Free Speech on Trial

Court case blog – end of chapter one!

2006-02-07T19:50:00.000Z

Court case blog – end of chapter one!

My apologies for the long delay in writing this ‘final’ piece to wrap up the coverage of the case that ended nearly a week ago.

A lot has happened since then. First, there was a rush of TV and radio appearances organised for me and our press officer, something which we spent considerable time organising only to have virtually all of them ‘pulled’ at the last minute when the broadcasters’ legal departments warned them that the CPS decision to go for a retrial made any interviews with BNP spokesmen about the case potentially sub judice.

Curious that, for it doesn’t seem to have stopped every anti-British scribbler in the mainstream media from having a pop at us, in a tirade of hate that still hasn’t stopped. Just this afternoon, the vicar from Abu Hamza’s area was on Radio Five Live spouting his view that the things I said were worse than anything Mr Hook came out with. Do they breed these creatures on some special liberal-farm?

Then there was a backlog of urgent internal organisational work to be done. Incidentally, ‘backlog’ is a splendid old English word. It was used in mediaeval times to describe the undone work that built up in a big household while the yule log was burning on the great hearth. The servants were relieved of many of their normal duties while it blazed away during the Christmas holiday, so often they would soak it in water before hauling it to the fireplace in order to get extra time off. The only trouble, of course, was that they had to do the work that had built up – the backlog - once the last piece of it had been burnt away. The word skipped the Atlantic with English settlers in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and then died out on our side of the Pond, only to be reintroduced via American business English in the 20^th century.

The work continues

Anyway, there was certainly a backlog to be sorted out, and this work continues. Then there was the time I just had to spend with my family, for whom the trial was probably even harder than it was for me (Mark tells me he feels the same). So I’ve been cooking, trying out a few new recipes, walking, being with them and just lazing around. And I make no apologies for doing so.

So back to the tail end of the case – what a day that was. In some ways waiting for a verdict once the jury have retired is a terrible anti-climax. Released from the dock, but bailed to stay within the confines of the court, all you can do is sit around in the canteen (hello to any of the smashing dinner ladies there who happen to be reading this – thanks for all your kindness) and wait. And wait. And wait.

We had a false alarm near the end of the first day, when we were called in to be discharged for the night so early that everyone thought it was actually for a verdict. This would almost certainly have been a ‘not guilty’ result, as not enough time had passed for each charge to be looked at it detail. Then we had another on the final day.

Being called back into court like that is really hard going on families and supporters, and, for Mark and I, the adrenaline sets the heart going wildly. It’s not fear, because we’re quite willing to go to prison if that’s what fate demands, but the tension is indescribable.

As the clock ticked away on the second day of the jury being out, it began to look as though we’d have to wait another night. We’d already decided that such a development would probably indicate a split jury that couldn’t agree a verdict at all (always the most likely result, in our view, on account of the highly political nature of the case), whereas a verdict on this second day would be more likely to be a result, one way or the other.

We were called back into court just after lunch for what we assumed would be simply for the judge to tell the jury that he would accept a majority verdict, only to learn that they had reached a verdict on at least some of the charges. Mark and I stand as the foreman of the jury (Mr. Liberal-Note-Taking-Man., as predicted) also stands to deliver the verdicts.

Unanimous decision

On a number of the charges, no verdict, but on the four charges arising from two of Mark’s speeches, they have unanimous verdicts! “We find the defendant .... not guilty”. There is a huge sigh of relief from the public gallery each time the sentence is repeated, four times in all. Perhaps Mr. Liberal-Note-Taking-Man isn’t so liberal after all? Even the Muslim has agreed that Mark is innocent on half of the charges thrown against him by the New Labour-run CPS.

Then, having instructed the jury that he will now accept majority verdicts of 10-1, the judge sends them, and us, out again.

Just as the afternoon of waiting draws to a close, we are called back once more. Surely this is to send us all home for the night? But no, they have a majority verdict on one of us. Charges 11 and 12, this is my Morley Town Hall speech. Given the fact that my other speech was all about Islam, and this is about the clearly ‘racial’ problem of media bias against the white victims of racist murder, I had all along regarded this short speech as being the only one of the two which could even be considered as in possible breach of the thoroughly bad law under which we had been hauled before the court.

The first of the pair of charges – intent to incite racial hatred – is deal with first. “We find the defendant .... not guilty.” That’s really no surprise, as to prove ‘intent’ is well nigh impossible and it would have been a most perverse decision in the light of all the evidence we had presented in court, not least by continual insistence to the audience on the night that such injustices had to be remedied through peaceful political action.

Then, on the lesser offence of ‘likelihood’ – “We find the defendant,” perhaps there is no delay here except in my head, but it seems like an age “... not guilty.” I hear the response from my family just a few feet away behind the smoked glass screen. It would be easy to cry.

It’s not just that the 10-1 verdict in my favour destroys that charge, it’s what it tells us about the frame of mind of the jury. How on earth can a group of 11 people who have already found unanimously in Mark’s favour on half of the charges against him, and 10-1 in my favour in half of the charges against me, go on to do the 180% turn that would be required to convict us on the remaining counts?

So what of the other charges? The judge asks the foreman if there is any possibility of them reaching verdicts on the remaining charges? On the intent ones? “No.” On the likelihood ones? “Very little.”

The judge’s ears prick up and he explores the difference in response. “Would more time allow you to reach a verdict? Is there a chance of a verdict” The foreman glances at his fellow jury members and shakes his head, “No.”

Hung jury

That’s it! A hung jury. This means that the remains of the case is about to collapse. I suspect that many of those in the public gallery don’t realise this yet. The judge confirms it, discharges the jury, and tells Mark and I that we are free to go. A spontaneous cheer from the public gallery infuriates the judge. I understand his position , and his need to maintain the dignity of his court and his office – he must see some real low-life trash through this place, complete with irredeemably scummy relatives. But this is different, and everyone immediately calms down.

Jameson is on his feet, telling the judge that the CPS have already decided to apply to the Attorney-General for a retrial in the outstanding charges. Mr. Justice Norman Jones is, however – as I wrote some time ago – a wise old owl, and tries to give the CPS time for cooler heads to prevail. Especially as the not guilty verdict against me has only just been announced, there is no possibility that the question of what to do now can have been properly thought through.

He suggests accordingly that the question can be dealt with ‘administratively’ (in other words by the judge and the lawyers, and without the Griffin/Collett showtrial media circus) at some stage in the following week.

Mark and I round the smoked glass screen that divides the room. We’re back with the free men, women and children who are there to support us, and out of the realm of ‘crime’ and punishment. Our lawyers have been fantastic, but they’re welcome to that world in my opinion.

Hugs all round. What a feeling. The media jackal pack look glum, but not as glum as the three cops who helped initiate the case. They’ve been sitting near the press throughout the case, gradually looking more and more depressed. That should be tinged with shame as well; they’ve wasted thousands of man hours and hundreds of thousands of pounds on this persecution.

We go downstairs to the foyer. Outside we can see to the left the wildy waving flags of our loyal crowd of supporters. And a bank of TV cameras and still photographers like I’ve never seen before. This is going to be wild!

Victory

We come out of the doors, I grab Mark’s hand and raise our twinned hands in victory. There are ‘V’ signs everywhere. When I first used this back in 2001 in Oldham there was a predictable whine from a few old hardliners about using the symbol popularised by Churchill. That’s not a moan I’ve heard for some time now. I think all but the most obtuse and or moronic Hollywood Nazi clowns have finally grasped the massively powerful symbolic value this salute has with the older generation, and the extent to which we have now almost made it ours (in this country at least).

As the parallels grow between the West’s pathetic surrender to Islamic extremism (typified this week by the British media’s refusal to reprint those cartoons), and the long policy of appeasement of Nazi and Bolshevik ambitions by an earlier generation of our leaders, the Churchill myth becomes more and more important to us.

The actual history of those times, the details of gambling debts and unjust treaties and all the rest of it are irrelevant, it’s the symbolism and the psychology that counts. Here is a weapon we can use to help our people survive and regain their freedom. As someone once said: “Whatever it takes”!

Our crowd is ecstatic. “Freedom, freedom, freedom” rings out across the precinct. The flash bulb barrage matches the wild mood. A tiny demoralised handful of far-left/Islamic extremists behind the police cordon add a touch of comedy before slinking away. Mark and I and our families are handed huge bouquets of red-white-and-blue flowers, then we’re with our supporters. More hugs and handshakes. Friends who have stood so loyally in the bitter cold day after day have tears streaming down their faces, and no-one gives a damn.

The media have to wait for a bit, but then we head down to where they are pressing against a police cordon and give them a few off the cuff soundbites. I think everyone in Britain saw them played over and over on all the TV news broadcasts (“extraordinary scenes outside Leeds Crown Court” was how one of them summed it all up) so I won’t repeat them here. But we know from the public response since that my words, and our ordeal, struck a deep, deep chord with a British public who have thought for years that no-one had the courage to stand up and say in public what so many millions feel in private.

Some of my message is almost drowned out by the cheering crowd. This trial has seen another first – day after day, the noisy, ugly, hate-filled ranks of the far-left and their Islamist allies have been outnumbered by good-humoured, thoroughly normal, British patriots demonstrating in support of freedom.

Sky TV, ITN, Channel 4, Channel 5. They all want, and get, their slice of the media action. The BBC ask if they can have a few words? What a nerve! This whole trial has been the result of their attempt to put us in prison. But hell yes, we’re in a generous mood this evening, and I want to rub their noses in it, so I even do a bit for the Blatant Bias Corporation. Some of this footage, one can sense at once, is iconic. We’ve just made the leap to a new level in British politics.

And then, flanked by our “burly minders/unsung heroes/shaven headed thugs/essential lifesavers in the post Van Gogh world” (delete as applicable), we head for the people carriers and we’re away.

It’s been breath-taking. And, being followed by the extraordinary series of events arising from the Danish cartoon frenzy, it has transformed our standing among many millions of our people. If only we had European Elections this June, we’d walk them. The ‘Kilroy factor’ – being seen by the public as the people the liberal Establishment most hate – is now with us. Just as present, the BNP in general, and Mark Collett and Nick Griffin in particular, are icons for millions whose long-suppressed and growing anger at the undemocratic transformation of our entire society is now approaching boiling point.

Future of Europe

Make no mistake, other stories will come up which put Islam/multi-culturalism and the destruction of the West on the backburner again for a while from time to time. But there will come a time, perhaps sooner than anyone thinks, when those closely related set of questions about the future of the whole of Europe will finally have to be decided. And when that time comes, in Britain at least, the remarkable ‘coincidence’ of the Griffin/Collett and Abu Hamza trials, and the trouble caused by some very mild cartoons published in a quiet little country on the other side of the North Sea, will re-emerge as powerful factors in the mind of the British people as they finally give their verdict on what the liberals, the Tory traitors and the left-wing social engineers have done to our poor, poor country.

Until then, we need everyone who has followed this blog to make up your minds, right now, to get involved in some way and to help us to build the political machine that we will need to mobilise the resistance of our people along constructive and effective channels. We have, for a start, only a couple of months in which to improve our capability to take advantage of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Charge of the Stupid Brigade decision to prosecute us all over again.

They are about, yet again, to ignore the famous First Law of Holes (“when in a hole, stop digging.”) Come along and help us to use this stupidity to bury them.

Verdict footage

2006-02-03T18:18:00.000Z

Video footage from outside Leeds Court (Thursday 2nd) showing the celebratory reception as Mark Collett and Nick Griffin , the Free Speech Two emerged from the court house.

The clip can be found here .

Despite the lies from the BBC and a few other media outlets there is NO definite retrial; the decision whether a retrial can go ahead can be made only after careful consideration of legal aspects by the CPS, defence and the trial's presiding judge.

Victory!

2006-02-02T17:12:00.000Z

The Free Speech Two walked out of Leeds Crown Court earlier this afternoon as free men.

Both Mark Collett and Nick Griffin were found NOT GUILTY on half the charges with a hung jury on the remainder.

Mark Collett faced a total of 8 charges of using words and behaviour likely to incite racial hatred. He was found NOT GUILTY on four charges unanimously. The jury could not agree a majority verdict on the other four charges leading the judge to dismiss the charges.

Nick Griffin faced a total of 4 similar charges of using words and behaviour likely to incite racial hatred. He was found NOT GUILTY on two charges unanimously. The jury could not agree a majority verdict on the other two charges and likewise the judge acquitted Mr. Griffin.

The Crown Prosecution Service could order a retrial but the New Labour appointees face a dilemma. Could they afford the extra cost of another trial which to even the most ardent critic of the BNP would seem like State persecution?

Mark and Nick are the heroes of free speech lovers across the land and we wish them a truly happy celebration this evening.

Day 13: Wed 1st February

2006-02-01T19:56:00.000Z

Day 13: Wed 1st February

Due to start at 10 a.m. Judge arrives at 10.05 a.m. Mr King is held up on the motorway, so Mark's junior, the very able and darkly humourous Mr Nutter, is standing in as a formality to represent my interests. More cards and letter for both me and Mark, once again, many thanks.

One of them is a poem, aparently by someone who has been in court. It's really rather good:

Tribulation

Beneath the lion and unicorn
Of HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE
The theatre stands in readiness
Our British justice to dispense.

The Free Speech Two stand resolute,
The victims in a war of words,
Indicted for sincerity,
Called to account in Counts absurd.

Public displays of unjust laws,
Designed to silence all debate
And quieten those who would speak out
Against a multicultural state.

The battle rages long and hard,
No quarter do The Two concede.
They firmly to the truth adhere;
For Freedom's cause they intercede.

The world is largely unaware
Of selfless two-fold sacrifice
By those who see with seers' sight
The politicians' artifice.

But those who follow, hearts inspired
With pride, at honest eloquence
The Free Speech Two displayed, with such
Victorious magnificence,

Will cause the fruits of courage, rare
Within this land, so lost and lorn,
To grow with greater vigour there
And bring a braver, brighter morn.

Thank you, 'Britannia'.

[Note to overseas readers, the French motto in bold means 'Evil Be To He Who Thinks Evil of It'. It, together with the lion and the unicorn, grace the Royal Crest which adorns the wall behind the judge].

The jury file back in at 10.08 and the judge explains why my counsel are absent at present. He then turns to Mark's fourth speech.

The judge points out that the Abu Qatada to whom Mark refers in the course of his speech when he talks about asylum seekers including terrorists, is the same man shown on a DVD clip included in my defence. This had shown clearly that Qatada was an extremist, stirring up trouble, and that he was an asylum seeker funded by the British taxpayer. The same is true of Abu Hamza.

Quite a bit of time is spent on comments Mark had made about a once-pretty young white girl and the "Asian/asylum seeker" who called at her house and who he took - on pure experience knowing the area - to be a pusher.

The judge tells the jury that it would be unfair to set much store by an unfinished essay that Mark had written at the age of 19, which the prosecution had provided as evidence of his intentions and state of mind. "Especially in politics, people change their minds, and he is now a man of 24".

He reminds the jury of how Mark had said that, living and working politically in working class Leeds, he sees things that wealthy liberal enthusiasts of multi-culturalism don't see.

So far the summing up is very fair, he stresses again that if Mark's evidence makes them have doubts about whether the prosecution claims are correct, then they should not convict.

Two whole pages of the speech that follow are clearly political, involving criticisms of our political opponents. These are important, says the judge. "To what extent do they colour the rest of the speech, and water it down?"

Mr King QC arrives at 10.30 a.m., just as the judge is telling the jury that the Attorney-General brings prosecutions not as a Minister of the government but as a law officer. "There is no reason to believe that he did not carry out his duties properly in this case." Of course not, he's an active Labour party supporter and a friend of the Blairs, and we know that makes him an honest and trustworthy chap.

He turns to deal with my speeches.

Fair summary

He runs through my general defence, and gives due weight to the applause in the Shelf meeting when I spoke of the wickedness of the people who racially murdered an elderly Asian. Again, it's all fair at present.

He moves on to review my Keighley speech (incidentally, for those readers who have now seen it online, I can say that, if I am at liberty at the end of this, I will get posted up my defence material on how I formed what may at first sight seem to be a very harsh judgement of Islam).

He deals at length with my description of how 'grooming' occurs, and how I said that the problem was continuing. Next time, if there is one, however, we need to ensure that the full details of the process, right to the end when girls are either gang-raped or got hooked on hard drugs (often by being given what they think is an ordinary cannabis joint which is in fact spiked with crack cocaine) is explained properly. It is deeply shocking and, because we weren't allowed to show the Edge of the City documentary, the jury still don't really have a full picture of what it involves.

Talking of my references to the Koran he points out that the page copies I have provided are marked, so it is easy to see what I am referring to. In discussing the Crown claim that when I say 'Muslims' I really mean 'Asians', to my mind he gives rather more weight to it than to my arguments to the contrary.

He moves on to what he describes as 'the kernel of Mr Griffin's defence': "In attacking the Muslim faith I do not attack Asians. Many Asians are not Muslims, indeed a friend of mine, Mr Singh, is a Sikh, an Asian, who helped me form my views on this issue."

It is now 10.54, I was right to think this would take longer than an hour today. He goes through at length what I had to say about how I formed my views on this subject. The jury are taken through what I had to say in significant detail. He's still having trouble with the name 'Qatada'.

It was clearly a mistake not to fight harder to stress the material I came across in my studies of Islam which convinced me that it is inherently 'extreme', fundamentalist and dangerous, as the impression can all too easily be gained from this review that it's only obvious fanatics like Qatada and Hamza who are dangerous. This can be taken to suggest that it is unfair to tar the whole religion with their brush. Here is something else that, in the light of the way my views have not been adequately presented in this trial, will have to be put right if we get a hung jury and a retrial.

Demographics

My references to our becoming an oppressed minority in our own land again brings the judge to refer to how the official figures have been interpreted by demographers to show that this is on course to happen sometime between 2060 and 2100. This is the great unspoken issue in the whole of British politics - indeed in the political discourse of the entire Western world. Our raising it is, in many ways, the core reason for us being in the dock.

Even my rhetorical flourish about 'killing the Islamic dragon' which was shown on BBC is an exhortation to get involved politically, he reminds them the evidence showed, and goes on to remind them of my exchanges with Mr King, including a repetition of my warning that "Within decades Western societies have to decide whether to retain their standards or to become Islamic republics", that I believe that Islam is a menace, a metaphorical 'dragon'.

Although this is all fair enough, I'm not sure I really see the point of it. Line after line is analysed, both in favour of the prosecution and of the defence. Why not just get the jury to look at the speech once more and leave it to their judgement?

He reminds the jury of how I described a 'Paki street thug' as a specific type of young man from the Muslim community, "they swagger .... and use the word 'innit' at the end of every sentence." The 'Paki' extracts from Edge of the City are also referred to, as these showed very clearly that the word is perfectly normal and non-pejorative in places like Keighley. In the end, he tells the jury, "it's for you to decide." What a shame we weren't allowed to show the whole programme.

Yes, much of what he is saying is very fair. He reads a big chunk of my evidence as to how I've seen young men come to meetings clearly feeling hate, but how, after they've got involved, they come to understand that the problem is political and needs a political solution, and how when I see them a few months later "the hatred has evaporated." I think this is a very important point, and I hope it's taken on board. The trouble is not what Justice Norman Stone is saying at the moment, but that he may be going on so long that the jury might be switching off.

Liberal note-taking man is still taking notes, and is now wearing a suit and tie - a clear indication he wants to be elected jury foreman. It will either be him or the Tory-looking lady.

When he moves over pages which are not 'sensitive', the judge reminds the jury that they must still be borne in mind as part of the overall picture.

At the end of the speech the judge yet again tells them to look at it as a whole, and also take into account what I've said in the court, and the documents I've put before them.

The final speech was the one at Morley Town Hall on 5th May, very close to the election.

Next time, if it arises, we'll have to provide the photograph that shows that Stephen Lawrence's black power salute has been shoved down the media memory hole. It very powerfully illustrates the media bias. Imagine, for example, if one of the white lads whose ignored murders we decry had been photographed giving a Nazi salute? The media or the prosecution in a case like this would immediately use the picture to suggest that they deserved to die, or at least probably brought racial violence upon themselves. As always, it's one law for the 'ethnics' and one for the whites.

This speech, he reminds the jury, was described by me as an attack on the press.

Race murders

Inevitably we revisit the Stephen Lawrence issue, before moving on to review what I said about several white victims. Gavin Hopley is the first. I think back to a few days ago, and my livid anger when the prosecutor suggested to me that in this case 'justice has been done' because someone had been jailed for riotous behaviour. Swine.

Sean Whyte. Again, I suspect that Mr Jameson and Co really don't believe that the killers of victims like this do indeed swagger the streets and boast and intimidate both the victims' families and other people in the community. I wish I had had the chance to tell them how 'krypto' have become a slang verb in Pollockshields, Glasgow - Krypto was the nick-name of Kriss Donald, and to this day young whites are threatened by 'Paki street thugs' in the area "Do you want to be kryptoed?" The joys of diversity!

At least the disparity in media coverage seems to be coming out today, better so far on this than yesterday.

The judge loses his thread and stumbles slightly more in my material than in Mark's. I fear this is an indication of the fact that, even when slowing down to give evidence, I talk too fast.

