Judgment Approved by the court for handing down. DPP v Bussetti to the charge. A member of the Grenfell community or other reasonable member of the public, seeing a video of the effigy, would not know that the figures were intended to be anyone other than the residents of Grenfell Tower. There are no names attached to the cut-out figures; only the name “Grenfell” at the top of the effigy, which clearly depicts a tall building with people at the windows. 41. In any event, it is no longer open to this court to order that the case should be remitted for the trial to continue. The trial was concluded by a judgment that the Defendant was not guilty. That was a final decision, not an interlocutory ruling. 42. Mr Summers argues in the alternative that if we allow the Director’s appeal we should nevertheless make no further order: Despite the passage of time I would not take that course in a case where the incident has plainly been seriously upsetting (to use a legally neutral phrase) to many people. If the appeal is allowed then the realistic options are remittal to Westminster Magistrates’ Court (a) with an order for a retrial or (b) with a direction to convict. Mr McGuinness, for his part, submits that we should remit the case to the Magistrates’ Court with a direction to convict. 43. I would allow the appeal and remit the case to the Westminster Magistrates’ Court. With some hesitation I have come to the conclusion that this should be for a new trial before a differently constituted court rather than with a direction to convict. Although the House of Lords in Collins were prepared to replace an acquittal by the justices with a conviction they did so on very simple and obvious facts, and partly on the basis of a concession by the defence that reasonable members of an ethnic minority would find the racist words used by the defendant grossly offensive. On an appeal by way of case stated this court should be slow to substitute its own view of whether a communication is grossly offensive where the court below, even making an error within Edwards v Bairstow, has acquitted. In addition, as noted above, during the course of the hearing it became clear that further legal argument had been advanced on behalf of Mr Bussetti in relation to whether WhatsApp is a public electronic communications network for the purposes of the 2003 Act, and we did not hear argument on that point. Mr Justice Dove: 44. I agree. ______________________________________________________ ORDER ______________________________________________________ UPON hearing counsel for the Appellants and counsel for the Respondents at a hearing on 20 July 2021 AND UPON the Adminstrative Court handing down judgment on 30 July 2021 IT IS ORDERED THAT: 1. The appeal is allowed. 2. The acquittal is quashed.

اختر الفقرة المستهدفة3

الاتصال بفقرة
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
أضف إلى جدول المحتويات