Lionheart goes to Washington...

The sagette of Paul Ray, aka Lionheart, aka Lyin' Heart, has reached new comical heights. Paul, who Bedforshire police wanted to interview in relation to a possible offence of stirring up racial (or religious) hatred, has decided... (wait for it...) to seek political asylum in the United States! In the case of Lionheart it has to be clarified that seeking political asylum rather plainly means dodging arrest, or even being plain lazy (certainly intellectually): he had after all already been staying in South Carolina for some time and now, against all common sense, has decided to stay put and not show up for the scheduled police interview, set for today, 19/02/08.

Paul seems to have difficulty grasping the difference between arrest/interview on the one hand and being charged on the other hand. It would appear that Bedfordshire police want to speak to Ray on the basis of one complaint and that there may (please note emphasis) be grounds to suspect him of an offence according to either the Public Order Act of 1986 or a similar act of 2006.
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Whether or not Paul would actually have been charged with anything or not remains a big IF and would have depended on prima facie evidence against him and of course the contents of the actual interview. Hundreds of Britons are arrested and interviewed each and every day, most of them are released without charge the same day. Paul of course has now maneuvered himself into a position where he actually looks guilty. After all, when convinced of one's own innocence as Paul is, why not face one's accusers? What about the somewhat conservative adage, "nothing to hide, nothing to fear", no? Maybe not...

Considering that the number of convictions obtained under the 1986 Act in 40 years of being on the statute books appears to be around 40, statistically Paul's chances of getting off are much higher than that of paying the ultimate price of a lengthy prison sentence, which he (understandably) so fears. Actually proving 'incitement to racial or religious hatred' in a court of law has been shown to be hard to do, in no small part due to the many caveats these laws contain to safeguard freedom of speech as much as possible.

As regards Lyin' Heart's application for political asylum in the United States, one can only laugh. Paul, to the US at best you're potentially a common criminal on the run from the law in another country, at worst a clowning fool who doesn't understand legalese too well. I'm not an expert (far from it) on legal matters of political asylum in the US either but I cannot believe such applications are easily approved as free-for-alls or handed out like free doughnuts, especially when the applicant in question seems nothing more than a fugitive from the law in his country of origin. Lionheart faces no threat to his life, no torture or wrongful imprisonment. No, our Lionheart faces... an interview with the police in his country of origin. Some Cœur de Lion, huh?

Undoubtedly Paul will now try and twist the arm of Lady Justice by kicking up a big stink and try and explode his US fan base. Let him at least realise that an attempt to garner popular support is a two edged sword and if Lionheart comes off his high horse he may well also fall onto that sword. So far, his Tinkerwebs support base has done nothing but a great disservice to Paulie's case. Coming from the super-bigots of the Hyper Far Right 101 Keyboard Warriors, where the stench of all kinds of racism, from Islamophobia, over homophobia, up to and including anti-Semitism, reeks up to high heaven, that's where most of Paulie's moronic supporters reside. Egging him on from the comfort of their imaginary cyber control-centres, they give Paul the illusion of being on the right side of things and having a fighting chance of beating the Law. But Dura Lex sed Lex. I hope those who ill-advised Lyin' Heart to seek political asylum in the US will realise their mistake when sooner or later this tactic will come back to bite their hero in the arse. But by then our cyber-soldiers will have moved on to another case: no shortage of hot-headed fools in this world...

One particular piece of wingnutty advice came from a certain Paul Wilson who advised Paul: "Youi [sic] should make an official complaint about the way that this has been handled by the Bedfordshire Police". Yep, Paul (Ray), not only should you become a fugitive, you should also sue the BP, attack being the best defence and all that crap...

Lastly, it has to be said that our alleged freedom fighter and last defender of Freedom of Speech, like so many of his brethren in the deep sewers of the Hyper Far Right blogosphere, has now resorted to... censorship. A comment of mine on his last post, part ridicule of Paul's decision, part well meant advice, was unceremoniously removed from Lionheart's comment section (with only Paul Wilson's ridiculous attempt at rebuttal remaining as testimony to its former existence). Again, some hero, eh?

For those unfamiliar with this case so far, I would strongly suggest reading Should we support Lionheart? and Conservatives ditch Lionheart, before making any judgment.