The fact that a statement from Kriss Donald's mother saying she didn't want the murder flagged up as a racial killing appeared in the Scottish papers is used to case doubt on my evidence about having met a member of his family and family friends. Having done so, however, he does point out that I might have met someone other than Kriss' mother. Precisely.

Part of my speech about the murder of Scott Pritchard in Sunderland included a piece of irony. Unfortunately, despite my having pointed out the actual meaning of what I said during my evidence, the judge misses the point. It's only a small one, but it does totally undermine my explanation of this point.

This speech did, in substantial part, he says, deal with more political issues, take these pages into account.

Prophesies

My 7/7 and 21/7 prophesies are read out yet again, as is my point that the eventual backlash could and should be political and peaceful, through the ballot box, but that if the BNP is persecuted and suppressed so that this option ceases to be available, the result is likely to be violence.

It's amazing how the liberal political and media elites in particular readily concede this point when explaining what went wrong in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, leading to thirty years of horror, but when it comes to mainland Britain in 2006, they really do seem blind to the dangers inherent in their repeated attempts to suppress peaceful political involvement and solutions.

He says that my bundle includes not just the Koran but also material from writers 'antagonistic to Islam'. This is a reasonable analysis from what he has heard, but only because he earlier in the case wouldn't allow me enough time to explain my position in full, including the fact that authors such as Hiskett are in fact thoroughly balanced in their views of Islam.

Finally, the jury are told to feel under no pressure of time. They file out at 12.04 and we are granted bail within the precincts of the court. That's it. End of case. Now we just have to wait.

We retire to the canteen, where the ladies are once again very friendly and supportive. We find the curtains overlooking the street closed and guarded by police officers. Their job is to keep us away from the windows on account of the rabid little mob of far-leftists screeching hate down below. As this also stops us waving our thanks to our rather larger band of supporters waving Union and St. George flags on the other side of the road, we decide to go outside to meet them at 1 p.m. (the judge having indicated that we can leave the 'precincts of the court' for an hour at lunchtime).

Together with the biggest and clearly most effective security team we've had so far, Mark and I, plus his parents and Jackie and my eldest daughter, all walk through the main court doors and out into the relatively fresh air. A huge cheer goes up from our people, followed by howls of hate from the placard-waving freaks to the right of the entrance.

Media scrum

TV crews and still photographers surge forwards, and I shake hands with 'St. George' (many thanks, Derek) amid a sea of flashlights and a media scrum. One of our Event Stewards (clearly visible in smart high-viz tabards) hands me a hand-held megaphone and I address the crowd briefly. I thank them for coming and point out the clear contrast between them and the hate-filled workshy rabble across the street. I go on to say that the prosecution now cannot win: "Either we walk free, and millions of people will hold their heads a little higher and feel a little more free to speak their minds, or we are jailed, and millions of people will be utterly disgusted by the fact that we are sent to prison simply for telling the truth."

Mark and I shake hands with those of our supporters we can reach through the barriers and the hubbub, then we head back into the court and our long wait for the tannoy message which will call "All parties in the case of Collett and Griffin to court number 10".

Depending on what happens then, I may or may not have more to say in a final blog. Either way, it certainly won't be the last you hear from me.

Day 12: Tues 31st January

2006-02-01T09:32:00.000Z

Day 12: Tues 31st January

10.55. Lawson-Rogers resumes his closing speech on behalf of Mark, returning to the European Convention and its impact on British law.

He tells the jury that Article 10.2 allows controls on free speech, but makes it clear they must be as limited as possible. He reads two passages from case law, as "I can't improve on them".

I don't have time to note the precise details, but the gist of the judgements is that "Freedom of speech includes opinions that offend, shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population, such are the demands of that pluralism and tolerance without which there is no democratic society."

Free speech includes not just bland comments which everyone agrees with, but also "the irritating, the heretical, the provocative......freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having ...... from the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers, we have too many examples of the abuse of power of the State." This judgement went on to acknowledge the debt our legal system and free society still owes to the jury which refused to convict William Penn, despite enormous pressures, in 1670, "for preaching ideas which offended against state orthodoxy."

He goes on to rubbish the prosecution claim that this is not about the BNP. "If that was the case, why did the prosecution feel the need to draw attention to the party's policies on admission of immigrants and the deportation of criminals?"

State broadcaster’s bias

The whole case, he says, only arose because the BBC - motivated by political bias - instigated undercover activity. The police didn't do this for the good reason that they knew there was nothing to be investigated. It was only after the BBC broadcast edited extracts that West Yorkshire police were pushed into action.

The case comes under the Public Order Act, a law to control public order, but the prosecution has admitted there were no public order problems, and no long term affects either. "The fact there was no violence is very relevant to your decision." The lack of any problems, he continues, also calls into question the propriety of even bringing the prosecution. The police would know that no-one would be present at those meetings who might have been offended.

The purpose of Mark's speeches is clear when you read them - not to stir up hatred or encourage violence, but to encourage political, legal activity."

"Is he being prosecuted because he dared to speak the name of racial tensions, you may think." The prosecution admit there are problems, and concede it is justified to discuss them, "but are they only paying lip service to this idea?"

He goes on to put it all in its proper perspective: "The views expressed are no different to those expressed in pubs and clubs up and down the country."

Public concern

He says how Enoch Powell, and the two of us, are 'answered' when we warn of potential problems by being castigated as 'racists'. He lists some of the tensions and problems caused by mass immigration and asylum. "These are facts, not speculation." Some of the jury bundle was intended to prove that Mark was "talking about matters of immense public concern that have to be addressed."

He puts the boot into Tony Blair by pointing out he went to war on Iraq on the basis of intelligence which he believed at the time. Even though it turned out to be wrong, the fact that he believed it shows his intention at the time. Mark similarly had reasons to believe what he said (much better than our Tone, I would add).

The BNP is entitled to talk about these issues. Whether or not you like Mark's words or style is beside the point.

Mark's targets are the "ineffectual politicians who have allowed these problems to come about" and the journalists who do not report what is going on properly.

The prosecution started by telling you to look at the speeches "in their totality", but then went on to "cherry pick" the material.

He accepts that on odd occasions Mark exaggerated "If that is a crime what politician is innocent?" he asks. In any case, any exaggeration merely goes to strengthen his efforts to get people to do things politically; it is no evidence whatsoever of any intention to incite hatred.

"Mr Collett vehemently denies being a racist, but even if he was, being a racist is not yet a crime in Britain. Not yet. We don't yet have Thought Police in this country, but watch this space."

Jurors alert

L-R’s presentation is superb. The jury appear to be paying close attention. His tone rises and dips, he pauses for effect, then presses on. No-one is going to sleep now.

Suppose Mark had wanted to incite hatred, which he didn't. "There is a wealth of words and expressions" which exist out there which he could have and would have used if it was his intention to incite hatred. And if it was his intention to incite racial hatred, he clearly failed, didn't he? He didn't know he was being recorded and he was speaking to a sympathetic audience. He had no reason to restrain himself.

As Mr Griffin said in his evidence, if there were to be any racial violence, who would get the blame? The BNP. How would that help their cause? That's why their meetings are held privately, in fact in secret, in order to avoid the possibility of opponents coming and causing violence.

Having dealt with the absurd idea that the intention was to incite racial hatred, he turns to the question of 'likely under all the circumstances" to stir up racial hatred. You need to look at the whole speech, he says, at the effectively private nature of the meetings.

Audience of four million

Referring to the fact that the most un-PC bits of the speeches were shown on national TV, he asks a very pertinent question: "How could you find that racial hatred was likely to be stirred up when the whole thing has been tested on four million people and there is no evidence that any hatred was stirred up? There is not a shred of evidence that, in those tiny meetings, any hatred was likely to be stirred up".

The fact that there was no one there to be "threatened, abused or insulted" may assist them, but even ignoring that they have to look at the intentions and circumstances.

He moves on to examine the phrase 'racial hatred'. Hatred, he points out, is "strong stuff", "active dislike", the dictionary says. And it must be hatred of a racial group, not of politicians, and not of asylum seekers, who come from various races. When Mark said he didn't hate Asians and asylum seekers, but did hate the white liberals who brought them here, this would be likely to dampen down any hatred that a member of the audience might feel towards those groups.

"This case should never have come to criminal proceedings, and it never would have but for the interference of politically correct journalists." This is not a 'borderline case'.

Mark does not have to prove his innocence; it is for the prosecution to prove his guilt. Look at the evidence and decide.

A 'not guilty' verdict is not a kind of vote for, or vindication of, the BNP. That is not what this case is about; it is about freedom of speech in our society. He asks them to have the courage to find the case 'not proved'.

He finishes at 11.41 and Mr King rises to his feet.

Basis of democracy

He starts by saying that, as an advocate, one has no choice but to represent a client, regardless of what they say or do. His personal views, and theirs are irrelevant.

“But we are proud to live in a democratic society.” There are 2 key factors in a democratic society. First, we believe in the ballot box, not the bomb as the way of resolving problems and issues. Second, we believe in freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not a mantra, not just words, it is fundamental to a democratic society. The right to speak not just what is attractive but also what is unattractive.

He says his learned friend Mr Lawson-Rogers has 'stolen all the best lines' but he repeats the expression of the court which encapsulates the position

A Lord Justice on Appeal said that freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having ... tolerance is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind …. from the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers, etc, etc. Good stuff – and current English case law material.

The Crown admit it's an attack on freedom of speech but claim it's justified. We say it is not on the facts of the case.

Overall impact

Mr Griffin is on trial for just two speeches, not for any particular words within them. Each speech must be taken as a whole. This is why we say to you it's a wholly unjustified prosecution. The starting point is that the BNP is a legal political entity. It has the right in a democratic society to put forward ideas and policies which some might find uncomfortable or even offensive.

In each speech Mr Griffin firstly is advocating the ballot box and not the bomb or the bullet, and secondly was raising issues of genuine public interest to a private audience who he believed, you might think rightly, felt left out of the political process and who he was inviting to get back involved in that political process.

Wholly unfair to over-analyse the speeches by picking out lines. Must look at overall impact.

And remember context of each speech - that of a politician speaking to a politically committed audience, there to get a political message and go out to work in a political way. Nobody is going to listen to every line, every nuance. It would be wholly unfair to forget that fact.

'Threatening' has disappeared, and rightly so. Look at insulting or abusive words intended or likely to incite hatred. The prosecution says I am disguising my true intention "what a basis to try to prove an intention!"

The message from the law cases of the importance of freedom of speech is that any restriction on it must be narrowly interpreted.

At one point is his evidence, Mr Griffin was driven to say "I was giving a political speech, not a theological lecture." He feels the same way, but wants to read another legal judgement

“Freedom of expression constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society... extended not only to information and ideas favourably received but also to those that offend shock or disturb.”

Hence any such restrictions should be narrowly interpreted, so cases should only come to court if it’s really clear. "If there's a debate about it - what does this line mean, what does that line mean - the case clearly isn't clear. It just isn't made out at all.

He looks at how 'cherry picking can go horribly wrong'. “One particular one stuck in my mind: The Crown extracted a line from one of Mr Griffin’s speeches in which he spoke of 'the evil which these people have done to this country.’ Look to divider 4. He too thought this was about ethnic minorities, but look at the page. He reads the passage, and it is clear that "these people" are the politicians, particularly the Labour party. Looking at the previous page, where I attack Jack Straw and the Labour party, it is absolutely clear what I meant.

It is part of my stance, he continues, to say that a multi-cultural society hasn't worked. “You and I may disagree, but that isn't the point. The real point is that it is open to any politician or member of the public to make that point.”

Legitimate debate

To want to go back to 'the old days' is a sensitive issue, and if raised by a politician he is immediately accused of the sort of offence with which Mr Griffin is accused. To advocate restrictions on immigration etc is not to want to incite hatred. It is a legitimate point of view. And when the Crown start ticking off the number of times Mr Griffin uses the word' white' I submit it is wholly unfair. It is a legitimate topic of debate and we do no service to say that those who raise it do so at risk of prosecution.

It is especially dangerous to jump and tick these issues as criminal offences, because it could lead to these problems ending in violence instead of political debate.

Raising racial issues in a speech does not mean you are seeking to incite racial hatred, or even that it is likely to be stirred up. Far from it, raising it in political debate is a good way of preventing that happening.

No issue as to my good faith, my genuine belief. The Crown didn't do anything to suggest otherwise in cross-examination, although they did in Mr Jameson’s closing speech. But in fact no evidence laid before you AT ALL to contradict what Mr. Griffin said, or the evidence he presented.

Mr Griffin was roundly criticised for relying on second or third hand information - it went through my head, he tells the jury, that the government of the day justified going to a war on third hand information.” I don't stand here to attack anyone over the war in Iraq, I just use it as an example of how a politician can use second or third hand info, and still be genuine in their beliefs.”

Crown used closing speech to question the genuine nature of my beliefs on Islam, but they didn't do this in cross-exam. In fact, at that point, Mr Jameson accepted "I don't dispute the genuine nature of your feelings about Islam."

Prosecution twisted words

He kicks Jameson again with another example of how he twisted my words to say things I didn't:

Jameson went to end of speech where I say I'd get seven years and said this was an admission from me that I was breaking the law against incitement to racial hatred. He didn't remind you of the way I used the same line at the start of the speech. "The second (reason) is, their good book tells them it's acceptable. Now that sentence could get me 7 years in prison." This cannot be capable of any other interpretation. We know it is a reference to the Koran. It is patently clear that I have a belief that attacking a religion, not a race, could land him with a prosecution. But the Crown did not see fit to remind you of it.

Also triggers another big issue, Crown can't gainsay that I was raising issues of the Islamic faith on behaviour. Not a criminal offence, but then Crown say it's a disguise. We submit there is no basis for this, for it is clear from his evidence that he vehemently believes in the dangers in the Islamic faith.

Moves to another example, how Crown chose to ignore the context: Having spoken about the canvassing of different people, “canvass Sikhs, they may well vote for us …. it's not a racial thing in a town like this, it's a cultural religious thing."

You couldn't have a clearer statement of what this is all about, he tells the jury.

Morley speech

Second speech, at Morley. I talk about what might happen in the future. He repeats my uncanny prediction of who would carry out the 7/7 (and also the 21/7) bombings. The Crown make no criticism of this. But Mr King suggests that had I been put on trial before 7/7, I would have been roundly criticised for this prediction, they'd have said my intention was to incite racial hatred. It wasn't then, I was trying to make a sensitive point about a real problem.

Hindsight can help. When you are assessing intent or likelihood, it is not unfair when there has been a huge passage of time, to see what has happened. We know precisely what happened as a result of these speeches in terms of their impact on audiences who heard from them - and the answer is absolutely nothing. A

This is admitted by the Crown. You may feel that is a very good piece of evidence, for you can bet your bottom dollar that had there been any evidence of people going out and committing offences after hearing these speeches, we would certainly have heard all about it.

Not disputed that there is an overlap between such meetings. Heard about the speech I made in Halifax, with largely the same audience as in Morley, for example. You heard, and it's been admitted, and it's an important point, that, in the course of this speech Mr Griffin describe the murder of an elderly Asian man as an "appalling wicked incident and whoever did it should hang for murder" and the audience broke out in spontaneous applause. Powerful piece of evidence as to the reality, as opposed to the strained interpretation the Crown seek to put upon these two speeches.

Suggests what would be a fair interpretation of each of these two speeches:

Keighley. Not in doubt that I speak from very few notes, spontaneous, keeping ear to concerns of audience. No doubt that the concern of Keighley audience was the grooming of white girls for sex, committed by Asians. Very fact of raising it raises problem that aim is to incite hatred. Very unfair, because it is a matter of genuine concern and debated in pubs and homes. For politicians to ignore it risks alienating people from the political process.

Honest view

In context of that issue Mr Griffin not only raised the issue but also put forward a bona fide, honest view as to what had caused it. We may not like his analysis, but it's honest. There is criticism of Islam and of the multi-cult society. There is clear concern for the way the white working class concerns are ignored. All in context of motivating audience not to go out and commit violence or to be offensive, but to work for a political party.

Look at the framework of the speech. The grooming issue is raised, then the Islam issue, then the failure of the Establishment and Muslim community to do enough to prevent the problem, then the problem of the way Keighley is increasingly less white. Sensitive issues here, the statistics that we could be a minority in our own country in just a few decades is a legitimate point for discussion. It may be unpalatable to discuss, but Mr Griffin has the right to discuss it, especially with a group of people who are themselves worried about it. But aim is to ensure those concerns are channelled into political outlet.

I was talking about building a political movement ... ordinary people at grass roots level. This is a political speech, they inevitably include hyperbole, politicians live on it. You don't damn a man for hyperbole, it's the message that counts.

Then the audience gets a history lesson, the history of how people in Keighley stood up against the then Establishment. No apology for my saying 'mongrelising us out of existence' - we may find it offensive, but it's a way of expressing the view of those who oppose the multi-cult society.

'Paki street thug' - Mr. King tells the jury how I was clearly talking of a specific type. But admits when he first read it he thought it would be hard to explain away. Was educated by Edge of City extracts, especially how the white girl used the word about the boyfriend she loves, and then one of that community using it as 'us Pakis'. Eye-opener to me, because it wholly supports Mr Griffin's point that it's just a descriptive phrase. Only one word anyway.

Talking about feelings of the white community doesn't mean you are saying going out and hate other communities. Such a false leap.

Sikh support

If I wanted to incite hatred, I would surely have used very different language, and done it. But I am talking about the need to change political masters, on the need to canvass. Eye-opener when talking about canvassing that I say knock on Mr. Singh's door.

I'm not saying go out and fight them, spit on them in the street, etc, I'm saying get out and be involved in the political process. If I was winding people up on a soap box in a racially mixed area that might well break the law, but this is simply not the case.

If the BBC were genuinely concerned that criminal offences had been committed, why didn't they just give the tapes to the police, instead of broadcasting extracts.

Read as a whole, the first speech "doesn't begin to get past first base" in terms of breaking any law. The law was not aimed at this kind of speech.

He then moves to the Morley speech.

The purpose of the speech is to raise a genuine concern, with a disaffected white working class audience, about the way in which racist attacks on white people are played down by the media. You may agree or disagree with that, but it is a legitimate matter for concern. The Met Police Commissioner has just been in the news for saying the exact opposite, again one can agree or disagree with him, but it's a legitimate issue.

Mr. Griffin roundly attacked for going into the details. But unless you go into the detail and go into the attacks it is impossible to get over the point about how unfair the media bias really is. Second point is that it is a political speech and you can't damn a man for trying to keep the audience's attention.

Media cover-up

Crown says this isn't a speech about Muslims. Agree, and Mr Griffin is open about that, it was a speech about the way the media cover racist attacks. He is attacked over the sources of his information, but not a scrap of evidence has been presented to show they were wrong.

Spontaneous speech, not designed for line-by-line analysis. Fair interpretation that it is about a real issue, take it as a whole. Much of speech addresses other issues: Gerrymandering; the political drift towards effectively a one-party state, policies about the EU and capital punishment.

Closing passages show clearly the aim of the speech: To give the audience a peaceful political outlet for their concerns. I warned about 7/7, and warn how the media unfairness is creating hatred, and that a backlash will come.

But if the BNP is allowed to organise, the backlash can be political, and lead to a debate about how to reverse the multi-cultural experiment. That sums up the aim of the whole speech. Are we going to damn him for talking about real problems and saying that we need political solutions to them?

We are instinctively uncomfortable with this prosecution. It is designed to silence people. Thanks jury for listening carefully and asks them to consider all the matters fairly.

This has taken us perfectly to lunch.

We return at 2 pm and the judge starts to address the jury at 2.04.

Judge’s directions

He explains that he will give the directions as to how the law applies in this case, and says they must follow his directions. But it is for them to decide the verdict by looking at the defendants, and the limited number of witnesses. In particular they must judge Mr Collett's and Mr Griffin's evidence, fairly. They can come to commonsense conclusions, but mustn't speculate beyond what they've seen and heard. Pay attention to the submissions of the counsel who spoke for the prosecution (he doesn't say 'Crown' all the time) and for the two defendants.

If in the course of summing up the case I appear to emphasise a particular part of the evidence, don't adopt it because of what I saw. Give regard to any piece of evidence which I don't deal with but which you think is important. When it comes to the facts it is your judgement alone that matters.

The prosecution bring the case, they have to prove it. The defendant does NOT have to prove his innocence. How do they do that? By making you sure about it. Underline that word in your mind, if you are not sure your verdict must be one of 'not guilty'.

I still can't make out My Lord's accent. Educated, upper class, but there's a hint of something from West Britain. My David Williams, who is a North Welshman himself, thinks it comes from the Caernarfon area, tallying with the surname 'Jones'. To me there's something a bit more West country in it. Either way, it's a melodious and voice full of character. I dreamt a few nights ago that we had dinner together. He said that we shouldn't discuss the case, but we did spend some time bemoaning the sub-literacy of so many even educated young people these days! Strange tricks the mind plays sometimes when sleeping

What is said in relation to one count is not related to the other, except where we shared a platform and | applauded what Mark said.

Each count is dual. Odd number ones contrary to S.18a even ones to S.18.i.b

Two defendants, each charged with separate counts. Each defendant and each count must be approached separately.

