlier. He suggested forming community groups to help protect children from Islamist attacks. He also made comments about illegal migration and the dangers posed by ‘radicalised idiots’. He talked about recent ‘riots’ in Leeds and Manchester (referring to a riot in Harehills and a protest outside a police station in Rochdale). He said that the UK was ‘under attack’ and that Britons need to take action.

In my view, it was clear what Jamie was talking about. He was expressing concern about unvetted migration into the UK. He was concerned about militant Islam. All of these are legitimate concerns (even if, as he admitted in court, they were ‘clumsily’ expressed). Yet, for making the video, Jamie was arrested and charged with stirring up racial hatred using a recording, under Section 2 (1) of the Public Order Act 1986.

Jamie is a massage therapist. The police arrived at his workplace and arrested him while he was in the middle of seeing a client. Unbelievably, he was then put in jail for 17 days, before being granted bail by a judge.

Earlier today, following a two-day trial at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, Jamie was acquitted by a jury. They took just 17 minutes to find him not guilty.

I was Jamie’s defence solicitor. Adam King was Jamie’s superb barrister. We were supported by the Free Speech Union. In the lead-up to the trial, we tried repeatedly to get the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to drop the case. We argued that Jamie’s Facebook post ought to be protected by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. We argued that what he said did not come close to meeting the standard for a criminal prosecution.

We also highlighted that the person who had made the complaint against Jamie was part of the communications team for a Welsh Labour member of the Senedd. In other words, to a reasonable member of the public, it might look like someone had made a police complaint because they did not like Jamie’s politics. But the CPS did not back down. It took a jury, after hearing two days of evidence, to finally bin the case.

In the aftermath of the Southport riots, the UK government told the public to ‘Think before you post’. The implied threat was that saying anything about the Southport attacks could result in a knock on the door from the police. Jamie did express an opinion after Southport – and he expressed it strongly. For doing so, he faced the possibility of years in prison.

Jamie’s acquittal is brilliant news, but we need to confront the absurd laws that allowed a case like this to proceed in the first place. The offence of stirring up racial hatred is defined far too broadly. It can be committed even where the maker of the recording does not even intend to stir up hatred. It is enough for the prosecution to show that stirring up hatred was ‘likely’. It falls to prosecutors to decide what kind of language meets the test. When you look at Jamie’s case, you can see their bar for prosecuting is far too low.

We need to seriously rethink the Public Order Act. At the very least, we need additional guidance for prosecutors on the importance of free speech. We need to recognise that such laws create a ‘chilling effect’, making people scared to speak out about important topics in case they face criminal prosecution.

We should thank the Merthyr jury that acquitted Jamie Michael. The jury system often acts as an invaluable curb on the worst excesses of the state. Jamie is a free man. But he very nearly wasn’t. We need to do everything we can to make sure a case like this is never prosecuted again.

Luke Gittos is a spiked columnist and author. His most recent book is Human Rights – Illusory Freedom: Why We Should Repeal the Human Rights Act, which is published by Zero Books. Order it here.