The first conviction for stirring up hatred against gay people

On 20 January 2012, the jury at Derby Crown Court reached a verdict that made legal history in Britain. Three men were found guilty of stirring up hatred against homosexuals with leaflets. They were the first convictions of their kind in the United Kingdom.

The story goes back to the summer of 2010. Before Pride in Derby, the men distributed leaflets outside a mosque and in the surrounding streets. One was headed "The Death Penalty?" and showed a doll hanging from a gallows. There were also religious quotations presenting death as the punishment for homosexuality. Another was headed "Turn or Burn".

For the prosecution, this was new territory. Parliament had extended the Public Order Act, and since 2010 intentionally stirring up hatred on grounds of sexual orientation had been a criminal offence. The bar was deliberately set high. Insulting or hurtful remarks were not enough. The material had to be threatening and distributed with the intention of stirring up hatred.

So for the first time, a court heard gay men as witnesses about what such a leaflet did to them. After ten days of hearings, the jury sided with the prosecution in the case of three of the five defendants. Two men were acquitted.

In February, Judge John Burgess announced the sentences: two years in prison for the main defendant, fifteen months each for the other two. Freedom of expression was a precious right, he stated. But parliament had decided to protect people from targeted hatred because of their sexual orientation. Those convicted had set out to do great harm to a peaceful community.

The ruling had an impact far beyond Derby. It showed that the new offence was no paper tiger. And it made clear that calls for violence against queer people do not become permissible by invoking a religion.