The jury must look at the whole speech in each case. The Crown has said it is fair to look at details within the speech and use them to draw inferences as to our intentions and the likely impact of the speeches.

No threats

The first element of each charge is for the prosecution to prove that the defendant used 'abusive or insulting' words or behaviour. The word 'threatening' can be crossed out in each case.

Give the words their ordinary English usage as you understand them. Do not strain those meanings to fit the words. They do not have to be addressed at anyone in the audience. But under offences requiring 'intent' it is not necessary to prove that the words were abusive or insulting, it is the intention to incite hatred which must be proved. But under 'likelihood', the prosecution must prove not only that the words were abusive and insulting, but also that we intended them to be so or was aware they might be intended to be so.

The prosecution must prove in any case under 18.i.a that the defendant intended to stir up racial hatred. This is defined in the statute: Hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality including citizenship or ethnic or national origins. What is meant by 'stir up racial hatred'. Not merely creating it, also inflaming it if it is already there. Does not require the creation of disorder or violence.

The hatred has to be racial, the stirring up of religious hatred is not unlawful. Could not be convicted of intent to stir up hatred against Islam.

How do you decide a man's intention? Judge it by looking at was said and the circumstances in which it was said. If guilty of intentionally stirring up hatred, there is no need to consider that 18.i.b alternative. If not guilty on first count, they must look at the 'likely' charge, and look at the circumstances of the speeches on the evenings in question. The Crown has to prove racial hatred was likely to be stirred up, not merely possible. Must be sure that this is the case, if unsure you should find him not guilty.

Now, I have some legal training and am familiar with this law, but I'm finding the details of the slightly different position re all these different subsections hard going (our lawyers later say they felt the same!). Some members of the jury at least will be slightly lost by now. The judge realises this as I speak and reiterates the position. A wise and sensitive owl.

Defendants declined to answer any questions in police interview. Directs the jury that they must not infer any element of guilt from this silence.

Having dealt with the matters of law he says he will turn to the facts.

Focus on court activity

General points: Case deals with alleged commission of crime. Brought after police investigation and tried before representative jury. This case is not about their political beliefs. It is not about whether assertions about Islam are right or wrong. It is about our intent and manner. This is a classical jury case where the good judgement of the jury is required. Reflect the views of society as it is in this country. When you came into witness box you took a solemn oath on your holy book to put to one side your preconceived opinions and consider the evidence, and only the evidence you have seen or heard.

If you have seen media reports, ignore them. Everything of relevance to your considerations has occurred in this court, and nowhere else.

Bear in mind we live in democratic society that jealously protects the rights of its citizens to free speech. Article 10 part of English law. but along with rights come commensurate duties. Freedom of expression can be curtailed in limited circumstances, where it is necessary. May be done in interests of national security, territorial integrity, prevention of public disorder and crime, protection of rights of others, protection of independence of the judiciary.

Freedom of speech not limited only to the acceptable and unpopular. Bear in mind what was said by defence.

One of exceptions to free speech is protection of rights of others - individuals have rights to live their normal lives, etc, or to legislate to prevent disorder or crime - this is what S.18 of Public Order Act is there for. Approach it with care, as it does infringe freedom of speech.

Avoid straining the words of the count to fit the contents of the speeches. This case is not against the British National Party or its beliefs. It is not directed against a legitimate political party. It is about alleged crime. This is not a Labour inspired prosecution, he says, the law passed in 1986 under Mrs. Thatcher. (This, of course, misses several points, not the least of which is that it doesn’t really matter who passed the law, what counts here is that a NuLab Attorney-General approved this prosecution, after the then NuLab Home Secretary announced his intention to destroy the BNP.

Turns to the facts and the evidence. It is not common for juries to be able to view the incidents that give rise to the allegations. In this case you have the entirety of the evidence. You will need to read and re-read the transcripts of the speeches. Bear in mind the evidence of each defendant. Bear in mind evidence they gave that these speeches were directed to converted audiences, with a view to encouraging political action. Weigh this evidence, and more, against the prosecution claims.

Prosecution witness

Prosecution called only one witness, Jason Gwynne. Reiterates what Gwynne told the court about how he was involved by Nick Lowles, then joined the party in Bradford. For a six month period he regularly attended meetings and secretly filmed them. Secret Agent had four million viewers. And the police went to the BBC and asked for the material.

A statement from Bradford council was read out, illustrating "the ethnic and religious splits within the Bradford area". The prosecution invites you to bear in mind the strong Muslim/Asian link when considering what Mr Griffin said about Islam.

Draws attention to my sole comment in interview "there's no hatred in this audience and no hatred from me". Then to Crown admission that this was made after hearing spontaneous applause from audience after I condemned the wicked murder of an elderly Asian man. "Mr. Griffin relies on this as demonstrating the attitude of his audience and, indeed, perhaps even more significant, his own attitude." (I hope the jury take particular note of that point).

Bear in mind that a total of five speeches by Mr. Griffin were recorded. The Crown admits that only two have led to charges. The defence asks you to draw the inference that the others contained nothing which could have led to charges.

It is nearly three o'clock. The judge runs briefly through were and when each speech was made. Each speech must be considered in the round. What you must not do is simply cherry pick though of course you should look at individual passages. Equally, in looking at specific passages, don't just look at ones the Crown has used, look at those relied on by the defence about political work, electoral success and other policies. Consider the watering down effect of such passages on the other parts of the speech.

Consider what the defendants have said about their motivation to address genuine issues and to motivate political action. And what they have said about the audiences already agreeing with them. Remember that these are political speeches, and hyperbole is permitted, but not if it spills over into inciting hatred.

Each defendant has given you a folder containing materials which they say helped form their opinions. He skims briefly through what these are. He doesn't intend to go through them, "you can read them in detail when you retire".

Judge’s comments on media

Uses the Scottish press coverage of Kriss Donald's murder and local Bradford coverage of other anti-white incidents as showing that there is plenty of press coverage of such problems. Here he misses the point entirely - these are in local papers, not in national ones. Similarly, he says, other politicians such as Ann Cryer and Michael Howard have dealt with issues such as grooming and asylum. This is grotesquely unfair and inaccurate, and doesn't bode well for the rest of the summing up. The only thing to be said for this is that not one of the jurors has been taking notes for the last 20 minutes or so.

I wish now that I'd pressed my defence team harder to include solid evidence from Google about the anti-white media bias in cases such as the murders of Stephen Lawrence and white victims. Try it for yourself, the contrast is staggering, especially when you realise that most of the tiny number of internet mentions about the likes of Sean Whyte are from local newspapers, the BNP or other nationalist websites, whereas the records for Stephen Lawrence, Anthony Walker and others are overwhelmingly from the BBC, national newspapers and government institutions. Another field in which, if we end up with a re-trial, we'll have to do a fair bit more.

Proposes to look at parts of each speech highlighted in evidence and remind them of what the defendants said about it.

I've been talking for an hour, he says. We need a ten minute break. During the break Lee Barnes flags up several areas in which he believes we already have grounds for appeal.

The jury files back in at 15.22 and are given a slightly amended, corrected, version of the indictments.

The judge reminds the jury of what Mark told us about himself. This is fairly summed up. This includes Mark's evidence about how far-left pressure makes our meetings effectively private, if not almost underground. His aim when speaking is to motivate members and supporters to get involved politically.

He goes through Mark's Reservoir Tavern speech, and looks at Mark's answers during cross-examination. This part of the summing up seems totally even-handed, but from the detail he is going into it looks as though this summing up will not be completed until tomorrow morning.

These summings up appear to be pretty much a summary of the speeches themselves, together with material brought out in cross-examination, which in many cases has already been covered in this blog, so I'm not going to repeat them again. Just a few key comments may be worth noting.

It is now four o'clock and we're still only going through Mark's second speech. Fair again now, but heavy going.

It is interesting, I conclude to look at the face of the jury and to note just how homogeneous the native peoples of the British Isles are. 'Liberal note-taking man', as we have dubbed him, looks like a crop-haired/ balding version of one of our old hands in Norwich. The younger man next to him could easily be Darlington BNP stalwart Trevor Agnew's brother. One of the older chaps in glasses could easily be mistaken for Halifax BNP councillor Geoff Wallace. The lady with the ponytail looks very much like Sue Butler, the wife of the BNP's National Election Officer.

At the end of the second speech the judge again reiterates that it must be looked at in the whole. Do parts of it so colour the whole thing as to put it beyond the law?

Gulf of understanding

By 16.09 we're into Mark's speech in the Crossroads pub in Keighley. In this one, in my opinion, in trying to hold the attention of a rough and ready audience, Mark let some of his rhetoric go a bit downmarket. Even here, however, his crystal clear purpose was to grab them and persuade them that here is a party that understands how they think, and that they should get involved in constructive and peaceful political work under our banner. I think that here there is probably a genuine gulf of understanding between the sheltered, well-to-do world of barristers and judges, and the real lives of real people in the poor parts of multi-cultural Britain.

To think that a young middle class politician could go into such a place and stir up trouble is to misunderstand very badly the extent of commonsense and healthy cynicism about politicians that exists in such places. Such thinking is really nothing more than snobbery. The cloth-capped working classes live in ignorant bliss until we come along and stir them up to hate their charming neighbours. What nonsense. The reality is that there are growing frictions and hatreds in such places, and that our being there to act as a constitutional safety valve is the best chance our society has of these problems leading in due course to the most appalling communal violence.

Back to the judge: “Look at the speech like a cake. It contains flour, eggs, currants, butter and so on, but when you've made it you don't say, "'here's a block of flour, eggs, currants and butter', you say 'here's a cake'." But then he goes on to say they must also look at specific terminology. The law is difficult to assess, precisely because this is such a bad law.

It’s half-past four. Enough for the day. He says he expects to take another hour tomorrow morning and then to send the jury out.

Will that give them enough time to reach a verdict tomorrow? Only time will tell.

Day 11: Round Two

2006-01-31T14:14:00.000Z

Day 11: Round Two

Carrying on from my earlier piece all the material here is written from memory rather than my notes made in court on the laptop which is in the boot of one of our security team's vehicles.

Another inanity from the prosecution was the suggestion that Mark should be jailed because an ‘unknown male’ at a meeting called out “twat some Pakis” in the middle of general applause for one of his points. He neglected to repeat the possibility that this was another of Andy Sykes’ crew. This does, however, indicate that, from now on, security and stewards at meetings are going to have to be much tougher with drunken idiots or loudmouths.

Jameson talks repeatedly throughout his speech of how phrases we use give “windows into the soul” through which the jury are supposed to be able to peer to work out our real intentions. I don’t know if he understands the deep irony of this phrase. It was used by Elizabeth the First when setting out the limits to the Protestant hunt for Catholics under her regime, designed to break the old confession that had been so disgraced in the public mind by its own persecution of Protestants under her predecessor ‘Bloody’ Mary.

Even though the Protestant heresy hunters executed dozens of unrepentant Catholics, Good Queen Bess made it plain that she was only concerned with crushing public dissent, and not with what people chose to belief in their own hearts. As such, she specifically instructed those responsible that she did NOT seek “windows into men’s souls”.

Inquisition

Yet this is precisely what NuLabour’s PC inquisition do want. Whether Jameson’s use of this phrase is based on ignorance of its origins, or is a deliberate piece of arrogant pressing of the boundaries for a new level of state repression I do not know. Perhaps he’ll be kind enough to tell me, for it became clear today that he’s reading this blog avidly. Another satisfied reader!

He tells the jury in grave turns that when Mark talked of seeing a pretty but heroin-ravaged blonde girl with an ‘Asian/asylum seeker type’ and of how he assumed that the man in question was a pusher, this indicated that Mark is a race hater. “He might just have been her boyfriend,” protests Mr. J.

“What evidence did Mr. Collett have to the contrary?” Once again, we see here the gulf of incomprehension between real life in inner city Britain and the rose-spectacle version which prevails among the so-called great and good. What evidence? How about common experience? Common sense? The way it almost always is.

In the real world, pretty blondes on heroin don’t have boyfriends, they have ‘clients’, and pimps. The ethnicity of the pimps may vary, but these days, they are very rarely indigenous English, Scots, Irish or Welsh. Most are – depending on the area - black, Muslim in general, or Albanian in particular. And if Mr Jameson thinks that comment warrants another crack if I walk from this one, I’ll be happy to go another round with him. Not least because one of my daughters is a pretty blonde, and I don’t have to think too hard to understand just a little of the pain the parents of the girl Mark was talking about feel every day of their broken lives.

Straw men

We break for lunch and return at 2.15. Jameson turns to me. He suggests to the jury that I deliberately make it difficult to distinguish between Islam as a religion and ideology. The implication is that I could legitimately criticise Islam but any criticism of Muslims is illegal. The trouble is, it is not (yet), because Muslims come in all colours and sizes, and are not an ethnic group. This is the first of a fair few straw men he sets up to knock down, because he can’t deal with my actual arguments.

My Morley speech, being aimed at the media and police for anti-white bias, was, as I readily stated during cross-examination, was mainly about racism. Now Jameson says I’ve admitted that it the speech was about ‘racism’, and leaves the jury to conclude this means racial hatred against non-whites. Pathetic, but there is so much of this rubbish that I worry if some will slip under by defence barrister’s radar. For brilliant in law though he is, this isn’t legal argument, it’s fifth form debating society bullshit.

Of my speech in Keighley, he suggests that it may show that I “may be genuinely phobic about Islam.” Now it’s PC bullshit! A phobia is an irrational fear of something, such as tiny spiders or the number seven. Fear of the potential impact of Islam on our Western society, on the other hand, is not irrational in the slightest, but well grounded on incontrovertible facts and historical experience.

Next he tries to cherry pick a page of the Koran I supplied to question my interpretation of it. Curious that he didn’t try this trick when I was in the witness box and would have been able to shoot his pathetic effort down in flames. Still, perhaps that’s a tussle we can have next time if it goes to that.

He makes a great deal of the way I talked of ‘whites’, sneering as he uses the word as if there’s something wrong with us. Because, he says, I talk of the victims in racial terms, it follows that I am implying that the perpetrators must be seen in racial terms (not the case in my Keighley speech at all, where I was seeking to show the influence of Islam in the paedohile racist sex attacks).

Orwellian plot

We are here perilously close not to Good Queen Bess and the repression of Catholicism, so much as to George Orwell’s 1984, and the plot to remove words from circulation so as to make it impossible to think certain thoughts.

He similarly takes issue with my condemnation of the ‘multi-racial society’. To use the phrase, claims this overpaid witch-finder corporal, is to show an interest in matters ‘racial’ which clearly shows intention to incite hatred. Perhaps even to exterminate whole populations? Who knows what goes on in the white liberal’s self-hating mind?

He is particularly indignant about the fact that I said rather rude things about Stephen Lawrence. He ridicules the fact that I wasn’t prepared to call the policeman who was one of our sources for the real character of the lad. Here’s the nub of NuLab’s fury with these speeches (apart from the obvious need to claw back some Muslim votes): I’ve blasphemed against one of the Latter Day Saints of the Multi-Cult.

Moving on to deal with what I had to say about white victims, Jameson muddles up what was said about Gavin Hopley and Sean Whyte. Then he says that I’ve made up the idea that Sean’s killers have continued to prowl the streets, boasting that you can kill a white lad and get away with it.

The rules of evidence in this case mean that I am unable to show the jury the video footage we have of an Asian lad in Keighley police station naming the killer, and saying that he uses his reputation as a killer to intimidate people in both communities. Any journalist worth his salt would take up this terrible story and go digging to expose this terrible injustice, official incompetence and unexploded bomb just waiting to kill again. But, despite the fact we’ve been publicising the footage for months, not a single one has asked us about it. And Mr Jameson’s CPS have likewise turned a blind eye. As Mark put it so well, these are the bastards I really hate.

Dismissive attitude

He passes over the murder of Lee Martin by calling it “another story”, then deals with the Kriss Donald murder by reading the most PC pieces from the hopelessly anti-white Scottish media.

He accepts that I predicted “with uncanny precision” the London bombings of 7/7, then returns to the ‘hate’ thesis by saying that the determination I had expressed in the same speech to get the story of the killing of Lee Martin into the mainstream media shows that I’m a race hater.

The BNP may have changed on the outside, he concludes, but the racism is still there. We were trying, he concluded, to create “fear of this Asian-inspired nightmare… because it’s a small step from fear to hate.”

He finished at 3.05. Several people in the public gallery woke up as the droning stopped. They included, incidentally, my wife, which says something either about his delivery, her, or me! From the glazed expressions on the faces of several of the jurors, I suspect it’s the former.

Straight away, the floor is taken by Mark’s silk, Mr Lawson-Rogers, who tells the jury that he won’t be finishing today. His voice is much more powerful and convinced.

Crime statistics

He starts by explaining to the jury the significance of the addition to their evidence bundles of the extract from the British Crime Survey which proves Mark’s point about there having been 150,000 recorded racist incidents in 1999, of which a staggering 111,000 involved white victims. Exactly what this means in terms of disproportionality (the average racist thug is 18 times more likely to be an ‘ethnic’ than a native), and the fact that the Home Office have stopped keeping such figures as they are inconvenient, is not gone into. Another minor defence failing (so many facts, so little time to express them) that could well be put right if it comes to another trial on these charges.

Launching into his actual speech, Lawson-Rogers says that the proceedings are “misconceived and inappropriate.”

“We live in an era of Political Correctness. You can think what you like, but don’t say it,” he says. “This prosecution is a fetter on the right to freely express one’s views, despite the fact that total freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy.”

He quotes Voltaire, and goes on to say that “our rights and liberties are under attack as never before.” We face, he points out “drastic erosions of our freedoms: Detention without trial, ID cards and so on…. Once these freedoms are lost they can never be regained.”

The he produces a classic Orwell quote: “If liberty means anything at all it is the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” We are, he continues “on new and dangerous ground, with the government of the Labour party prosecuting members of a legitimate and registered opposition party for campaigning speeches made during an election.”

He goes on to tell the jury that this prosecution could only be brought with the consent of the Attorney-General (a Labour man) in person, and to ask them to consider if it was a coincidence that the charges were laid the day after the long-expected election was actually called.

Human Rights

He concluded for the afternoon by getting out of the way a bit of legalese about how the European Convention of Human Rights impacts on the older Public Order Act. He promises to explain what this means for this case in the morning.

So another day’s done. A brief conference with the lawyers, who are taken with one of the points our own Lee Barnes has jotted down and passed to me earlier.

I have no doubt that both their speeches tomorrow will outshine the lacklustre Mr Jameson (who might, of course, be a perfectly nice chap, merely doing his job, blah, blah, or might actually believe all that PC guff. I’m not actually sure which is worse), not least because they have good cases to argue. But whether justice and effective rhetoric can overcome more than a decade of collective British worship at the Shrine of St Stephen, and all the other PC brainwashing that has affected even some otherwise sensible Yorkshire folk, we have yet to see.

And, on top of that, we have the potential impact of inscrutable Fate throwing something into the balance. After all, it’s plain to everyone who knows anything about this case that, particularly since it developed such a high media profile, the very worst result for the CPS and the Powers That Be would be guilty verdicts and prison sentences for Mark and me. Strange things happen when the wheels of history turn as quickly as they are doing nowadays.

Video footage - Keighley speech

2006-01-31T10:10:00.000Z

New footage has been uploaded this morning for viewers.

This undercover material was taken by Jason Gwynne the man working for Britain's State broadcaster, the BBC, once a globally revered institution but in recent years has declined to become nothing more than the publicly funded propaganda arm of the Labour Party.

The footage includes a speech given by BNP Chairman, Nick Griffin to a private BNP meeting in Keighley in May 2004, prior to the European Parliamentary elections and the local council elections. In the speech Nick talks about the disgusting activity taking place in Keighley and other parts of West Yorkshire where Muslim paedophiles were (and still are) grooming young white girls for sexual abuse. Schoolgirls as young as 12 have been targeted, plied with alcohol and drugs and used as sexual toys by gangs of Pakistani men.

The Crown Prosecution Service claimed that the speech given by Nick Griffin,which is simply a true reporting of the facts of life in Keighley , contained words and phrases which were likely to incite racial hatred and forms one of the key pillars of the prosecution case against him.

The jury in Leeds Crown Court have viewed and listened to the entire speech, as well as the other speech given at Morley Town Hall. Within a day or two the jury will be asked by the judge if Nick is guilty of inciting racial hatred on the basis of these speeches.

The footage which is suitable for broadband users only can be found here.

Whatever the jury decides each and every viewer can make up their own mind - does Nick deserve to face imprisonment for talking about this appalling consequence of mass migration into Britain.

Day 11: Monday 30th January

2006-01-30T19:34:00.000Z

Day 11: Monday 30^th January

We start the third week of the Leeds Free Speech trial at 11.50 a.m. after yet more legal discussions. There’s quite a funny tale to be told about this when reporting restrictions on such matters are lifted at the end of the trial – watch this space (if I’m at liberty, that is, to fill it).

The judge tells the jury that a photograph of me standing in the witness box has appeared on a website (not ours, of course). This is a serious contempt of court and the judge is rightly angry about it. He warns all in the public gallery that anyone taking a photo or recording proceedings in any way will be brought before him to face an immediate prison sentence if caught.

