Author Topic: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?  (Read 135098 times)

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Offline Gertrude

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #540 on: August 23, 2018, 08:57:10 AM »
Can anyone provide a cite that Brenda was being 'abusive' ?

 and what the legal definition of 'online abuse' is?   I would say you can't because it isn't defined in law.

  We have laws already covering harassment and sending 'grossly offensive' materials online. Police did not find Brenda was doing these things, so the claim that she was engaging in abuse which warrants targeting by the media is entirely subjective and it's a moot point even using Brenda being 'abusive' as she broke no law.

 Some posters think it was justified doorstepping a private individual just because one group of people don't like some of the opinions expressed by another?   Maybe China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is the kind of place these people would prefer to live, where discussion on certain subjects is restricted and punished?

Offline Mr Gray

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #541 on: August 23, 2018, 08:59:59 AM »
Can anyone provide a cite that Brenda was being 'abusive' ?

 and what the legal definition of 'online abuse' is?   I would say you can't because it isn't defined in law.

  We have laws already covering harassment and sending 'grossly offensive' materials online. Police did not find Brenda was doing these things, so the claim that she was engaging in abuse which warrants targeting by the media is entirely subjective and it's a moot point even using Brenda being 'abusive' as she broke no law.

 Some posters think it was justified doorstepping a private individual just because one group of people don't like some of the opinions expressed by another?   Maybe China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is the kind of place these people would prefer to live, where discussion on certain subjects is restricted and punished?

We have a free press in this country that it seems you and others, want to suppress.... When it suits you

Offline carlymichelle

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #542 on: August 23, 2018, 09:01:01 AM »
Can anyone provide a cite that Brenda was being 'abusive' ?

 and what the legal definition of 'online abuse' is?   I would say you can't because it isn't defined in law.

  We have laws already covering harassment and sending 'grossly offensive' materials online. Police did not find Brenda was doing these things, so the claim that she was engaging in abuse which warrants targeting by the media is entirely subjective and it's a moot point even using Brenda being 'abusive' as she broke no law.

 Some posters think it was justified doorstepping a private individual just because one group of people don't like some of the opinions expressed by another?   Maybe China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is the kind of place these people would prefer to live, where discussion on certain subjects is restricted and punished?

well said

Offline slartibartfast

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #543 on: August 23, 2018, 09:03:00 AM »
We have a free press in this country that it seems you and others, want to suppress.... When it suits you

Do you want freedom of speech?
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired”.

Offline Mr Gray

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #544 on: August 23, 2018, 09:08:22 AM »
Do you want freedom of speech?

That is rather a silly question.... Total and complete... The right to abuse others.. The right to mock other religions.... Gays...

No I don't....Freedom of speech has to have limitations

Offline Erngath

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #545 on: August 23, 2018, 09:14:07 AM »
You asked …   “Do you have a cite for "she did use the internet almost solely to excoriate the McCann family" please Brietta as I have seen she had a facebook page and may have been a member of forums on many other topics for all we know”

Unfortunately I am spoilt for choice as far as your cite goes.

But think on this, and wonder how you would cope were you to discover that an individual who had an unhealthy obsession with your family had allegedly gone out of her way to wander the streets of your town where they could be walking in ignorance of her presence or even her existence.

Kate McCann and her children could well have been going about their daily lives in their home village unaware that an anonymous individual who professed hatred for the family could be in closer proximity than the fifteen miles between her village and theirs.

I find that a chilling thought.

Snip
"When Madeleine first went missing she used to go over to her home village all the time.
She used to go to the local pub and the shops telling everyone what she thought about the family. It seemed very odd behaviour."
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mccann-troll-was-mired-in-loneliness/




The cite(s) you requested ...

'Snip'
However if the law cannot always bring these online offenders to justice then the task inevitably falls to journalists like Brunt. Some have criticised his decision to target Leyland because she did not actually threaten to kill the McCanns, unlike other trolls. But she did send thousands of hate tweets. Some days she would send more than 50 messages attacking the McCanns.

Had she hurled this abuse at the couple in the street, she would have been hauled off in handcuffs. Instead she continued to publish with impunity, safe from scrutiny at home in Burton Overy, just 15 miles from where the McCanns live in Leicestershire. Yes, these were the acts of an obsessed loner but "being an oddball" is not a defence to this sort of criminal behaviour.
https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/camilla-tominey/521746/Camilla-Tominey-McCanns-trolls-wake-up-selfies-the-real-Prince-Phillip


"Snip"
When Martin Brunt, the Sky crime correspondent, interviewed Brenda Leyland about her nearly 5,000 tweets which formed part of a vitriolic campaign against the parents of missing toddler Madeleine McCann, she declared that she was doing nothing illegal.
https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2014/10/07/why-skys-martin-brunt-was-right-investigate-story-mccann-twitter-troll-brenda


"Snip"
First, the entire Twitter history of Ms Leyland’s @SweepyFace Twitter account can currently be viewed and downloaded via GrepTweet  (or here as a .txt file).  There are over 4,000 tweets in the account and all of them appear to be about the McCanns… or rather, about #McCann, the ongoing “he said, she said” debate between pro- and anti- tweeters. 
http://www.robertsharp.co.uk/2014/10/07/brenda-leyland-and-twitter-storms/


"Snip"
Yet, hiding behind the alias @sweepyface, she insinuated that the McCanns were implicated in their three-year-old daughter's disappearance during a family holiday in Portugal in 2007 - a theme that had obsessed her for four years. According to the website BuzzFeed, she was sometimes posting more than 50 tweets a day, even on Christmas Eve, from 7am until midnight.
She claimed the McCanns were trying to silence their critics. The accusations were not original but her turn of phrase was blithe and deadly. "You will be hated for the rest of your miserable, evil, conniving lives, have a nice day!"
and she developed such an obsession with the McCanns that almost all the 4625 tweets she sent from December 2010 were about the case, many taking issue with their supporters.
It was an industrious hidden life.
Emboldened by disguise, she shared the assumption of all internet trolls that she could say anything she pleased without being held accountable.
As Professor Mary Beard told the London Daily Telegraph when she was campaigning last year against misogynist trolling: "Anonymity has disguised the nature of authorship.
It has allowed these evanescent creatures on the web to blast off without thinking of the victims.
Somehow no-one in this conversation is real. They are just names."

