A prima facie case of racism: Claudia Webbe’s appeal
JVL Introduction
On the face of it the judge’s decision in Claudia Webbe’s appeal is incomprehensible.
Webbe was appealing against a finding of harassment in what was essentially her word against that of her accuser Michelle Merritt.
Newly-disclosed evidence, suppressed by the police, showed that the “victim” had lied repeatedly to the police about her relationship with Ms Webbe’s former partner.
So much so that the judge replaced Webbe’s suspended imprisonment sentence with community service and reduced her fine from £1000 to a derisory £50 – but still found her guilty. [Added for clarification: The story below misreports this when it says Webbe “had her appeal against conviction for harassment upheld” – it was the conviction that was upheld.]
No reason was offered for accepting the words of the accuser, a white woman now shown to have a track record of lying to the police, over that of the accused, a black, Corbyn-supporting, MP.
The Society of Black Lawyers strongly suspects racism was at work.
This article was originally published by Skwawkbox on Fri 27 May 2022. Read the original here.
Exclusive: Society of Black Lawyers and retired judge condemn ‘racism’ in ‘miscarriage of justice’ against Claudia Webbe MP
SBL and Judge Peter Herbert say court’s decision to believe word of white woman caught in repeated lies over that of black MP is typical of ‘historic and systemic racism’ in justice system and that the case would never have come to trial if a black woman had been accusing a white woman
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The accuser should be charged with perjury and wasting police time
Confusing. If “Ms Webbe had her appeal against conviction for harassment upheld in Southwark Crown Court” then she has been cleared of wrongdoing, which doesn’t accord with what follows. Are we to understand that her appeal was lost rather than upheld?
[JVL web: that is our understanding and the wording in the Skwawkbox report is wrong – as is made clear by everything else in its report. See also e.g. the BBC Report MP Claudia Webbe loses appeal against harassment conviction]
I cannot understand why Claudia Webbe is to do 80 hours of community service, to pay even £50, and to lose her chance of again representing Leicester East as Labour MP at the 2024 General Election, when the whole court case should have been thrown out as being completely flawed.
Knowing , from the Julian Assange case, just how unjust the British Legal System is, I suppose the fact that Comrade Webbe is black. a woman and a Jeremy Corbyn supporter might explain it. She has my total support.
Paul Seligman. I’ve raised the point directly with Skwawkie, and in a PM to this site. JVL’s intro part-covers this: “the judge replaced Webbe’s suspended imprisonment sentence with community service and reduced her fine from £1000 to a derisory £50 – but still found her guilty”.
BUT perhaps a note in the JVL Introduction ought to cover this issue?
[Thanks. We have done just that – JVL web]
The English ‘justice’ system is appalling, as many examples of crude bias and bonkers decisions demonstrate. On the face of it, as indeed suggested, this case demonstrates the regular and fundamental anti-black prejudice which is the reality of racism for the majority who suffer from it. Our rotten Labour Party’s biased current attitude is expressed by its narrow perspective of the problem as antisemitism and other forms of racism, in that order.
A criminal trial of Claudia Webbe should obviously not have taken place at all because of fundamental unreliability of evidence. This clear enough fact is in itself solid evidence of traditional anti black racist bias within the legal system. I wonder what our Labour Party intends to do about it.