The warning is justified but, in the unanimous opinion of everyone who has been there throughout the trial, wasted because the culprit is no longer there. Certainly it’s odd that the professional anti-BNP photo stalker Andy Ali made a point of sitting in a place where he had a really good view of the witness box while I was in it, kept a small bag on the desk in front of him, and then hurried out after just a few minutes last Friday. We’ve learned from past experience that this strange, plump coward has a distinctly unhealthy fixation about getting footage of us, and I’d put my money on it having been him this time. If he turns up again he’ll be pointed out to the usher.

Common phraseology

At 11.55 we watch two short clips from the Edge of the City programme. One shows a girl whose mum is worried that she is clearly being groomed telling the camera how her ‘boyfriend’ gives her all sorts of presents and that she loves him. “Is he a Muslim?” asks the presenter. “Yeah, he’s a Paki,” she confirms.

The second clip has another woman relating how another Muslim has told her daughter “Us Pakis are going to have to watch what we’re doing with you young ’uns now.”

Together the clips make it crystal clear that for me to have used the phrase “Paki street thug” to describe a specific type of swaggering young scumbag – equivalent, as I told the jury on Friday, to the “hoodies” and “white trash” who besmirch our own community – was not intended to be, and could not possibly be taken to be, any kind of racist slur or insult. In Keighley, as in fact all over working class Britain, the word is a simple, neutral, descriptive term, used by all communities.

Finally, my Mr King QC has passed to the jury a sheet carrying one final admission extracted from the Crown: That there was spontaneous and generous applause from the audience at a meeting in Halifax when I said that the racist killers of an elderly Asian man in West London the day before should hang for murder. This will come up again later in his actual closing speech.

Prosecution summing up

For now, however, this concludes my defence and Tim King hands over to Roderick Jameson QC, to make his closing speech for the prosecution.

Jameson starts at 12.05. He says he has decided not to show the videos of the speeches again. He will instead use the transcripts. He says the speeches should be taken in full, but of course doing it this way means they cannot and will not be.

He maintains that the prosecution isn’t meant to stifle debate on “serious issues”, but claims it’s a question of controlling how it’s done. He contrasts a report of mealy-mouthed comments by Ann Cryer about the grooming issue (only speaking out under pressure from us) with the way we address the issue. “There’s nothing wrong with the subject matter …. The problem is how it was done and what was intended.”

He effectively concedes that nothing we said can be regarded as ‘threatening’, but says he have been abusive or insulting.

Turning to the speeches themselves, he starts with Mark’s speech at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley. This one, he says, is very important because it was the only meeting at which we shared a platform.

He deviates to go back to the question hanging over the whole case: “You may not like the BNP, if so, the last thing we are asking you to do is to commit these men.”

Then he proceeds to try to get them to do just that. He reminds the jury that non-whites can’t join the party. He ignores totally my explanation of this as a matter of a) giving us a Race Law defence against our members being victimised at work, etc, and b) our opposition to the integrationist/exterminationist model of community relations. Instead, he says, it shows we hate non-whites. No mention that huge numbers of them take exactly the same position, and that there’s no hate either way in the choice to remain separate.

Our policy to deport ethnic minority criminals is held up as something wicked. Never mind that this was how immigration was ‘sold’ to the British public in the 1950s. Any criminals were going home then, courtesy of a Labour government. But now the idea makes us ‘haters’.

Wild speculation

Jameson scrapes the absurd barrel when he asks the jury to speculate on this happening to someone “whose grandparents came to Britain from Bangladesh in the 1920s.” Hmmm – the fact that none did and that the place didn’t even exist until 20 years later doesn’t seem relevant to him.

Moving on to another of Mark’s speeches, he accepts that trenchant and well deserved criticism of ultra-left firemen’s union leader Andy Gilchrist may be abusive and insulting, but is not at issue as he’s not from an ethnic minority. So why does he mention it?

Our ‘crime’, he claims, is trying to “blacken an entire ethnic community by stirring up fear, and thus hate. Why? For votes.” No mention of course, of the fact that in most cases, if all we wanted were votes, we’d get more of them by forgetting our concerns about immigration, etc, and joining New Labour.

Desperate claims

The absurdities continue. Mark had contrasted the way in which gangs of ‘Asian men’ in Keighley were involved in the paedophile racist rapes/grooming scandal with the way in which a young white lad might pick up a dolled-up 15-year-old in a nightclub in a genuine mistake. He complains bitterly that Mark should have used the example of a young Asian lad going into a nightclub and picking up the 15-year-old by mistake. The fact he didn’t, claims Jameson, shows Mark was trying to incite hatred of Asians. Desperate stuff, but it might fool some.

Mark had gone on to say that the problem here was anti-white racism among the media, police and some ‘ethnics’. Ah ha! Claims Jameson, “this comment shows the issue in his mind is racism.” We’re not far here off ducking witches: If they sink they’re innocent; if they float they’re guilty!

Repeatedly, he dishonestly and deliberately tries to confuse racial awareness with racial hatred. Again, it could fool some, but will it? We’ll know soon enough. For now the problem is that a serious barrister is desperate and dishonest enough to try out such drivel.

I should have ‘corrected’ Mark for perhaps giving a ‘false impression’ of BNP policy in his speech. Convenient that he raises this now, rather than asking me why I didn’t while I was in the dock. Perhaps he had an inkling of the verbal roasting I had lined up for him if he’d gone down that road.

The fact that Mark’s home city of Leicester is now more than half non-white is written off as “not a very serious matter”, and Mark’s comment that it is now “not a very nice place” is described as “insulting to non-whites living in Leicester.”

He complains that Mark was guilty of ‘over-statement’ for describing the Bradford riot as “clinically planned” (despite press coverage of police comments that it was).

“Does Mr Collett have any real regard for the truth of what he’s saying?” he asks. I’d love to put the same question to him, and rattle off a list of his little deceptions.

Mark is taken to task for having received a tip-off about guns and explosives in a mosque in Bertram Road, Manningham, Bradford. “I have no idea whether the police checked it out,” he says, unwittingly exposing the criminal irresponsibility of the entire British Establishment in the months before 7/7.

Possible scenario

In my opinion, Mark was mistaken in his speech and was running together two separate pieces of intelligence we’d received. Explained properly this would have significantly strengthened our case, and left the Powers That Be looking utterly incompetent. This is only one of a number of powerful points that slipped through the net of our double defence this time around. Such failings (minor in the grand scheme of a very skilfully fought action by our excellent teams) will be put right next time if there’s a hung jury and a retrial.

That’s not a prospect I relish from a personal or family point of view, but for the standing of the party overall in the eyes of the public, and as a source of more publicity for our views on these vitally important issues, it would be the very best result possible. Especially as our defence would be tightened up further next time around. Perhaps if the Attorney General isn’t too busy giving Blair bent advice on how it would be ‘legal’ to flatten Iran he’ll make the mistake of giving us a second bite of this very juicy political cherry!

Jameson claims that Mark’s use of the word ‘breed’ in describing the different birth rates of the white and Muslim Asian communities is “meant to imply they breed like rabbits.” At this point most of the jury members laugh. This, from his face, is definitely not in the script! Down in Islington the PC approved reaction is a sharp gasp of collective shock. But West Yorkshire, of course, is not Islington.

Moving on to Mark’s comments on the asylum issue, he says it’s a legitimate issue to discuss but complains we never gave our solution to the problem while we were in the witness box. There is, of course, a simple reason for this omission – the florid little creep never asked us!

He admits that, after these speeches, no-one went out and committed any act of violence. But, he claims, the problem is “the long term pernicious effect” of people making ‘racist’ comments in the community.

Funny that, since the CPS spent considerable time asking the police to see if there had been any immediate effects in terms of racist incidents after our speeches (there were none), and neglected to check their own records to see if anyone has ever claimed as mitigating circumstances the ‘fact’ that they’d months before heard a speech by me or Mark, or talked to someone who had, and been wound up by it.

Sadly, I managed to leave my laptop in the wrong vehicle this morning, so am having to type this up from notes. Accordingly, a group of us are going to eat now, so I’ll have to type up the rest later tonight. It may not get online ’til the morning, but it will be there.

Tomorrow, just for the record, will be the second half of the closing speech for Mark, the closing speech by my excellent Mr. King, and perhaps part of the summing up from the patient judge. There is no chance now of a verdict before the end of Wednesday, quite possibly Thursday.

Weekend posting 28th-29th January

2006-01-29T15:04:00.000Z

Nick back at the helm of the blog now. Thanks to Mark doing a splendid job on the two days I've been in the witness box.

It really is extraordinarily hard work in there, especially when being cross-examined by the prosecution. My legal team were very happy with my (and Mark's, for that matter) performance, reassuring me at the end of Friday afternoon that Jameson "didn't lay a glove on you" during the three-and-a-half hours verbal sparring match. Comparing notes with Mark, however, we both found that we had been unable to judge our own performances, it was only those watching us who could tell just how good they were. Mark's, I say again, was brilliant. Of course, whether being brilliant is any use is another matter entirely. My feeling is that at least half of the jury will have made up their minds whether to convict us or free us the moment they realised who we were.

Still, we'll find out soon enough.

Boxing match

Having been a university boxer many years ago, I can tell you that the boxing analogy is actually rather accurate. There's the same pre-match nerves, that sinking feeling in your stomach and the voice in your head that asks "why the hell did I get myself into this position?" Your stomach suggests a visit to the toilet in the back of the cell at the side of the dock (the security guards discretely slip back into the dock itself under such circumstances, giving one

more privacy than the half height screen that serves as a toilet door). The only thing I can tell you is that this part of the process is very much harder when wearing boxing gloves!

Standing in the witness box waiting for the judge to give the signal for the contest to begin with the words "Yes, Mr. Jameson", is just like the moment when the seconds pull the stool out of the boxing ring and you face your opponent and wait for the bell. You are utterly alone; you have no idea how good he is; you are worried, not about the possible pain, but about the possibility of being made a fool of in front of all those people. What's worse in this case is that you know you're up against an opponent who has a formidable height and weight advantage, in that he has pages of notes in front of him, while everything you want to say has to be in your head. And he is allowed to attack you almost as much and as often as he wants, whereas you are only allowed to block, cover up and "duck and dive," as my old trainer used to say. If he decides to take a breather and back off, it's not possible to chase him across the courtroom and pummel him in the opposite corner.

Still, at least once the confrontation actually starts the butterflies in the stomach turn into pure adrenaline; you can't run even if you want to, so it's stand and fight. In the first exchange of verbal punches on Friday I slipped and lost my thread after answering the first half of the question. Jameson sneered and refused to help, but when I asked him to repeat the initial question he did so and my second half response parried it with no problem.

Among his other early questions was one to which the best possible answer was a very clever one that Mark had come up with the day before. I rephrased it, but the core idea was still there, and the lawyers at least would have known it was Mark's. From that point on, Jameson avoided asking questions which my very able co-defendant had already shot down in flames. In a way this was a shame, because I was looking forward to dealing with any repetition of his stupid

'hypothetical' questions about "what if there had been asylum seekers or Asians in the audience" by warning him that Mark's "flying pigs" were knocking on the courtroom door.

Political experience helps

Jameson's initial flurry of aggression reminded me again of past boxing matches, especially the first few proper fights I had. Several opponents rushed out, knowing they were up against a novice, and hoping to overwhelm for a short, sharp victory. The trouble with such tactics is that, if they fail, the whirlwind of arms frequently runs out of breath himself quite quickly. Jameson's problem here was that, although novices in courtroom terms, both Mark and I have vastly more experience than him in scoring political points, and in each case this rapidly became apparent.

Having been in a far more public ring with the likes of Jeremy Paxman, James Naughtie, Sue McGregor, Jeremy Vine, Peter Allen, Jeremy Bowen, Angela Rippon (who really does have lovely legs, by the way), various pretty Sky News blondes, and the near psychotic Tim Sebastian, my bout with Mr Jameson soon settled down into a fairly painless routine: Question jabs out, answer blocks or slips it, "thank you for that, Mr. Griffin" (delivered in a tone which says "gotcha", but I quickly realise that's the same empty bravado as when an opponent in the ring grins when you've just landed a punch that really hurt), then move on to another question.

Little by little, an air of going through the motions began to creep into his questions. Perhaps my mispronouncing his name all the time doesn't help – two can play silly tricks with words and tones, you see. And, although I'm not allowed to ask him questions, the highly political nature of the exchanges means that I can go on the offensive. Time and time again I hammer home points about the utterly disgusting way in which the media, police, other political parties and the judicial system neglect, abuse, even despise, white victims of racist discrimination, violence and murder. At one point he tries to parry this by feigning disbelief at my pointing out that Establishment figures refer to "white trash". Bad mistake! Out come examples like Jasmin Alibhai-Brown, allowed to do just that in the Independent, and on prime time BBC. Jameson rapidly takes refuge behind another question.

That's the only problem with this courtroom match though. You can land as many blows on your bewigged opponent as you like, and at the end of it he'll still collect his fat pay cheque and move on to his next case. But if he lands just one good one on you, you are likely to go directly to jail as a result. It's a distinctly one-sided affair.

In the case of yesterday's dust-up, however, there were compensations. When I started landing blows that not only broke his arguments, but also made the judge and jury smile or even laugh, Jameson's junior, sitting one row back, began to smirk at his leader's discomfort. At first I thought that he just appreciated the joke, but after a couple more I got the impression that the real fun for him was seeing his colleague get verbally leathered. Perhaps they don't get on?

Loathsome contempt

Some of Jameson's questions indicated either a total lack of knowledge about the real world, or a loathsome contempt for ordinary decent people with less money, education and status than himself. As the afternoon, this made me more and more angry, and I found myself addressing him with contempt in turn.

By the time I 'asked' that the court records should at least spell Sean Whyte's name correctly, I was struggling to control my temper. I hope it came out icily, but all I really wanted to do was to leap out of the witness box, grab the undoubtedly clever but smug little bureaucrat by the throat, drag him out of the court and dump and his own family him in the real world among the last whites on the edge of Manningham Lane, Glodwick or the Gibbet in Halifax.

The same is true of the lying parasites behind me in the press section of the public gallery, who in their reports of the day later predictably make no mention at all of my evidence about their own failings or my reasons for concluding that Islam is a menace. People like Hamza and the smoother fundamentalists of the Muslim council of Britain I respect - they believe they have a higher mission and they work to carry it out - but for these upper class or media luvvie vermin, who have sold their own people out for money and a career, I have nothing but hatred.

Welcome break

Home for the weekend. Actually it's a little bit like a second weekend, since the day off on Thursday was a tremendous break. We drove up to Sunderland to speak at a good-hearted meeting there on Wednesday evening, and then part way back down into North Yorkshire to stay at a lovely country village pub owned by a couple who are staunch BNP members. We arrive at gone midnight, but the bar is promptly reopened for a couple of pints of really good beer (Young's Winter Warmer, all the way up from Wandsworth, South London) and homemade soup and sandwiches. Bed by a little gone two, and - bliss - real sleep and no need to get up until a big chunk of the morning has already gone. It's the first really good night's sleep for some time.

Furthermore, our hosts had changed their own plans at short notice and driven all the way from East Anglia to be there for us. Then they stayed in on Thursday to cook us a superb roast beef dinner in the early evening, before driving back to East Anglia and their own affairs. Such dedication to the cause and personal kindness typifies so many people in our movement. Words cannot express my gratitude.

Historic visit

As for the free Thursday, Jackie and I and two security drive up into the North Yorkshire National Park. First stop is Rievaulx Abbey, one of the finest of all monastic ruins in the country. Huge fluted columns of pale cream stone and massive but delicate arches echo now not to plainsong but to the gentle cooing of wild doves. Set amidst river meadows and surrounded by a circle of wooded hills, it is a place of beauty and tranquility.

Then we drove over the high road across the moors and to the edge of the Cleveland Hills, then through a string of picture postcard villages an on to the coast at Whitby. Neither Jackie or I have ever been to this quaint old seaport before. Famous for its connections to the great explorer Captain Cook, it was also homeport to generations of whalers and fishermen. We climb a massive flight of stone steps to the hill overlooking the harbour. On to stands a memorial to St. Caedmon, one of the founders of pre-1066 English Christianity (according to some experts a version of the religion very close to that now preserved in the Eastern Orthodox rite) and another ruined abbey. Whitby is a gem of a town – I hope to be free to come back for a better look in the not too distant future.

As dusk falls we set off back towards our promised roast beef dinner, and after saying our goodbyes drive back down to West Yorkshire. We stay at the home of a member who plays several musical instruments. He is part of a folk music trio playing a gig at a wedding in an Irish club on Monday evening, and to my great delight the band are practicing in his study. I sit with them for a few numbers, beer in hand, sing along for a while and then, with regret, turn in for bed as I need to be fresh on Friday. Snatches of guitar, banjo, penny whistle and well known Irish songs float up the stairs as I drift off to sleep, thoroughly content and at ease with the world.

Sunday 29th January

Went for a long walk yesterday with Jackie and the dogs. A lovely crisp sunny day - yet again we haven't had much of a winter on this side of the country, and we're now only a few weeks away from the spring. While, from a long-term political point of view, I have no doubt that the best possible result is for Mark and I to be found guilty and jailed in a blaze of liberal media gloating, I will be bitter at having the sights, sounds and smells of a whole spring season taken from me. I think of Robert Frost's poem about the beauty of wild cherry blossom and how - with an allotted span of just seventy springs in which to see it - he couldn't afford to miss a single one.

The Sunday papers are full of very little, though Rod Liddle's column in the Times has a good crack at Metropolitan police boss Ian Blair over his disgusting comments on the Soham 'Babes in the woods' Murders and his absurd claim that black murder victims get less coverage than white ones.

Top Pc’s blunder

The only grain of truth in Blair's comments is that when the killers are also 'ethnic', the media often play down such murders. Muslim on black racism, in particular, is taboo, which is why the attacks on the West Indian community in Birmingham during last autumn's riots there were presented as being 'six-of-one-and half-a-dozen-of-the-other', when in fact the one-sided casualty figures in the hospitals show that it was more like an Islam-fuelled anti-black pogrom or lynching party than a race riot.

Rod mentions the white man stabbed to death on the London bus in the same week as the black lad Anthony Walker was murdered in Liverpool, as evidence for his thesis that, in fact, the media discriminate in favour of black victims and against white ones. Quite so, but it is unfortunate that even people who know the score use this example.

For the far better one is the murder, also in the same week, of young dad David Henkel, kicked to death in an attack by a gang of asylum seekers in Kent. Last Thursday, an Afghan, Nowbahar Bahar, was sentenced to just four-and-a-half years for his 'manslaughter'. When he and his gang attacked David, Bahar had only just got out of prison after serving a year for theft and assault. In prison, he had told warders and other prisoners that he intended to kill a white man once he was free. He did so just a month after leaving prison.

He should, of course, have been sent back to Afghanistan (from which he only arrived in 2001) the moment he finished his first sentence. And, this time around, the fact that he stomped on a defenceless white victim's head while members of his gang held him down, should have led to a sentence of racially aggravated murder. But, as I told Jameson on Friday, to his type, to the police, to most of the legal system, and the vast majority of the people who run the mass media, ordinary white people are just 'trash', and their deaths and their families' tears count for next to nothing.

As a direct result, more innocent victims and their families will go through the same kind of tragedy. When David Henkel's murderer could be free before me and Mark, when the young Pakistani Muslim thug who stabbed Sean Whyte to death is allowed to strut around Keighley (yes, Keighley, he's moved from Colne) boasting about it - despite the fact that we have given the police and the CPS a fresh new lead.

Such victims' blood will be on the hands not just of their immediate killers, but also of the likes of 'Sir' Ian Blair, Mr. Jameson QC, and the editors of all the national newspapers which, despite having provided pretty fair coverage of our trial up until now, have conspicuously refused to cover anything from my evidence on Friday. These cowardly PC swine haven't reported a word I said about the anti-white bias of the media. They haven't published a single word I spoke or a document I produced to show that it is Islam itself, not Islamic extremism or 'terrorism' that is the problem facing the West.

Evidence documents

I'll get all those documents scanned in and up online for everyone who wants to see as quickly as possible. And we'll put my Keighley speech up online as well. But such material, which deals with matters of fundamental importance to the future of our entire way of life and civilisation, should be publicised in the mainstream media, not left to an underfunded, victimised, oppressed and demonised political party. It will not always be like this. Times they are a changing, and, even with the media blackout on the really important bits, this trial - whatever its strictly 'legal' outcome, will hasten the change.

So now I'm off to help our Richard plasterboard the ceiling of his workshop next door. More blogging from the dock tomorrow.

Day 10; Friday 27th January

2006-01-29T14:41:00.000Z

Day 10 - the end of a second whole week on trial - begins at 10.45 am as Nick takes the stand again. We had an adjournment and a day off yesterday as the prosecutor had a previous engagement in the Court of Appeal. This allowed us a welcome break to re-charge our batteries. As Nick takes the stand we move straight into the examination of his Jury bundle - the key items showing how he formed the basis of the beliefs he expressed in his speeches. When talking about the situation in Keighley, Nick states the only reason that Keighley MP Ann Cryer began talking of the problem of grooming was to "head us off at the pass," in effect stealing our thunder.