Mrs Leyland tweeted triumphantly at the height of her persecution: "You can move to France, anywhere, but social media is everywhere! Our memories are long, Maddie deserves it."

Her message seemed mild compared with some of the foul-mouthed stuff that has continued to rain down on the McCanns - but there was menace in it, too. Questioned by Sky News reporter Martin Brunt, she said she was "entitled" to tweet as she did - though her justification, without the protective cloak of anonymity, sounded far from confident.
https://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/2629697/exposed-mccann-troll-was-mired-in-loneliness/


How anyone can deny that her tweets about the family of a missing child were  obsessive and in some cases quite menacing is a puzzle to me.
I still wonder how anyone can defend this behaviour under the cloak of entitlement to free speech.
Brenda certainly had a strong belief in her own entitlement to express her own dark thoughts.
Deal with the failings of others as gently as with your own.

Offline Erngath

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #546 on: August 23, 2018, 09:17:24 AM »
That is rather a silly question.... Total and complete... The right to abuse others.. The right to mock other religions.... Gays...

No I don't....Freedom of speech has to have limitations

I said much the same a few days ago.
Deal with the failings of others as gently as with your own.

Offline slartibartfast

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #547 on: August 23, 2018, 09:18:58 AM »
That is rather a silly question.... Total and complete... The right to abuse others.. The right to mock other religions.... Gays...

No I don't....Freedom of speech has to have limitations

As should the press.
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired”.

Offline Mr Gray

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #548 on: August 23, 2018, 09:20:16 AM »
As should the press.

As they do.... Was there any complaint Re the press action against Brenda...

Offline slartibartfast

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #549 on: August 23, 2018, 09:26:18 AM »
As they do.... Was there any complaint Re the press action against Brenda...

Yes.
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired”.

Offline Mr Gray

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #550 on: August 23, 2018, 09:31:50 AM »
Yes.

And what was the result of the complaint

Offline Erngath

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #551 on: August 23, 2018, 09:37:05 AM »
Can anyone provide a cite that Brenda was being 'abusive' ?

 and what the legal definition of 'online abuse' is?   I would say you can't because it isn't defined in law.

  We have laws already covering harassment and sending 'grossly offensive' materials online. Police did not find Brenda was doing these things, so the claim that she was engaging in abuse which warrants targeting by the media is entirely subjective and it's a moot point even using Brenda being 'abusive' as she broke no law.

 Some posters think it was justified doorstepping a private individual just because one group of people don't like some of the opinions expressed by another?   Maybe China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is the kind of place these people would prefer to live, where discussion on certain subjects is restricted and punished?


I spent many years teaching children from age five to eleven.
Children can often blurt out unkind remarks to each other when they are annoyed or feel they have a grievance .
Much time is spent by the teacher in helping the children to become more mature in their behaviour and to find a better way of handling their sense of grievance.
Hopefully by the time they are adults these children will have developed and matured enough to be able to express their grievances without resorting to unkind and abusive language.

Brenda, in my opinion, felt very aggrieved by the parents of a missing child and handled her grievance in a very immature way.
She certainly had the right to express her doubts about the parents of a missing child but she chose to express those doubts in abusive and menacing language in a public arena.
Like the children, her words may not have been criminal but in my opinion they were wrong.

Deal with the failings of others as gently as with your own.

Offline slartibartfast

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #552 on: August 23, 2018, 09:39:29 AM »

I spent many years teaching children from age five to eleven.
Children can often blurt out unkind remarks to each other when they are annoyed or feel they have a grievance .
Much time is spent by the teacher in helping the children to become more mature in their behaviour and to find a better way of handling their sense of grievance.
Hopefully by the time they are adults these children will have developed and matured enough to be able to express their grievances without resorting to unkind and abusive language.

Brenda, in my opinion, felt very aggrieved by the parents of a missing child and handled her grievance in a very immature way.
She certainly had the right to express her doubts about the parents of a missing child but she chose to express those doubts in abusive and menacing language in a public arena.
Like the children, her words may not have been criminal but in my opinion they were wrong.

So is “He [Gonçalo Amaral] deserves to be miserable and feel fear” Abuse?
“Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired”.

Offline Mr Gray

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #553 on: August 23, 2018, 09:41:45 AM »
So is “He [Gonçalo Amaral] deserves to be miserable and feel fear” Abuse?

If it was repeated 50 times, a day for 2 years it would be ( this is a made up number not related to Brenda Leyland )
« Last Edit: August 23, 2018, 10:04:07 AM by slartibartfast »

Offline jassi

Re: Did Brenda Leyland Have the Right to Due Process ?
« Reply #554 on: August 23, 2018, 09:42:46 AM »
So is “He [Gonçalo Amaral] deserves to be miserable and feel fear” Abuse?

How it be - it was uttered by the saintly Kate
I believe everything. And l believe nothing.
I suspect everyone. And l suspect no one.
I gather the facts, examine the clues... and before   you know it, the case is solved!"

Or maybe not -

OG have been pushed out by the Germans who have reserved all the deck chairs for the foreseeable future