As a part of the bundle the Jury will be seeing a number of pages of the Koran of which Nick has marked the pages as he studied it. That particular copy is the recommended copy by the main strand of Islamic thinking, Nick draws attention to the passage where the Koran states that Muslim males are allowed to take women from other peoples. This he points out directly relates to the issue of grooming in Keighley - as he stated in his spech it is acceptable "as their good book tells them it's ok". The Koran states that Muslims can take any woman that their "right hand can own."

Nature of the Koran

Nick states that the Koran is not like the Bible, regarded by Christians as having been written by mortal men. Rather, to Muslims, it is the literal word of God It is undating, unchanging and a guide to how to live one's life. This is in stark contrast to the way that modern Christianity sees the Bible. The Koran he points out is current law to Muslims and always will be. Nick effectively pulls apart the phrase Tony Blair used to state that the Koran is a peaceful and peace loving religion. Blair cleverly left out a small part of the verse, which when put back in place changes the whole meaning of the verse.

He states that all the tolerant verses written by Mohammed were written at the beginning of his career when he lived in Mecca and had only a small number of followers. When he fled with his small band of followers to Medina he gained significant power and the nature of the verses changed. These later verses were completely different to the earlier verses and called for violence and the use of force to spread the religion. What's more the later passages, the ones containing the calls for violence, override the earlier verses. These verses, Nick says, help explain the tide of racist attacks against whites, as well as Hindus, Sikhs and Blacks, in areas where Muslims are a significant portion of the population. A later verse talks of nine sinners and enemies of the Prophet, and goes onto say that their whole city is destroyed, including everyone in it, simply for the ill-doings of those nine individuals. This, Nick said, was the verse he thought about when, post 9/11, other politicians and 'moderate' Muslims kept telling us that the Koran forbids the killing of innocents during Jihad.

He says that verses in the Koran strictly forbid Muslims to follow the laws in the secular democratic countries. In effect, he says, Islam is a complete contradiction of our parliamentary democracy - 'good' Muslims must never follow our laws. A later quote - "Sedition is worse than murder" that means anything that undermines Islam or gets in the way of spreading it is worse than murder, so for example selling alcohol and or advertising posters featuring scantily clothed women are in fact worse - under Islamic law - than murder.

Superb delivery

In a way I really do feel privileged to be sat here having a front row seat at this spectacle. Nick's delivery throughout this has been superb and his excellent de-construction of Islam is wonderfully well thought out. I honestly wish this had been televised as it would have been if it were in a US court, if only everyone in Britain could be presented with these clear calm arguments as to why our nation is at such great risk.

Nick goes on to say that Mohammed is talked of as "the perfect man", who example in life remains the source of the hadiths, the collection of verses about his life that are second only to the Koran as a source of guidance for Muslims. At one point in these Mohammed rejoices as one of his followers hacks off the head of one of his adversaries. This he states is no different to what is going on when Muslims hack off the heads of their hostages in the Middle East, it specifically glorifies that method of killing. He goes on to say that Mohammed himself raped female prisoners of war - this is the example that the Koran sets out as the 'perfect' human being. The real twist to this he says is that it is the rape victim who is at fault under Islamic law for having sex out of wedlock and she can - and in Islamic states does - face being stoned to death for the 'crime' of being raped.

After we were shown sections of a TV documentary shown on Channel 4 (Al Qaeda UK) about Islamic extremism you can see Islamic clerics interpreting the Koran in the same way that Nick put forward earlier. The difference he says between Christians doing bad things and Muslims doing bad things is that Christians doing those things are 'bad' Christians, but Muslims doing them are 'good' Muslims by the definition of their book.

Nick has been ticked off by the judge for straying from explaining how he formed his views and into making political speeches. He is particularly concerned when Nick comments that his researches had shown that so-called 'moderates' in groups like the Muslim Council of Britain follow the very same hardline ideological mentors as the open 'extremists' such as Hamza and Bakri, and are financed by the fanatically fundamentalist Saudi Arabians. "The so-called moderates are are in the pockets of the same people as financed the Taliban," Nick points out, before the judge interrupts and he is forced to move on.

We are given a ten minute break at 12.20 pm as the prosecutor says it was a long morning and everyone, including him, needs a few minutes' break. In fact, it wasn't for him, as everything so far has come out in exchanges between Nick and his own defence counsel. More to the point, Jameson clearly needs to consult with his colleagues. It is almost inconceivable that he didn't have some questions ready to put about Nick's understanding of Islam, by now, however, he must have realised that if he takes Nick on on this ground he is going to be eaten alive and spat out in little bits.

Fireworks

At 12.36 pm the Judge returns. I've been looking forward to this, Nick's cross examination by Jameson, I'm expecting real fireworks. Jameson begins - he wishes to sum up Nick's stance as not being 'critical of Asians as a whole or individual Muslims - but instead being critical of Islam, the Media and the Establishment - Nick agrees. Jameson says there was once a time when the BNP policy was based on race and asks is that not now still the case. Nick comes back with the reasoned answer that race and ethnicity are still very important to the BNP but the emphasis of the party has changed.

He goes on to talk of the repatriation of ethnics who commit crime, as was mentioned in my speech in the Resevoir Tavern. Nick says we have not worked a standard 'cut off point' for how many generations they have been in this country. It is clear now what Mr Jameson is doing, he is trying to tie my speech into Nick's and thus create divisions between us. Jameson goes on to ask whether Nick thinks my speech could have been misconstrued by the audience, Nick says 'No'.

The prosecutor asks if it is offensive to refer to Stephen Lawrence as 'Stephen Bloody Lawrence', Nick states that is may be thought of as in bad taste by some but certainly not offensive. He goes on to talk about the way that the media edit the photo of SL to cut out the clenched fist black power salute in order to make him look softer. The prosecutor is now clutching at straws over issues of what Nick is trying to infer to the audience - Nick clearly states he doesn't have to infer things, if he wanted to make a point he would have made it.

The prosecutor tries to pull Nick into the argument over where he got this information over SL being a drug dealer, Nick boldly refuses to call the policeman in question who gave him this information as he tells Jameson "we both know he would be sacked if he was called to give evidence". Jameson asks if Nick was making the situation worse for the Lawrence family by using their son in this way, he points out that if it wasn't for this case and the BBC then they would never have of heard what was said in a private BNP meeting. The fact all this has come out in court "is you and your bosses fault, Mr. Jameson, not mine." Excellent point and a great slap in the face for the BBC and the prosecutor. The mumour that runs through the public gallery shows that Nick has scored a direct hit.

Nick turns this round on the prosecution further, pointing out that SL could have been killed by another black, as was suggested by the Met source and althougth still tragic this would probably make his death a result of his suggested involvement in drugs and thus explainable as something other than the racist attack "which has been used as an excuse to turn our policing system on its head."

"Offensive" cartoon dragon decapitated

During the lunchbreak we go outside to meet the BNP free speech demonstrators and Christian Council of Britain demonstrators who habe been there all morning. The media crowd round as we shake hands with a splendid 'St. George', who has spent the morning 'killing' a six and a half foot green Islamic dragon! Apparently the police had earlier made him take off his Arab headscarf in case it 'offended' a passing Arab. The afternoon session commences at 2.30 pm.

Mr Jameson moves straight into Nick's Keighley speech. Nick begins again by pointing out that it is not as simple as the media say it is, it is not Asian males, it is Muslim males. Jameson tries to make out that Nick is being unfair by not stating in his speech that not all Muslims carry out these attacks, Nick states it is not necessary for him to point this out, like it is not necessary for the press to point out that not all whites are racist thugs when they talk of white racist attackers.

Jameson's case becomes weaker still, he is not drawing on evidence, nor is he drawing on the totality of the speech. Just like he did when cross examining me he is simply turning this into a word play, trying to manipulate the slightest thing when it is pulled right out of context. Nick bites back and points out that when he does use the word Asian he is using the correct term again, as the Muslims in Keighley that are the perpetrators of the crimes in question are Asian. He then says this might well be happening elsewhere and the Muslims might be of other colour.

Weak case

The case becomes weaker still, and Nick really rips into him, the prosecutor tries to get a grip of him over saying that these particular Muslims come from Pakistan, when they could have come from Bangladesh. Nick replies "well I could have said Pakistan and Bangladesh but then you would say why didn't I mention other places where Muslims come from". Nick asks him why he is playing on words and taking things out of context.

Again we are into wordplay, and Jameson asks why Nick said these Muslims beat white lads and not 'non-believers'. Nick says the audience were white people in a white working class area and it is the whites in that community that are getting beaten. He is talking directly about this area and it must relate to these people and this area. As we move on Nick again puts things into context and points out he identifies other races and religious groups that have been victims of the 'anti-kuffar hatred' at the root of Islam. Again we see the prosecutor going back on his opening statement and simply taking things out of context and viewing them in a vacuum.

Nick goes on to accept that not all Muslims are involved in these kind of crimes, and that there are moderates, but states that these people are overpowered by the radicals and this is played to by the media and the Establishment. Jameson goes on to say why don't we allow these moderates to join us, and Nick says we don't because we don't need them because we won't bend to these PC notions of having an ethnic on the arm of every white like happens in the media. Nick goes on to say that moderate Muslims are also scared of coming forward and we can't just pluck them out of the air because they're more scared than the white are.

Jameson tries to make our party look racist by attacking the fact that Rajinder Singh is not allowed to join the BNP, Nick is more than capable of answering this an immediately takes him on, pointing out that human diversity is something that should be treasured, yet our Establishment, by promoting race mixing is destroying races. That is why we only let white people in our party but we are more than willing to work with those of other races to help retain our cuture and their culture and not to destroy racial diversity. Friends not family. Nick also points out that if it were anything other than the white race being wiped out then Greenpeace and the like would be doing something.

Greatest show on earth

This is the greatest show on earth. Watching Nick debate with this over paid little man is wonderful, for all his money and the many many times he has stood in court he simply can't get a grip of Nick whatsoever. Nick sounds cool and calm throughout, barely phased by the constant barrage of questioning. Jameson even spots that Nick can see what questions he is going to ask next, he is being outclassed. Nick points out that Jameson has had to trawl very carefully though these speeches to find sentences and phrases to couple together to try to prove points.

Nick knew the next thing was coming, as Jameson brings up his use of the term 'Paki Street Thug'. Nick deftly points out that Paki is used by both Muslims and Whites and is not a solely abusive term. Nick says that a 'paki street thug' is a certain type of Muslim that the entire audience knows about, and says clearly that he is not branding all Muslims as this, again as the media brand whites as racists.

And here's what we've all been waiting for, the assertion Nick made that he could get 7 years for saying what he said. Nick states that he had seen a report about new religious hatred laws and believed them to have come in already. Nick destroys Jameson. He points out that in his earlier use of the term he related it to a sentence just about the Koran. Jameson is trying to tell the Jury that Nick is using the word Muslim as a cover for all Asians. Jameson says why didn't he make this point clearer? Nick says he knows it's a flaw of his to talk too much, but he tries not to bore people with technicalities. Everyone laughs - except the hapless Mr Jameson. Nick is now motoring through this and his confidence goes up and up, Jameson points out that Nick could have made his point better then, and proposes a perfectly worded alternative. Nick agrees and thanks him, saying he will use Jameson's phrase in future. Everyone laughs again.

Nick points out that although he could go to jail for this, he points out that what he has said in the witness box today is far more dangerous for him as Muslims might kill him. Before the startled rabbit prosecutor can get a word in edgeways or stop him, he gives a brief but gruesome account of the murder of Theo van Gogh, of Salman Rushdie's years under police protection, and says he knows that the Labour gvernment won't give him any protection. If he wanted to be safer he could have just broken the race law, because that carries a few years in prison, not the beheading he could receive for exposing Islam today in court.

Jameson is clearly on the back foot, and quickly moves on to the Morley speech.

Careless reports

We go through what Nick had to say about the murders of Gavin Hopley, Kriss Donald and Sean Whyte. Nick has already repeatedly pointed out how the "British Establishment" just doesn't seem to care when whites are the victims, and now makes the point, twice, with cutting asides requesting that the court reports should at least spell the victims' names correctly, then spelling out the proper versions to correct the mistakes in the speech transcripts and prosecution's documents. His anger at the way in which the authorities are so careless when white families grieve is palpable. The passion and emotion charge the court room.

Again the weakness of this case becomes apparent as we are back to the wordplay. The fact that Nick used the word Asian. Nick states he clarified it at the being of this speech when he said "Asians of the Muslim persuasion." But in this speech he was rushed, so rushed that he didn't have time to go into many little sub-clauses which he would usually do. But this speech, he states, was in any case not an attack on Islam or any ethnic minority, but on the mass media.

If it was, says Jameson, why did Nick go into such graphic detail over the deaths of the whites that have been ignored by the media. Nick says he did because it was necessary to illustrate the point in an interesting way. Nick says he wants people to get more involved politically and he wants to motivate them to carry out political activity and build an alternative. He goes on, huge sections of our population are cut off from the political process and they may only turn up at a political meeting as a last resort. Nick states it is his job to get these people involved, and in fact to not channel their energies into political activity would be the irresponsible thing. As for the speeches we use to achieve this: "It seems to me," Mr. Jameson, "that you are saying that we can have freedom of speech, but only if we talk in such flat dull monotones and such boring legal phrases that no-one will be able to keep awake to listen to what we say."

Sensing he is on weak grounds Jameson tries to get Nick on the fact that he has produced press clippings on these attacks, so it is not true that they were not reported. Nick snaps back by pointing out that these horrific murders do get a little coverage in local papers but are criminally under reported. Nick points out that if he wanted to stir people up to hatred, then surely he could do a far better job, he was not stirring people up and that is evident from what he said.

Now back to wordplay, again we are running around in circles over whether Nick was refering to Asians, Iraqis or Muslim fundamentalists. Jameson is clearly losing this battle, the mood of the court is now much lifted. Jameson's points seem to just be falling flat and he seems to be losing his place in the bundle.

Prosecution wilts

Nick now starts assisting him! Not only does he help him find his place, but several times he provides the 'right' word when Jameson can't find it. From behind I can see Jameson wilt and shrink under this subtle humiliation.

I begin to see more parallels with my cross examination. Jameson's thrust of questioning seems to be based around why Nick has said 'criminal elements of the Muslim community' and has just referred to them as the Muslim community. Again simple wordplay and the proceedings slow whilst the Judge asks a question based around what Nick thinks about attitudes that permeate the Muslim community. Nick says that he thinks moderate muslims are a rarity and "a culture of casual contempt for and hatred of other peoples has permeated their community.

Nick states that the only way racial hatred could be stirred up is if these comments were taken out of context and not qualified with the alternative of political activity. It's showing people we understand their problems and that there are genuine social concerns and giving them the motivation to go and do something about them in a political sense.

Although there are many 'awkward' questions that we had identified still unasked, Jameson seems suddenly to lose the will to carry on. Before anyone even realises it, he has finished his cross-examination and sat down. No closing point, no acknowledgement that it was over, he just sat down, smelling of defeat. The judge thanks Nick for his evidence and tells him he can rejoin me in the dock. Nick leaves the stand at 4.05 am. Jameson hasn't earned his money well today.

Finnish protest

2006-01-27T10:13:00.000Z















On 25th January a delegation of members of the True Finns Party
(Perussuomalaiset) held a protest outside the British Consulate in
Oulu in Northern Finland about the political show trial of Nick Griffin and Mark
Collett.

They wanted to show their support for Free Speech.

They also delivered a petition to the Consul, Mr Pekka Koskela, who seemed
shocked and confused and knew nothing about the trial at all.
This protest aroused the interest of many shoppers and passers-by.

Day 8 :Wednesday 25th January

2006-01-27T09:41:00.000Z

Day 8 : Wednesday 25th January

While Nick is in the witness stand I've been left with the task of writing the Blog. I must say I've been overwhelmed by the support both myself and Nick have received. Court 8 has become a regular stop on the internal mail round of the court as letters and postcards expressing support for us have come in every morning. It's a good feeling to walk into the dock and have a pile of letters of support to greet you, and I'd like to thank everyone who has shown us support through this trial, it really has made all the difference.

Yesterday was definitely one of the hardest things I've ever been through. Simply giving evidence is hard enough, but cross examination is incredibly emotionally and mentally draining. The hardest thing about being cross-examined is that every question fired at you is deliberately placed to catch you out, and any words used in your answer can be taken out of context and brutally twisted against you. What's more, as soon as I reached the witness stand I soon realised that the prosecution had changed their stance on my speeches. At the beginning of the case they assured the Jury that the speeches must be taken in their totality, but it soon emerged that Mr. Jameson was not going to view my speeches in their totality, but instead cherry pick what he felt to be the best bits. These sections, when taken out of context of the whole speech, would be twisted and made to sound far worse because of course they were not being qualified by the rest of speech.

Crucial moments

As the cross examination moved back and forth and got into full swing I soon realised just how much was riding on my shoulders. As I debated with Mr. Jameson he conceded many points, however for every point he conceded he was able to move on swiftly, for losing a point he stood to lose nothing. In fact he stands to lose nothing at all in this case, win or lose he'll walk away with his freedom and no doubt be financially better off. However for losing just one point, for one poor answer, for one comment or out of context quote, I could well end up losing my freedom. This system certainly places the defendant fighting an incredible uphill battle. I cannot say how I think I fared against Mr. Jameson, simply because I only know how I felt during the cross examination, anyone looking for an account would be best asking someone who was in the public gallery. However I can say I was never lost for words and there was not a single question put before me that I could not answer.

In retrospect though, after viewing the press coverage on the news and in reading articles in the papers about my cross examination, if the worst thing that people can raise is that I wore a pink tie, I can't really have said too much wrong.

We were initially meant to be in court at 11a.m this morning, however we were again delayed until around 11.15 am for counsel to view video evidence relating to Nick's case. The Judge enters the court at around 11.30 am and we finally begin with more legal arguments. The Jury eventually enter the court at 12.35 am and the Judge states that we can finally get on with the case, however follows his opening comment with the fact that we won't be in court at all tomorrow as the prosecutor has a prior engagement in the appeal court.

Swearing the oath

Tim King finally calls Nick to the witness stand and Nick swears on the Bible. Mr. King begins to lead Nick into his evidence running through his education at Cambridge University. Nick begins by stating he did not intend to use words that may stir up racial hatred and that he did not believe he used language that could have stirred up racial hatred. Nick then tells the court that the police have stated that there was no disorder at the meetings in question, or following them. He goes on to say the police actually interviewed him on five of the speeches he had made, not just the two on which he was charged for in April.

Nick talks of a speech he made at Shelf Village Hall which he was not charged for. In the speech he talked of the racist murder of an elderly Asian gentleman in London. In the speech he says that the person responsible for the attack deserves to hang, for which he receives a spontaneous round of applause. This is the only point in his police interview where he breaks the 'No Comment' interview and states "There's no hate in this audience, and none in me".

Nick then goes on to talk about why the BNP holds private meetings and why we don't advertise our meetings. He describes the pressure we are under from both the Establishment and the far left. He talks further about the audience and the fact that some members will travel to different meetings all over the area, whereas some will only go to their local branch meeting.

The questioning soon moves onto Nick's first speech, the meeting at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley. He talks of how a young mother comes to the meeting to talk to him about what was happening to her daughter, she was being groomed by Muslim males. Nick talks of the problem of grooming and places the blame at the foot of the Muslim community specifically, not the Asian community as a whole. Nick is quoted as saying that grooming is taking place in Keighley because their "good book tells them so" because the Koran contains verses that permit, even encourage such things. Nick doesn't shrink away from a single word he said on that night, he boldly states the Islam is a wicked and vicious faith and he stands by his comments and is more than willing to explain this.

Religion and faith

The afternoon session begins again at 2 pm. Nick Griffin says he is not attacking the people who follow Islam, but the religion itself. It's not the case where individuals have joined a small sect or cult and are aware of all its laws and regulations, but a religion such as Islam is something that most of its followers are born into, and have little knowledge of all of its laws. He goes onto say that he doesn't label all Asians as Muslims and draws a very clear distinction between Muslims and Asians. Nick points out his friendship with Rajinder Singh, and tells of how he learned more about the differences between different groups within the Asian community. In fact it is the media, he claims, who blame problems such as grooming on the Asian community as a whole, whereas he lays these problems at the door of the actual culprits - Muslims.

Nick cites his awakening to the problems of Islam as being related to the events in Oldham surrounding the 2001 general election. At first he thought the problem was due to Asians in general. Both whites and afro-Caribbeans, he mentions, were being attacked. When his phone number was posted on a far left website he began receiving death threats, these though were from Asian Muslims, not simply Asians. Things they said, time and time again, caused him to begin looking into Islam itself rather than just looking at it as an 'Asian' problem. When speaking of his youth in the Nationalist movement he talks of his feelings toward race, and then speaks of how he later realised it wasn’t race that was the problem. Although, he states, he still disagrees with multi-racialism and race mixing for the reason that it destroys the identity and culture of both races whenever it happens. In fact it is culture that is the problem, specifically Islam, at the centre of the vast majority of multi-cultural problems and unrest all over the world.

Sikh friend

Rajinder Singh is spoken of by Nick as a good friend, the Jury is told that Rajinder is in court today supporting us. Rajinder first contacted Nick after his famous appearance on Newsnight, Rajinder claimed that Nick was the only politician in Britain telling the truth on this matter. Nick goes on to say that he purchased a copy of the Koran and studied it extensively.

When questioned on using the term 'Multi-racial hell hole' he qualifies it by stating that multi-cultural Britain is a disaster. He says a homogeneous society is far more productive and stable. But although he hates this multi-cultural society he does not hate members of the ethnic minorities, but more to the point he hates the Establishment who brought this about. He goes on to say, hatred can only be fostered by stifling debate on the issue, and in fact the British National Party eases tension by offering people a legitimate political vehicle through which they can channel their anger through legal political debate and activity, which is in essence the key to a democracy.

Tim then asks what Nick meant when he spoke of the "last white man in Britain". Nick talks about the problem of whites becoming a minority in Britain and says that it is a terrible thing for the indigenous population to become a minority in their own country. Nick, in his speech, says there is "no knight in shining armour coming to slay the Islamic dragon". By this, he says, he means that people will have to build a political movement to stop this 'dragon'. He used the term 'dragon' as that powerful summons up the threat posed by Islam to western society, it is simply a way of articulating this problem in a way people would understand. Then he follows with this statement by talking of building a "political movement" to solve the problem through a legal and democratic process.

Position of love

Nick then attacks the Establishment for encouraging people of different cultures and races to 'mongrelise' themselves out of existence. This he says is a terrible thing as all cultures and races then lose their identity. He does not however blame those of other cultures and is quick to point out this isn't a position of hate, but one of love or his own culture and race and respect for that of other races and cultures.

When using the term "Paki street thug" Nick says he was referring to a particular section of the society. But, he says, this is no different to the negative use of the term 'hoodie' as to describe white people who act like thugs, similar to the use of the term 'white trash', it does not describe all whites. Much in the same way that "paki street thug" does not describe all Muslims, let alone all Asians. Nick also points out that 'paki' is a term used not only by whites, but also by certain sections of the Asian community, Pakistanis included. He goes on to say it is a comment frequently used by the working class in places like Keighley and is simply part of the local dialect.

Nick says in all the speeches, both his own and those of mine, hate was not being disseminated. But he accepts that hate was sometimes already present in those audiences, and that we were in fact calming this hatred by offering a legitimate political solution - in effect turning the hate of hopelessness into the hope of political change. He says we both consistently point out the fact that we blame the politicians who have allowed this to happen, not the ethnic minorities. He talks sometimes having seen young men coming to BNP meetings full of hatred, yet months later they are different people and their hatred had evaporated once they have become involved in the political solution and can see at least a chance of change occurring. He says the British National Party is the only party expressing these legitimate concerns. In his speech he had pointed out that it is no different to the way the early Labour party stood up against the mill owners for the rights of the worker.

He talks of Islamic aggression against Sikhs and states that Sikhs are Asians, but have been among the biggest victims of Islamic terror over the years. You can contrast this with Islam, which has nothing whatsoever to do with race, you see Muslims of all colours, black, white and brown. This goes hand in hand with Nick's assertion in his speech that the problems in Keighley are cultural and religious problems.

The Morley speech

At 3 pm we move onto Nick's second speech which took place at Morley Town Hall.

Nick begins by saying that he is speaking on a different topic, because he wants to make a different point as many people attending that meeting will have heard the previous kind of speech. He talks of Stephen Lawrence and the fact that 10 years after his death the media are still giving the story front page publicity and that his death is simply being used to further the goals of a left-wing media. On this particular day Nick says this over the top coverage or 'Stephen Lawrence Mania', as he calls, it was particularly sickening. He wasn't attacking Stephen Lawrence, but the mass media and the national newspapers which cover up the deaths of young white boys murdered in proven racist incidents. He particularly makes note of the bias from the BBC.

Nick talks of how he spoke to people who knew Stephen Lawrence, people who went to school with him, their families and people who lived in the area. Nick even goes on to say that Stephen Lawrence was even talked of by rank and file members of the Metropolitan police who had stated that he died at the hands of another black man over drugs. Stephen was known in the area for bullying and 'taxing' other youths. He says he heard this from a trustworthy source.

Gavin Hopley murder

When questioned on the death of Gavin Hopley he tells of how he heard of the case, first from local gossip and later on in a report in the Oldham Evening Chronicle. Gavin was initially attacked in Glodwick, a Muslim area of the town ("because," he says "the West Indians who lived there before have been ethnically cleansed from the area) before dying a week later when his life support machine was turned off. He talks of a conversation relayed to him by Mick Treacy, a nurse at his bedside had said, "he wasn't murdered he was butchered". He was chased into Glodwick at 2 am on a Saturday morning when looking for a taxi and was set about by a gang of young thugs from the predominantly Muslim area, he was then beaten for a long period of time, until a "good-hearted and brave" Muslim lady came out of her home and saw what was happening and called an ambulance.

Next up is the case of Sean Whyte and Nick talks of the sources of his information on the case, which was initially local people connected to our branch. He recounts the horrorific case and said when the not guilty verdict was given at the case the police announced the case was closed, no further suspects were to be sought. Nick speaks of BNP members who went to the trial, yet the coverage of the case was ignoring in the national media and only snippits of information were put forward in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. His aim, he tells the court, was to whip up righteous anger over this censorship against the Establishment in this speech, to encourage political activity and motivate activists.

The whole of this speech is based around media inequality. Nick comes on to the case of Lee Martin, the young soldier who came home from Iraq and was subsequently kicked to death by Muslims. He states that is the kind of human interest story you would think the media would love, a soldier come back from Iraq and is killed by the kind of Muslim fundamentalists he has just been fighting overseas. Yet the story received no national media publicity.

Kriss Donald murder

Nick is then brought onto the section of his speech where he talks of Kriss Donald. He describes the murder as the most brutal and sadistic murder he has ever heard of taking place in this country, let alone racist murder. Yet the only coverage it received was in a local Scottish papers, with virtually nothing in the national media. Nick says he was not even talking of the case in "graphic detail" as the prosecution allege; he in fact censored this because he heard, from a close relative of the victim in person, Kriss was also castrated and had his eyes gouged out before he died. He says he talks of the case in no more graphic detail than the detail in which the death of Anthony Walker was described in the press. He boldly states that it is the journalists sat behind him who have covered up murders like those of Kriss Donald who should be in the dock.

It is later quoted that Nick stated during the speech that Stephen Lawrence's death was indeed a tradegy, but something that has been overplayed. He even states that although he believed him to be a drug dealer he didn't deserve to die that way, but surely the death by one single stab wound should be less media worthy than the grotesque torture and death of Kriss Donald?

Nick points out that in the Macpherson report that a racist attack is a racist attack if any person involved in the incident or witness to it perceives it to be so. Thus when he is speaking of Scott Pritchard in Sunderland it should have been classed as a racist attack as that is what the local community in the area - and his family - classed it as. He berates the CPS and police for ignoring their own rules. Nick states his motivate is create debate to prevent those problems growing in our society. He describes Britain as a tinder box, not because he wants to cause it to explode, but because he in fact wants to defuse it.

Pressure cooker

Tim King then points out that in this particular speech Nick accurately predicts the terrorist attacks in London in July of 2005. Nick accurately points out not only the attacks but who the people were who would carry them out. He states that this prediction came about from his studies of Islam, he said it is blatantly obvious what was going to happen when you have seen this happen all over the world the same thing was bound to happen here. In the speech Nick asserts that the Establishment are trying to keep the lid on the 'pressure cooker'. Nick states that he does not want to blow the lid off the pressure cooker, but wants to defuse this by legal political activity. The backlash is coming he states, but asserts he wants it to be political. The British National Party are there to provide this political outlet to prevent a violent backlash.

Nick says the if there ever was racial violence on a national scale, then the Home Secretary would simply lock up and intern leading members of the BNP, so violence is the last thing we want. He goes onto say that if violence ever did erupt, then we would get the blame, hence all we want is the right to peacefully build a political alternative.

At 4.07 pm the court adjourns until Friday. Three TV cameras are waiting for us as we leave the court. Then we're swept to the cars by the security team and it's the end of another day.

Day 7: Tuesday 24th January

2006-01-24T18:43:00.000Z

Day 7: Tuesday 24th January

Up until nearly 3.30 this morning going through defence material. I've had to go hunting for material to use in response to various allegations made very recently by the prosecution, and this now has to go in all of a rush at the last minute. Up at just gone six for a bath then the journey to court. Have to be there at nine for another conference. Once in the court one of the staff again presents Mark and me with a bundle of what he calls 'fan mail'. Letters and cards from well-wishers all over the country. To anyone who's sent one, many thanks, they're a welcome and touching boost.

"Thank you for saying what we would like to. It is shameful that you have been persecuted for exercising your right to free speech. Very best wishes and good luck," goes a typical one on an animal charity card. "The best of luck to you both, from two angry pensioners" is the message in another. Tear in eye time.

One of the jurors is held up, so we start properly at 11.05 a.m. The judge explains that the arrival of new evidence on my behalf means that the case will have to be adjourned early today once Mark's case is finished.

Then it's on with the last part of Mark's cross examination by his defence counsel. He is asked why he gave a 'No Comment' interview, and replies that it was because he was sure he'd said nothing wrong, and that his arrest was simply Politically Correct harassment.

Cross-examination of Mark

By 11.12 a.m. Mark is being cross-examined by the prosecution's Mr. Jameson QC. My accounts of these exchanges may not be totally literal, not word-for-word.

He starts off by asking if all of his speech at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley represented BNP policy. He asks if I approached him afterwards to say he'd gone "a bit too far" in anything he'd said, Mark replied 'Not that I can remember".

What our policy on dealing with a member of an ethnic minority who commits a crime? Kicking out members of ethnic minorities who have committed crimes but who were born in Britain? The prosecution is trying to get towards a position in which he can claim that our policies are based on fundamental antipathy towards non-whites. Mark kicks back with a measured and gutsy query as to whether the question at issue is BNP policy, whether the BNP is on trial, or just what we said in the speeches?

Moments later there is another low-key clash, and Mark again shows that he won't be brow-beaten.

Flying pigs

"I was preaching to the converted" says Mark. "Suppose there had been Asians or asylum seekers at the meeting," he is asked, " would you have said the same things?" "This is a ridiculous point," Mark replies, "it would simply never happen, so I cannot answer it. It's like me saying to you, 'if there was a flying pig, would you ride it?'"

It gets better, Mark rips quietly into his opponent and uses his own question to show precisely that under the circumstances of the meetings the prosecution's wording indicates that he could not have insulted, abused, or threatened.

"What is the 'hell' that people in Bradford have to go through?" "The muggings, rapes, grooming, attacks, rioting, etc," Mark tells him.

"Did you include in that 'hell' the actions of white criminals?" Mark responds by stressing the sheer horror of the 'grooming' issue in the area. Jameson keeps pressing on this point, and takes advantage of the fact that he suckered Mark into saying that he had only had about twice as many cuttings as submitted in the defence evidence bundle, to say he was exaggerating when he talked of two rapes of white girls happening a week.

Rape

Knowing he's on ground which could look weak, Mark tries to shift the discussion back to the grooming issue, "it's not just a problem in Keighley, or even Bradford, it's been happening all over the country." Then he gets in the point Jameson has been wilfully ignoring all along "When we heard on 'Edge of the City' of how one girl of 13 was drugged, and ended up having sex with more than 100 Asian men - that's rape."

"Why did you not give the example of a 'young white lad' innocently picking up an underage girl dressed up to look older than 16, rather than illustrating it by talking of an Asian lad in that position?"

"No. The clubs and pubs I go to aren't frequented by Asians. I was simply giving an example from my own experience. It's what happens in real life."

Mark spots that Jameson is about to say that Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley had been involved on this issue, which would lead on to the proposition that, as the prosecutor actually said moments later, that everybody was disgusted by what was going on and opposed to it (hence there would be no need for us to make an issue of what was going on). Mark wasn't going to let that trick be played, and showed a flash of real emotion and righteous indignation as he pointed out that, if it hadn't been for our campaigning on this issue, then Ann Cryer and the media wouldn't have done anything about it.

Jameson moves on, asking one question about my speech that follows. Not sure why, we'll see where that goes when I'm in the witness box.

Verbal duel

Then back to another of Mark's speeches. Jameson is much exercised by Mark's motive for talking about the dangers of the indigenous population of Britain becoming a minority in their own homeland. Mark attacks by saying the prosecution is trying to say that such comments are not a subject that should be talked about as a legitimate political point. The prosecutor rushes to say that's not the case. Good point scored.

Jameson goes on to say that such things can be discussed, but apparently we're not allowed to do so while pointing to recent historical examples (such as Rhodesia) as to precisely what happens to white populations that find themselves in a minority.

Fireworks! Mark responds to a question with another. Jameson of course doesn't answer it. Mark points this out. Jameson says it's because he's here to ask questions, not answer them. Mark counters "Well I think that's because you can't answer it!" The judge intervenes for the first time to remind Mark that it's the job of counsel to ask questions, not answer them. "I'm sorry, My Lord", Mark accepts. Fun while it lasted, and fair play to the lad!

On to the Bradford riots. The prosecution want him to accept that only a small proportion of the 'Asian' population was involved in rioting. "Yes, and no", says Mark pointing out that although only a minority of them were rioting, this still represents a huge number. Mark once again tells the court that the prosecution is trying to twist his words and see things that aren't there.

Scraping the barrel

Jameson now goes to scrape the barrel. In Mark's speech he had referred to a Muslim businessmen who was arrested and convicted for barricading the doors of Manningham Labour Club, then petrol-bombing it while more than twenty elderly members were inside. Jameson points out that the local press cutting says that the fire-raiser was convicted of arson with reckless endangering of human life, but not of attempted murder. "It was my value judgement," says Mark "If someone locked us in this room here today, and then set light to it, I think it's a fair thing to assume that they would be trying to kill us."

Next stop Mark's claim about "guns under the mosque." Because he can't or won't name his police source, Mark is accused of making it all up, despite the fact that the Crown have given in their unused material a copy of an internal police intelligence report about a tip-off that there were guns and explosives in a named mosque in Bradford. I suspect that this issue will arise when I am cross-examined later in the trial, so will say no more about this for now.

"Why are you only talking about helping white people?" "Because there are other groups out there standing up for the Asian community, the black community and so on. There's the Black Police Officers' Association; the Asian Lawyers' Association. They're there for their people. We're here for ours."

A pattern is now emerging: Jameson is picking up on things like the use of a word such as 'the' rather than 'these' to claim that such tiny differences are intentional and can be picked over at length in an effort to infer politically incorrect thoughts in our heads. Given that the law is clearly that the speeches have to be taken in their entirety, as that is a key part of "having regard to all the circumstances", this is extraordinarily unfair.

Mark makes exactly this point after lunch. "If the media talk about white racist crime, for example, no one expects them to say "of course, we're not saying that everyone in the white community is a white racist criminal."

There's a fair bit on Mark's allegation that Stephen Lawrence may well have been a drug dealer. "What is the relevance of this?" "Because the media have said that it was a racist murder, and I am merely pointing out that he might have been killed for reasons other than white racism, something which would be particularly likely if he was indeed - as is common gossip in the lower ranks of the Metropolitan police - involved in drug dealing."

"Cockroaches"

Jameson has 'teed up' the DVD player to show us the BNP’s audience reaction to this comment. Mark is shown giving a partial list of what asylum seekers get, and includes a car "with which they run over someone like Lee Massey." The list of what they get goes on "these people are cockroaches". The audience gives a huge cheer. Jameson makes a big thing of this, but nothing of the fact that Mark's immediately subsequent point - in which he says that he doesn't hate anyone except the white liberals responsible for the asylum flood - is also rewarded by an enthusiastic round of sustained applause.

Mark repeatedly points out that Jameson is "cherry-picking" his speech by missing out the huge amount of material in them about positive political organisation and action.

Jameson again pushes the cockroach button, and Mark kicks back by asking how the word is so different to terms appearing in the tabloid papers at the time, such as "spongers, vermin and parasites."

Jameson then produces a document taken from Mark's computer and asks if he wrote it? Mark reads it carefully and then confirms that he wrote it. Then there's an exchange about mixed race relationships that the judge effectively cuts short by his concern about the use of such evidence. Jameson backs off slightly, then comes back to allege that all Mark's points go towards creating an image of non-whites to be feared, and hated.

A third week ahead

It's now a quarter past three. Mr. Jameson appears to be nearly finished, but has a point of law to raise so the jury is sent out and my fingers must fall still.

The jury return to be told that the prosecution have finished their cross-examination. Their is no re-examination. Mark returns to the dock with me. Job done very well indeed to my mind.

That's it for the day. My turn tomorrow, and I've seen how the prosecution works. It's pretty clear now that the case is going to run on into a third week. Verdict next Monday or Tuesday from the way things are going.

Rajinder Singh has arrived to give evidence on my behalf if there is any suggestion that I'm not 100% sincere when talking about the particular danger posed by fundamentalist Islam. The prosecution look as though they may well try to claim that I use 'Muslim' as a code-word for Asians in general. Well, if they want a fight on that ground, they're going to get it.

Day 6: Mon 23rd Jan

2006-01-24T09:32:00.000Z

Day 6: Mon 23rd Jan

Woke up just gone six, which gave me time to read the re-read key chapters of a book by a leading Muslim theorist who has been influential on the Islamist movement. Did try to finish it last night, but it's not exactly a gripping read. Bacon and egg bap and orange juice for breakfast, then off to meet up with our steadily growing security team. We've added personnel and refinements this week, as it is only realistic to fear that some of our evidence may anger certain intolerant groups out there if it is publicised in the media this week.

Fog on the motorway held up one of the barristers this morning, so instead of starting at 10.30 a.m. things don't actually get started until 11 a.m. Proceedings begin with the judge reading his judgements on two points of law. His judgement involves a summary of the position of the defence and prosecution in turn, and then gives his verdict and the reasons for it. As we expected, the case is to continue.

One of our researchers has managed to dig out details of several media reports which both Mark and I had seen back in late 2003 and 2004, but which we hadn't been able to find until now. There is a short discussion over how much of this material should and should not be put before the jury. Some new material goes in straight away, one decision is deferred.

Just as we assume that this stage of proceedings is over, the prosecution barrister flags up another point that might become relevant later. It is now a quarter to twelve. The judge expresses concern that the jury have been sat in an adjacent room for two solid days while such discussions have been taking place.

11.50 a.m. The jury is now down to eleven members only. The elderly and rather large lady who last week was having trouble staying awake has submitted a doctor's statement saying that her diabetes and general state of health make her unfit for jury service, so she has been discharged from that duty. As a result, it would now only take two jurors to refuse to agree with the rest to produce a hung jury.

Prosecution again

The junior prosecution barrister, Mr. Mansell, rises to deal with the last part of their case, which is to tell the jury about the Schedule of Agreed Facts. These are basically that the speeches they have been shown are genuine, that the transcripts are correct (actually they contain a fair few errors and mistranscriptions, but there doesn't appear to be anything to worry about). Then there are photos of the venues at which the speeches took place. Quite what these are supposed to establish no-one seems to know, seems an even bigger waste of police time than the rest of the case to me.

Then how we were arrested, cautioned, interviewed and charged.

Potentially more useful to us, the jury were then told that the police had no recorded incidents of any disorder either after the meetings or after the broadcasting of the 'Secret Agent'. Finally, the prosecution notes the fact that I was interviewed about five speeches, but have only been charged in connection with two of them.

Mark starts his defence

Mark is called to give evidence by his Mr Lawson-Rogers just before noon. He swears on the Bible to tell the truth, etc. Rather odd, in a way, given that the truth is deemed to be no defence to the charges we faced. After being asked a little about his upbringing, Mark was asked how he first got involved in the BNP. He related how this was while he was at university he joined the Free Speech Society and, as time went on, became aware that it was only the BNP which was being denied freedom of speech. He became friendly with a BNP member, Chris Beverley, and subsequently joined the party.

The barrister then asked questions about the meetings, their relationship with the election campaigns of 2004. Some time was spent how pressure and threats from the far-left have forced us to limit attendence at all these meetings to people who are already known to us. Mark explained how redirection points work, and how we always have security both at the redirection point and at the venue.

With the judge having to make handwritten notes, Mark had to be reminded to take his answers slowly. He described his speeches as 'motivational', trying to encourage members of the audience to get involved in leafleting, canvassing and generally campaigning for the elections. Mark was then passed the transcripts of his speeches, and asked questions about them. Much of the information used in his speeches came from local press cuttings passed to him by local organisers for whom he was producing election campaign leaflets.

All the jury members seem to be paying very close attention to the exchanges, several jot down notes, others lean forward.

Soft touch Britain

The issue of Muslim paedophile gangs operating in Keighley was covered in some detail. Mark stressed that even when talking about such issues, he lays the blame at the door of the Labour party and the media, and urges people to help deal with the problems by getting involved in political activity. He explained his comments that all asylum seekers in Britain are bogus by referring to the United Nations rule that they should stop in the first safe country they get to, not travel through many safe countries in order to get to "Soft Touch Britain".

Mark explained how Political Correctness pervades so much of modern life that media editors feel obliged to downplay crimes by members of ethnic minority communities in order to avoid being branded 'racist'.

On the quote used extensively in the media last week "Let's show these ethnics the door in 2004", Mark pointed out that the word 'these' refers to bogus asylum seekers and criminals, not all members of ethnic minorities as the media have tried to imply.

After Mark had explained how he believes that getting people involved in politics actually helps defuse racial tensions, he was taken on to his second speech. In this he spoke of the ethnic cleansing murders of white farmers in Rhodesia and South Africa, then of the dangers mass immigration poses to Britain. Talking of the Muslim rioting in Bradford in 2001, he explained his belief that the use of thousands of petrol bombs against the police (he should have said white businesses too, perhaps that will come out in due course) showed that the trouble was premeditated and well organised.

He related how a local Muslim 'businessman' had used a car to block the exit of Manningham Labour Club, blocked or chained up the fire exit, and then petrol bombed the building in an attempt to murder the elderly patrons inside. He then told the court that the story about weapons training in a mosque in Bradford came from a tip-off from a police officer.

Powerful points

By 12.40 Mark's answers are really hitting home. Any initial nerves (not that any showed) have gone, and he's making powerful points left, right and centre. His figures for the vastly disproportionate number of racial attacks on whites by non-whites came from an official government website. Again, he stresses that our greatest concern isn't just the fact that it is happening, but the way in which the media cover such things up. Whether it's on the news or on soap operas, whites are always guilty, and anyone who seeks to deny this is silenced with the cry of 'racist'.

Of his comments about all the 'goodies' provided by the government, Mark explains how the list - in the Home Office's own Joint Tenancy Agreement - will be given to the jury a little later in the trial. He talks of helping British families in Leeds with two children in a damp bedroom, while bogus asylum seekers get full central heating, enough rooms, double glazing, etc. Asylum seekers walk in and get everything, while a family he helped were told they would have to wait four years to be rehoused, despite their daughter's asthma being aggravated by their living conditions.

Again, he finishes by referring the jury back to the section of the speech where he stresses the key role of political action in ending such injustice and getting a 'fair deal' for our own people.

On to the third speech, which started with him pointing out that whites are already a minority in his home city of Leicester, Mark had referred to white people being forced out of Bradford. His source for this - since the media hush up such stories - was a friend in the meeting whose family had suffered just such an experience.

This was the speech in which he called asylum seekers 'cockroaches'. He explained that the word came to his mind as the result of an 'in' joke with several people at the meeting after one had jokingly called him a cockroach. He accepted that in the context of asylum seekers the word was 'a bit crude', but pointed out that the papers like the Sun regularly used similar terms: Spongers; parasites, etc.

Merriment

After the lunch break, the judge reminded Mark that he had just been saying that he had another point to make when we finished the morning session. Mark grinned ruefully as he admitted that he couldn't remember what it was, bringing a slight ripple of laughter from the whole courtroom - judge, counsel and jury included.

More on the need for political involvement and solutions. Then a piece about an anecdote he told about a young drug addict, once a pretty girl and now, though "still somebody's daughter, somebody's sister", a wrecked human being. Why did he talk about this? Because he wanted to illustrate the human impact of the problems we deal with, and to point out that the liberals who preach multi-racism don't live or work in such poor areas, and have no real idea of what goes on in them.

The defence's opening 'Evidence in Chief' session ended with a few questions about the circumstances and timing of Mark's arrest and subsequently being charged, bringing out the 'conicidence' that the charges of 'inciting racial hatred' were laid in a high profile media spotlight just the day after the general election was called.

There's another 'five minute' break for the prosecution to be given a few last minute documents. As per the pattern already established in this case, this ends up stretching to some four times as long as that, with the jury only being recalled as it passes three o'clock.

Source notes

We then moved on to Mark's brief taking him through the bundle of evidence - mainly press cuttings - submitted in his defence. Each of the jury members also has a copy of the ring-binder and its contents. This is largely the source material for comments made in his speeches. It is divided into several sections:

The first section deals with the problems existing in Bradford. The appallingly anti-white Bradford Telegraph and Argus, and the institutionally anti-white BBC, are both pressed into service. These support parts of his speech which the police and CPS had earlier flagged up as perhaps being 'scaremongering'. Not so, for here was confirmation of the truth of Mark's comments about things such as the £27 million cost of the Bradford riot, and the brutal attempt by rioters to burn alive more than two dozen pensioners in the Manningham Labour Club. In support of Mark's claim that the riot was pre-planned, the court heard from cuttings about the theft of a milk float some days before, which seems to have been used to collect milk bottles for petrol bombs, and the fact that Muslim youths came from far and wide to join in.

The second and third set of papers looked at the clear connection between immigration, including asylum, and various crimes, including vicious anti-white race attacks in the area on males and females alike. Muggings, straight forward race attacks, rapes - cuttings overwhelmingly from the local papers backed up Mark's claim that multi-racial Bradford is riven with anti-white racism, and that the national media ignore virtually all such incidents.

The fourth section was the Joint Tenancy Agreement. Only selected pages were included, and Mr Lawson-Rogers took the court to the huge list, including new electrical appliances, furniture and fittings, including new 20" screen colour TV "complete with licence, to be renewed annually". Each asylum seeker should have exclusive use of one room - Mark pointed out that British families get no such rights.

Five: Mosque in Bertram Road, Bradford. Copy from the CPS of details of a tip-off to police about guns and explosives in the mosque. Was anything done about the tip-off? Somehow I doubt it, and expect to return to this in due course.

Six: Transcript of BBC TV news report about "Asian men seducing young white girls". Quite what the BBC were doing showing such news I don't know. Certainly it's out of normal character. Ann Cryer MPis quoted as blaming "strong cultural background reasons". 'Asian' leaders reject this claim, and are at great pains to deny that the targeting of non-Muslim girls exclusively has anything to do with Islam.

"Web of sex gangs reaches across UK" "Sex ring playing on 30 girls" and a wad of similar cuttings deal with what was (and still is) happening in Keighley.

End of day’s proceedings

With one of the jurors having a pre-planned and uncancellable appointment of some sort, the day's session for the jury ended early at 3.25 p.m.

More legal discussions once the jury members have left to go back to their normal lives and their own dramas, then we're on our way.

Time for me to go into conference with my legal team to go over the substantial bundle of potential evidence on my behalf, then to say goodbye to Jackie, who has been in court all day and must now head back home to the family and work tomorrow, then I'm due to meet BNPtv's Rod Gordon to do the day's website report.

That speech.

2006-01-21T17:33:00.000Z

That speech!

The full and complete footage which the BBC undercover reporter Jason Gwynne captured using hidden recording equipment of Nick Griffin addressing a private BNP meeting at Morley Town Hall in Leeds during the run up to the European Parliamentary elections.

In this speech which has been used as evidence for the prosecution, and shown to the jury in Leeds Crown Court, Nick tells the audience about the media circus over the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence and reports about allegations that he was not murdered by white racists at all, but by rival drug dealers. Nick talks about the many white victims of racist murder which in contrast to the Lawrence case; go unreported by the established media. The prosecution claim that this speech is likely to incite racial hatred and for that, if the jury find Nick guilty, he could be sentenced for up to seven year’s imprisonment.

This speech in full is now available for the entire world to download, watch and hear. Viewers can now make up their own mind if this is the kind of material that anyone should have face criminal charges, let alone the prospect of a prison sentence.

Precedent

This material has been cleared by the legal team defending Nick and Mark in Leeds and we believe it is an all time first in English criminal legal history – a defendant broadcasting in its entirety an item submitted by the prosecution as evidence

Please remember that this was recorded by an undercover “reporter” working for the BBC in cahoots with Searchlight, a Marxist magazine which receives funding from various trade unions and anti-British groups. The sound quality is not brilliant and the first four minutes of the video shows Nick's legs and torso but not his head.

The footage, which weighs in at 43Mb, is suitable for broadband viewers only, can be downloaded from the BNP's website here.

Day 5: Friday 20th January

2006-01-21T12:26:00.000Z

Friday 20th January

With another (short) day of legal arguments planned, the jury absent and reporting restrictions again in place, the private peep show into the English legal system continues.

My opinion is that none of these discussions will change anything during the present trial, but they may well become very significant in the future. Yesterday I passed a number of hastily scribbled notes to my counsel via our solicitor, a smashing, efficient and friendly Liverpudlian lady, who sits in the back row of seats.

The court layout, by the way, is as follows:

Mark and I sit in the dock at the back, behind glass screens - clear in front of us, smoked between us - and the public/press gallery to our left. With us are two security guards, who are finding our case much more interesting than the usual stuff they deal with. In front of us are three rows of long green padded benches and pine desks, each with several TV monitors. The back bench is occupied by the solicitors, who are often busy making notes. In front of them sit the 'junior' barristers - not necessarily younger, the term relates to status, not age. Their bewigged heads nod or shake very slightly from time to time as they follow the arguments intently. Their bench is piled high with files and stacks of case notes bound up with thin red ribbons. All of us have the same plastic water cups.

(Left: Court scene - thanks to Centaur)

The next row up is occupied by the senior barristers, all 'top silks', officially known as Queen's Counsellors. Mark and I have one each, one speaks for the prosecution. One by one they stand and address and from time to time argue with 'the court' (i.e. the Judge). The TV and film cliche of them leaping to their feet with objections hasn't been seen at ll yet. Perhaps that will change when we get to the cross-examinations next week.

In front of them, facing us over a smaller table, sit the court note-taker and another barrister. I must admit I've no idea what her job is. The usher - a calm and quite authoritative man who has clearly been doing the job for years - sits just on the edge of the public gallery, and occasionally pads quietly around the room to deliver notes.

The jury box is to our right, twelve separate green seats behind the same narrow wooden ledges that we have in front of us. A large TV sits in front of them. The witness box - so far only occupied once, by the paid provocateur Jason Gwynne - is to our left near the front of the court. The room is dominated by the higher, pine panelled bench occupied by the judge, his notes, law books and TV monitor.

Nature notes

The judge wears a red robe, trimmed with black. I believe it's only the Law Lords who get the bits of ermine fur. This used to come from stoats killed by gamekeepers during particularly hard winters when they turn white to match the snow. I wonder if this is still the source, or if they now use something synthetic? In general I'm in favour of tradition but I'm even more in favour of stoats keeping their own coats. It must be forty years since my grandfather showed me a gamekeeper's 'gibbet' on a woodland walk in Suffolk. The corpses of stoats and their weasel cousins hung on the barbed wire strand on top, in various stages of sickly-sweet decay. The crime that led this persecution by gintrap and gun was the taking of the eggs and chicks of pheasants. Reared for the shooting pleasure of, among others, lawyers blowing away some of their fees. These days such capital punishment for 'vermin' is nothing like as common. Splendid, as an enthusiastic cook and carnivore I'm all for a bit of rough shooting, but I'd rather think of a young pheasant being taken by another wild animal than being fattened up until it can hardly fly and shot by asomeone who doesn't even intend to eat it.

Back to the court - the judge makes more notes than anyone else. Perhaps a couple of times a day something leads him to make some dry and genuinely witty comment which raises smiles or gentle laughter. Even though I know he won't hesitate to send us down if we're found guilty (in fact, under the Act in question, he has no choice but to give us at least six months each), I thinkhe'd make a good guest for dinner. He must certainly have seen some fascinating, important and high profile cases in a career long and distinguished enough to become a top Recorder in a major provincial court like this.

Career choice

Had I so chosen, I could have been out there with the lawyers, probably on a grand a day (that's about $1,600 to North American readers), rather than sitting in a seat more usually occupied by the scum of the earth. But I chose not to, having been told very clearly that the price of an entry ticket into that privileged world was to keep my head down and hold my tongue about the mortal dangers threatening, among other things, the traditions, practice and future of that very same legal system.

Certainly none of this lot would be here in a British Islamic Republic governed under Shari'a law. And the three foot high royal crest that dominates the beige curtained wall behind him would go as well, or at least be radically changed. The crest is, of course, held up by a lion and a unicorn, so the lion - being a representation of a living creature with a soul - would have to go. I'm not sure about the unicorn, as it's a mythical creature not a real one. The Latin mottos would go, because the equivalent ritual/religious language in Shari'a law is an almost equally ancient version of Arabic. On the quarters of the coat of arms, the harp would vanish, since music is banned under the Wahhabi versions of Islam which are the ones which are at present winning the struggle against both the West and other versions of their own religion. The assorted lions and leopards would get their throats cut too.

Get home mid-evening and moments later get a call to tell me that my co-defendent Mark Collett has just has his flat window smashed. Immediately call our security team in Leeds. Poor sods had thought their work was over for the week, but clearly not. The most shocking thing is that, for various reasons, I have no doubt whatsover that this is not the work of political or minority opponents, but of one or two people who - until very recently - were supposed to be on our side. Lowest of the low!

Still, on the positive side, a week that started with a series of crises (more in the right place at the right time) in which the court case was literally the least of my worries has produced some of the best and most useful publicity we've ever had. And that's been from the prosecution evidence!

Next week it's our turn - and although I'm almost overwhelmed to be back home with my family, I can't wait!

Day 4: Thursday 19th January

2006-01-19T19:20:00.000Z

URGENT UPDATE: Due to prolonged legal issues the trial has been adjourned until Monday 23rd. Demo planned for Friday 20th cancelled.

Busy speaking at a meeting in Manchester last night, so a team of us nipped over the Pennine moors to Red Rose country as soon as I'd finished the short interview for BNPtv. Jackie and our three younger children (though at 17 and with a crushing bear hug our Richard doesn't really qualify any more) travelled up from Wales to meet at a very cosy pub owned by one of our people. Only together properly for an hour, but a quiet meal and a drink (very fine real ale from the Moorhouse brewery up near Pendle) with them in the 'snug' is deeply satisfying.

In the back of my mind afterwards, however, it brought home just how close Mark and I could be to finding out in grim reality the truth of what my old friend Joe Pearce told me after his own Race Act sentence for Thought Crime back in the '80s: "In some ways the family visits are the worst. You want so much to see them but then they're gone so soon."

So then to the second half of the meeting, already well underway under Derek Adams and Tony Wentworth. A good turnout of seventy or so had just enjoyed the buffet and now gave us a wonderfully warm welcome. Spoke for a good half hour. Not a great speech - as I said right at the start, I felt that people would want to know what was happening in court, and such accounts by their very nature are difficult to turn into gripping listening.

I did, however, explain that the headlines produced by the case were the result of "the prosecution's best shots. That's it, that's all they've got. From now on it's our turn."

I reminded everyone that the case was started while the neo-Stalinist crank David Blunkett (the man who celebrated getting elected to run Sheffield by ordering that the Red Flag - stained with the blood of at least 60 million white Christian Europeans - should be flown from the flag pole on top of the city hall) was running the Home Office. "In his last few years in power Blunkett lost the plot and made some terrible blunders. In historical terms, this is going to turn out to be the worst."

Lose-lose situation for the Establishment

Not least of the Establishment's problems is their too-clever-by-half scheme to put Mark and me on trial - for telling the truth and advocating peaceful political solutions to genuinely pressing problems and dangers in our society - at the same time as Abu Hamza, with his 'justification' of suicide bombings and the indiscriminate murder of Unbelievers. The prosecution now just can't win.

This case is now the talk of the land. What happens next? Either we walk free, in which case millions of other decent Brits will breath a huge collective sigh of relief and feel personally much more at liberty to speak their own minds. Such moments of sudden relaxation of clumsy attempts to supress popular dissent are always extraordinarily dangerous for totalitarian regimes. A couple of months ago I read a fascinating account of the last few years of the Soviet Union, Delerium (I can't remember the author's name offhand). Gorbachev's attempted Glasnost 'liberalisation' developed an irresistable momentum of its own as people who had been frightened into silence by decades of brutal repression saw others getting away with speaking out and finally plucked up the courage to follow suit.

Parallels

There are extraordinarily close parallels between the ideological origins and psychological motivations of the crazed attempt to impose an utterly anti-human, unnatural and innately unworkable Marxist social and economic experiment on the peoples of East Europe between 1917 and 1989, and the no less crazy, anti-human, unnatural and innately unworkable Marxist social, cultural and genetic experiment known as 'multi-culturalism'. And, since history always repeats itself, the time will come when everyone will be able to see the extraordinarily close parallels between the eventual collapse of the brutal and destructive tyranny of the Soviet Bloc, and the death of the less brutal but even more genocidal tyranny of 'PC' and multi-culturalism in today's West.

If, on the other hand, the prosecution 'win' and throw us in jail, millions of decent Brits - and huge numbers of freedom lovers in other countries as well - will be deeply shocked and mentally radicalised by the sight of our being persecuted simply for speaking aloud the truths that so many people think. On the issue of the Islamic threat in particular, the parallel would be if, instead of merely being ridiculed as a 'war-monger' throughout the 1930s, Winston Churchill had been imprisoned for "inciting hatred against Nazis and Germans." I write that not as a worshipper of Churchill - I'm not an imperialist, for a start - but simply to point out the non-ideological historical similarities.

Such a turn of events won't help us personally in the short term, of course, but enormous political capital for our movement will be created when the terrible events that lie ahead of all the once-free nations of the West prove that we were right all along. Looking at today's papers especially - including The Times, still the "paper of record" - I believe that, in this respect, we have already won this case. The verdict is irrelevant, save that a guilty verdict will only add martyr status for both of us to my growing reputation as a prophet!

Impressive performance

Court itself resumed at 11.20 am, with reporting restrictions reimposed on account of the need to keep the legal discussions out of the knowledge of the jury, who return tomorrow. During this verbal tennis match, I was once again struck by the brilliance of these lawyers' minds. I'm no fan of their kind - I freely tell all of them, my excellent Defence Counsel included - of my instinctive tendency to agree with the potential rebels in Henry IV: "First thing we'll do is hang all the lawyers". But the speed with which these men and women assimilate ideas and think on their feet, their verbal and mental agility, and their subtle, dry humour (the mincing and unlamented now-departed Patrick O'Connor QC excepted) never fail to impress me. Not just my and Mark's team, but the prosecution and, especially, the Judge, who faces us so that we can see the concentration not only on his face but also in the way he holds his thumb and forefinger together as if to pick up a tiny pin when he addresses particularly subtle points.

The court room is lit soley by artificial neon light. The air is recycled, stale and surely unhealthy. Day after day at this time of year it is dark outside before they leave; they don't see much more daylight than most nightshift workers or coalminers - a hardy breed of truly productive men now sadly outnumbered by parasites. Which is what, at a certain level, the entire legal system is in a healthy society. Even the best of them, the fairest of them, the most considerate of them, are - at one level - parasites. Their profession creates nothing anyone can eat, or wear, or use to keep warm or dry, or to fly, or use to make something else that is either useful or beautiful.

Brilliant minds

These truly brilliant minds, some of the best our race can produce, fence with well-honed words as highly-paid intellectual gladiators in this airless, claustrophobic excuse for an arena. Even to be able to concentrate on their work, when every word has a precise meaning and a moment's loss of concentration could lead to disaster, is a mark of their extraordinary ability.

But what a waste! For sure, it gets them lots of money, but it is taken overwhelmingly from the pockets of ordinary taxpayers and would be much better spent on education, hospitals and rebuilding British industry than being swallowed up prosecuting and defending vermin who have already forfeited their rights in any civilised society, lost youngsters who would never have gone off the rails in the first place if society was run in accordance with the realities of human nature, and the victims of an over-mighty state. And as for those who line their pockets by manning the socially, economically and morally corrosive machinery of compensation culture civil law, most of them - and most of the claimants - should be told to stop poncing and whining and go and do something useful and honest, like scientific research or cleaning toilets.

The only things I can say in favour of the English common law legal system is that it has the finest and most noble origins of any legal system in the world, and that even today it's not as bad as any of the alternatives, and much better than the dictats of any kind of sovereign ruler. So I suppose we'll have to put up with it, although we could take a look at the way the Japanese (cleverer, better organised, further-sighted and more cohesive than us on average) have organised their legal system so as to discourage people from going to law and to keep really good minds from going into it. Their much smaller, legal system is staffed by bright second-raters, while the top minds are encouraged to go into industry and science by a mixture of deliberately fostered social prestige and money.

Waterworld

Thinking of toilets, my mind strays briefly to an incident earlier this morning. I stayed last night at the home of a couple who, in addition to being valued party members, have also become good friends. We stayed up chatting about things and putting the world to rights until just gone one, then turned in. I woke up at just gone six, and after lounging around for a while decided to take a bath early so as not to get in the way. So by half six I'm lying in a very large and comfortable bath tub when I remember that it's a jacuzzi, so decide to switch it on and relax for a while longer. Which is fine until I come to get out and turn off, as the on/off button remains firmly stuck. Wondering if there's perhaps some link between the 'off' function and the knob that operates the waste plug, I fiddle briefly with that. Unfortunately, this makes no difference, save that the manic bubbling continues unabated, perhaps merely sounding louder now I'm not in it.

And now I've got an added worry: Not only do I appear to have broken the switch but I'm now not sure whether the water is running or out or not as the bubbling is so intense that I cannot see if the water level is dropping. My concern now is that, if it is, it will soon fall below the level of the jet holes, at which point my limited knowledge of water pumps (we have one at home on our borehole) suggests that it is likely to overheat and burn out or, even worse, catch fire somewhere behind the bath panel.

The passage of a couple more noisy minutes at least makes it clear that the plug's still in, and as it's now well gone seven I guess it's OK to get dressed and go and see if mine hosts are still awake. Indeed they are, since they haven't used the damn thing for so long that they couldn't even work out what the noise was, and had for some time now been sleepily wondering what on earth (more precisely, in water) I was doing.

So there's a dash to the garage for a thin screwdriver, and the stuck button is freed - only to come out of its socket completely, leaving the embarassingly scummy water (the main light is now on, and I spent the previous day in a Turkish Bath of a courtroom (I said Islam is a "wicked, vicious faith", not that its devotees never invented anything), a pub, a smoky meeting and several cars) to continue to dance and bubble and mock all three of us.

Call the bigger screwdriver. Strong enough to lever off the entire bath panel, although only after ripping up a chunk of carpet and the gripping strip underneath it. This brings the switch below the switch within reach and the bubbles die away and peace is restored. My friend gazes around. It is half-past seven. He sums up the situation in one classic, blunt Yorkshire sentence: "You've only been here a few hours and you've already shafted us whole bloody bathroom!"

All of which anecdote really only goes to prove that the prosecution barrister's learned voice is, I'm sorry to say, rather too monotonal to hold my attention completely as the discussions go on. The contrast betwen the crisp, lively presentation from Mark's Mr. Lawson-Rogers, and my Mr. King's controlled passion, is becoming more marked as the day goes on. That's not to say that the discussion necessarily goes our way, and it is interesting to watch how both our QCs can argue with the learned judge without getting up his spectacled nose in the way so entertainingly demonstrated by the prosecution's Mr. O'Connor in the first big hearing of this case back before Christmas.

Racist examples

One interesting point about the courtroom debates is the way in which the lawyers - including the judge and our defence counsel - when they want to give an example of 'racist' behaviour which would or would not break the law, all automatically provide hypothetical white perpetrators and non-white victims. If they did it the other way round the Race Relations Industry would sprout an entire new enforcement department. But as they're only making assumptions about "poor white trash", no-one even notices, let alone does anything about, this institutionalised racism.

During the breaks today, large numbers of police officers keep close by us on account of the presence of even larger numbers of young Asian men attending a case involving some of their number in a nearby courtroom. If our sly but somewhat excitable videographer friend Andy Ali hadn't assumed that the "adjourned until Friday" that he heard from the public gallery yesterday meant that we wouldn't be here today, he'd have had a field day - or have got himself arrested - trying to wind them up. We make an effort to keep out of their way, as the last thing we want is confrontation in the middle of Leeds Crown Court.

As the clock ticks on past four pm, it becomes clear that for yet another day we've overrun the time everyone expected this part of the case to take. At least some of what takes place tomorrow is going to be a continuation of these questions, rather than the trial proper in front of the jury. So tomorrow's blog may again be a little light on actual details of the trial itself, but please come and take a look.

Supporters from unlikely quarters

2006-01-19T15:12:00.000Z

The Free Speech trial is winning global coverage and even those we would imagine and expect to be hostile to our stand point are expressing either tacit support for the fundamental issue of free speech or outright disapproval of the Labour regime's methods of dealing with political opposition.

Here for example one Jewish American columnist equates the political repression taking place in England with Turkey:

http://www.freemarketnews.com/Analysis/56/3474/2006-01-18.asp?wid=56&nid=3474

Day 3: Wed 18th January

2006-01-19T11:55:00.000Z

Day 3: Wed 18th January

Couple of pints in a proper real ale pub late-ish last night, after working on sorting out various organisational issues. Woke up, comfortable and perfectly content, at half five. Spent a few minutes trying to think of a bland white wall, which in my experience beats counting sheep when it comes to going back to sleep (is that the ancestral Welsh in me? I trust not!) Unfortunately thoughts about the case break through the wall and that's the end of the night. I spend the best part of two hours turning over issues in the case in my mind. Inevitably end up in pleasant daydreams about scoring brilliant and devastatingly witty points against the hapless prosecution barrister while in the witness box.

With Mark and I already in the dock, the judge is trying to sort something out with the prosecution and is irritated by the subdued chattering from people - the press, our supporters and opponents alike, I guess - entering the public gallery. I'd ask anyone reading this who is planning to come into court during this case to maintain complete silence in court the moment they get to the door of the courtroom. It's not the fault of the judge that this trial is being held before him, he's just doing his job, and should be respected as such.

Prosecution open by showing another of Mark's speeches. Unfortunately the DVD has no sound at all and there is a scurrying of ushers to find a technician. Glad it's not only BNP events where Mr. Sod arrives with examples of his law! The judge put it differently: "There we are ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the gremlins have got in and we'll have to get the gremlin hunters in to catch them," and adjourned the court for a few minutes. Gremlins duly eliminated, the jury filed back in and the case finally resumed in earnest at just gone 11 am.

"Hate speech"

The next speech is the one made by Mark at the Crossroads Public House in Keighley on 31st March 2004. This is his 'infamous' asylym seekers are cockroaches" speech. I suspect that the media while quote that bit, rather than the words with which he concluded that part "I honestly don't hate asylum seekers .... the people I hate are the white politicians that have sold us down the line."

It's only a 15 minute speech, and when it ends there is only a ten second break before we go into another one of Mark's, this time in Morley on 14th April. This opens with a very telling piece about the iniquity of asylum seekers getting so much in Soft Touch Britain. He relates just some of the long list of what asylum seekers get courtesy of the Home Office Joint Tenancy Agreement - full sized TVs and licence, free gas and electricity, etc. Then he goes on to warn of the dangers of having the likes of Abu Hamza as asylum seekers. A good point for the jury in the light of the other case in the news.

Again, Mark says to people who might say he's a 'hater': "When people say do I hate.. this is a very hateful speech some people would say - I'll say, yeah, I do hate. I don't hate the asylum seekers though. I don't hate the Asians though, cause they're doing what people do, they're doing what comes naturally to them, but I don't hate anyone for that. I don't hate anyone for the colour of their skin or who they are. The people I hate are the liberals, the multiculturalists and the Labour party - the white people who have betrayed this country and sold..." which is as far as he got before being cut off by a sustained burst of spontaneous applause.

At the end of this speech we again had to adjourn, this time as the judge had to give directions to a jury in the case of an Asian man accused of manslaughter (the jury wanted more evidence, the judge told them there is none, so the jury couldn't agree, which means the CPS have to go away and decide if they want to go for a retrial or to drop the whole thing).

Just before we were called back we spotted the repulsive far-left 'researcher' Andy Ali, doing his best to wind up three biggish young Asians from the other case. I complained to the police officers on duty by the courtroom door and they duly had a word with him. The three were nevertheless allowed into court, and have so far behaved impeccably.

Terror prediction

The next speech was mine, in Morley Town Hall on 5th May 2004 - just a month before the Euro elections. This was the one in which I warned: "... sooner or later there's going to be Islamic terrorists letting bombs off in major cities.... it's going to be done by asylum seekers or it's going to be done by second generation Pakistanis living somewhere like Bradford." Members of the press, I am told by supporters of ours in the public gallery, were clearly as amazed by this as they had earlier been shame-faced when they watched the DVD of me berating the media for ignoring cases such as the racist murders of young white lads including Gavin Hopley, Lee Martin, Sean Whyte and Scott Pritchard.

A little later I went on to make a further prediction: That when that happened the Powers That Be would show their 'even-handedness' by arresting and jailing BNP leaders at the same time as radical Muslims. Once again, the spectre of Abu Hamza hovered over our courtroom in Leeds.

We resumed after lunch, again with a legal discussion without the jury present. This swiftly resulted in an agreement to complete the prosecution's evidence and then to adjourn until tomorrow. The jury filed back in at 2.28 pm and Mr Jameson QC gave them some additional material for their bundles of documents. This was a set of tables provided by Bradford council showing the breakdown of ethnic groups by number in Bradford and Keighley. This will clearly be used by the prosecution to try to bolster their allegation that when I say 'Muslim', I really mean 'Asian'.

He moved on to the other additions, which were necessarily brief accounts of our 'No Comment' interviews.

When he finished this process at 2.45, the judge explained to the jury that, while they were there to decide the question of 'guilty' or 'not guilty', but that he must decide points of law, and that those discussions were not for them. He went on to tell them that this would take up so much of tomorrow that they should take the day off and come back at 11.30 am on Friday morning. There were a few smiles among them - the courtroom is way too hot and somewhat stuffy.

The jury then filed out just before ten to three.

Day 2 : Tuesday 17th January

2006-01-17T18:57:00.000Z

Day 2 : Tuesday 17th January

N.B. These notes are as typed in court, in snatches with my attention often on the court proceedings itself. It therefore isn't proof-read and probably has a fair few typographical errors. Sorry about this.

Woke up just after six this morning struck by a thought about a question that my barrister should ask the BBC's far-left mole and sneak cameraman Jason Gwynne. My lead barrister mentioned yesterday that the prosecution are calling him as a witness, probably today. The idea is too useful to risk forgetting and my mind starts racing anyway, so I get up and grab the laptop to get to work.

I forgot to mention in yesterday's hastily done opening blog, by the way, that my barristers had both told me that they saw no reason why I should not have a laptop in the dock with me, but said that my lead counsel, Tim King QC, should ask the judge's permission. He did so yesterday and the judge said 'yes' without hesitation. Then he immediately went on to ask if I had access to a power point. This response showed me two things: First, it was another example of the remarkable agility of the brains of these men who juggle the intricacies of a number of cases, and of each case itself, without - as a rule - dropping any of them. One moment he was focussed on questions of law, the next moment he flicked channels to think wholly practically, and behalf of someone else, about 240 volts. Second, while one can of course never be sure, I felt it showed a spontaneous fairness and human decency that a man who had already prejudged us in some way would not have shown.

Touched by that, and also because I knew that Tim King did not know the answer to the question (one of the two security guards we have in the dock had found the power point in the main court but within cable reach), I called out "Yes, my lord, thank you." I'm pretty sure that defendants aren't really supposed to speak to judges without being spoken to, but he didn't seem to mind. We moved on straight away.

Two protests

With a bit more time now to set down my thoughts, I need to put on record my very sincere thanks to the big team from London who formed the backbone of the very professional security operation yesterday. While our security arrangements will, of course, be tight throughout the trial, the first day was of course particularly important. Despite the far-left getting nothing like the record turnout they had boasted they would, the fact that seven of them were arrested during the day is an indication of how much hate afflicts these people, and just how much they and their ilk have to be guarded against. Incidentally, it is clear that our demonstration policy of ignoring their provocations, and the contrast between the orderly, utterly decent-looking pro-free speech demo and the screeching freak show from UAF, had a big impact on the huge number of police officers present. While that collection of hysterical cranks bawled obscenities and made throat-cutting gestures, our people sang nationalist ballads and hymns. While they were howling "shoot the bastards", our people chanted "freedom". That, as Mr. Punch would say, is the way to do it!

While the liars at the BBC did their best to conceal this contrast (leading the pack of media liars reporting the seven arrests, without making it clear that they were all from the Marxoid zoo compound) some of the TV reports showed great shots of our supporters outside the court. The flags of our nations, free speech and Christian heritage placards, smiling faces, old ladies and little children as well as decent honest men who had clearly taken time off work - all those images will have struck home at a subconscious level with enormous numbers of viewers. Once again, thanks to all concerned.

Today's proceedings

Now to today's hearing. We arrived outside the court with our security team to be greeted by small groups of party sympathisers (there in addition to the massive support among passers-by, workmen, delivery drivers, etc) and a whole crowd of press cameramen and TV crews. We swept past a crowd of people waiting to go in to court. Only after we were inside the court foyer did we realise that we had just engaged in a massive and very un-British act of queue jumping! The girls and young men immediately behind us seemed to think it was all a bit of a laugh, but one of our team went out to apologise in any case.

The prosecution lead QC, Mr Jameson, is quietly spoken and very different to the Crown Prosecution Service's first choice, Patrick O'Connor, who repeatedly seemed to anger the judge, and was replaced or stepped down (we will probably never know which) after the earlier hearings. Mark's lead counsel, Stuart Lawson-Rogers QC, is the tallest of the legal eagles. Absent yesterday owing to sickness (during which time his place was taken by his able Junior Mr Julian Nutter) he spoke clearly and concisely on several issues.

The court case itself didn't begin until 10.45 am, with a ruling by the judge (the Recorder - i.e. senior bigwig - of Leeds Crown Court, Mr. Justice Norman Jones) and other legal arguments and technicalities which are - quite properly - subject to reporting restrictions. With these over there was an adjournment while certain papers were redrafted in the light of those discussions. Proceedings resumed with the jury in their seats at 12.24.

Advice to jury

The Judge impressed on them the need to put out of their minds opinions about the case expressed by others, and in particular in the media. "If you are reading a newspaper and you come across an article about the case, the best thing is not to read it.

Mr. Jameson opened for the prosecution at 12.30. Told the jury briefly about our positions in the party, and about where and when the speeches were made. Said that he hoped I didn't mind if he referred to me as 'Nick' rather than 'Nicholas' "as that is how he is generally referred to." In pointing out to the jury which of us was which, he said that Mark is "the younger man, sitting nearer to you" and that I was the one with the computer in front of me. He also told them about each of the barristers in court, including his junior, sitting immediately behind him, Mr. Mansell.

Having told them that they would watch the speeches in full later, but that he would summarise them beforehand. He then read out the prosecution opening statement, which had earlier been 'tweaked' between all the lawyers. This included the point that "these proceedings are not a judgement on the views, perceived or otherwise, of the British National Party.... not a mini-referendum." He went on to claim that debate on such issues as race,immigration and asylum is acceptable. "It is not the purpose of this prosecution to stifle such debate", he said, but pointed that the law nevertheless forbids doing so using words which are intended or likely to incite hatred.

Then briefly went through each speech in turn, picking out the most forthright fragments. No doubt the press will publicise these bits for me. To give him his due he corrected silly transcription errors as he went. That said, having told the jury early on that he would be very careful not to misrepresent what we said, he proceeded to do just that - deliberately confusing a phrase in which I attacked "these people". From the context of my speech it is crystal clear that I was referring to Labour politicians, not Asians as he alleged to the jury.

Acknowledged I "accurately predicts, in May 2004, the events that occurred in London with the terrorist bombs in June 2005," but claimed that my "real intention" was to incite hatred by telling the audience about media-suppressed racist murders of young whites such as Sean Whyte (I note from the prosecution jury bundle that they still can't even be bothered to spell his name right. Imagine the fuss if the Met Police had written about Steven Lorence!), Gavin Hopley and Chris Donald.

Jason "Gwynne"

Then he told the court that the only live witness the prosecution would be calling would be undercover paid provocateur Jason 'Gwynne' (I for one doubt that 'Gwynne' - Welsh for 'White', is the creep's real name, although frankly I don't really care).

Gwynne in dark suit and dark sludge green shirt and tie - came in at just after 3pm. Ultra-sincere look, although his record as an undercover agent proves he is a studied and convincing liar. Pompous twit, whenever he could answer just 'yes', he says "that is correct, yes." Prosecution took him briefly through how he infiltrated the BNP and attended "a great many meetings."

Mr Lawson-Rogers QC then rose to cross-examine. “Is it right that the initiative for the programme was from people hostile to the BNP?". Gwynne squirmed somewhat but admitted this. Four million people watched the broadcast. Various questions to establish points for further use.

Mr King QC then asked him to confirm he attended a meeting at which I spoke at Halifax and asked if there was an 'overlap' between the people attending. Gwynne replied he would "often see the same people .... a considerable number of people would attend all the meetings."

No other questions. Straight into playing speeches. Jury watch on big TV. Lawyers have small TVs on their desks. We watch it through glass screen in front of us.

International support part 2

2006-01-17T15:29:00.000Z

International support part 2.

Friends in Canada have also held a protest outside the British High Commission in Toronto and again we send our message of thanks to Paul Fromm and friends who helped with this.

Also from Sweden comes a report that a small delegation of patriots from the Nationaldemokraterna (National Democrats) visited the British Embassy in Stockholm and handed over a letter of petition supporting the concept of Free Speech and protesting against the treatment of Nick Griffin and Mark Collett by the British government.

http://www.nd.se/ni/visa/default.asp?dokID=332

International support

2006-01-17T15:22:00.000Z

International support

Support for Nick Griffin and Mark Collett is coming in from around the globe. We are delighted to hear that Friends of Free Speech held a protest outside the British Consulate in Houston in Texas yesterday (Monday) and friends across America have helped raised hundreds of pounds for Free Speech funds.

Nick and Mark and of course their families are deeply grateful for the support and Nick hopes to be able to accept the invite (court verdict pending of course!) to visit the States in February.

Day One - A tough judge and a jury selected.

2006-01-17T11:21:00.000Z

What a welcome!

The biggest pro-free speech demo yet lined one whole side of the precinct outside Leeds Crown court today. Both Mark and myself, as well as members of our families who were with us, were deeply touched by and grateful for the tremendous show of support. The braying hatred from the outnumbered Socialist 'Workers' Party freak show on the other side of the precinct was virtually drowned out by the chants of "Freedom, Freedom". The sea of flags, and placards from the newly launched Christian Council of Britain, whose activists joined the BNP-organised event in significant numbers, looked particularly impressive.

Once in the court, both of us had conferences with our legal teams (same solicitor, different barristers), but also quite a lot of sitting around, with us only finally getting into court at a quarter past three.

Reporting restrictions on the discussions before the swearing in of the jury remain in force, though I am pleased to say that the Judge ruled that it would be in order to report his observations on the behaviour of the far left outside court. He noted the presence of "massive demonstrations" outside the court, and indicated his approval of these, saying that it was important that such activities be permitted as a fundamental part of our democracy. But then he went on to make a scathing attack on a UAF leaflet claiming that we are "guilty as charged" which was being handed out to passers by and potential jurors going into court:

"It cannot be said too strongly that if some of those of either group are trying to act in a way in which they can influence this trial, they will not succeed in doing so. In any event it merely is unhelpful to the claim 'guilty as charged' - they are seeking to undermine acts which can be seen as leading to an attempt to undermine the British Justice System and I strongly urge them from continuing this practice."

Jury selection

There were then discussions as to possible questions to put to potential jurors. With the matters arising from this settled - at least for the time being - the jury panel of 20 filed into court at 4.12 pm.

The following question was then put to the potential jurors: "This is a case in which allegations are made of the use of threatening and abusive words and behaviour with the intention of stirring up racial hatred or whereby racial hatred is likely to be stirred up. You will be asked to watch a series of speeches by the defendants and will be asked to deal with criticisms in these speeches of the Islamic religion, although this is not the crime with which the defendants are charged, and indeed it is not a crime under English law. Both defendants are members of the British National Party. Would you please consider carefully your views whatever they may be - on issues of race, religion or membership of the British National Party which may prevent you from making a decision in a fair and unbiased way. If you feel it is not possible to do would you please indicate."

The Judge then continued with a warning aimed at the leftist leaflets: "Outside the Court there were demonstrations in the street and they relate to this case. In the course of those demonstrations leaflets have been handed out by persons outside. It may be that you have received some of those documents and I ask you to destroy them and secondly not take any document from any person who is protesting outside this Court."

12 jurors were then chosen from shuffled name cards. The result - seven men, one of them a young Muslim, and five women. On them, and on our excellent legal team, our 'fate' now rests. With the clock ticking towards 5pm and the judge having to give a verdict in another case, the court was adjourned.

So we're back in the morning, to hear the first part of the prosecution case. News on that tomorrow evening. Til then, many thanks to all those who came to the demonstration in Leeds today, and to our friends overseas, especially the organisers and activists of the demonstrations in the USA and Canada.

Saturday thoughts

2006-01-14T12:35:00.000Z

Less than two days until the trial begins.
Supporters from Civil Liberty and the newly formed Christian Council of Britain have pledged to attend alongside members from the British National Party.

After yesterday's stormy weather today is a beautiful cloudless day. Even in January with so many of the trees bare on the hillsides the hills here look magnificent. There is an eerie silence amongst the family. We all know the possible outcome if things do not go well. Looking out over the field in front of the house, this is a world away from the horrors of a Victorian prison cell.

Immensely pleased at the news coming in from Texas where a group of supporters plan to hold a demonstration outside the British Consulate in Houston on Monday. Hundreds of signatures have been gathered for a petition they plan to hand over to Consulate staff.

Mark Collett phoned to say that this single act has more than anything else given him a massive boost.

Jackie calls me to lunch - it smells inviting.

Free Speech on Trial

Court case blog – end of chapter one!

Verdict footage

Victory!

Day 13: Wed 1st February

Day 12: Tues 31st January

Day 11: Round Two

Video footage - Keighley speech

Day 11: Monday 30th January

Weekend posting 28th-29th January

Day 10; Friday 27th January

Finnish protest

Day 8 :Wednesday 25th January

Day 7: Tuesday 24th January

Day 6: Mon 23rd Jan

That speech.

Day 5: Friday 20th January

Recommended reading

Day 4: Thursday 19th January

Supporters from unlikely quarters

Day 3: Wed 18th January

Day 2 : Tuesday 17th January

International support part 2

International support

Day One - A tough judge and a jury selected.

Saturday thoughts