It took a jury just 17 minutes to unanimously clear Royal Marine veteran Jamie Michael of stirring up racial hatred, following his arrest at work for posting a Facebook video criticising illegal migration.
Jamie was reported to the police by a Labour Party staffer and subsequently arrested. He was denied bail and spent 17 days on remand. The Free Speech Union supported Jamie throughout the process and successfully secured the immediate removal of his electronic tag and the lifting of his curfew.
Despite 12 of his peers finding him not guilty, Jamie has now been banned from working with children. This includes coaching his daughter’s football team. An official safeguarding board at his local Labour-run council has ruled him “unsuitable” to be around children — even though none of the children have ever seen the video in question.
The panel — which met in secret — barred him from coaching and informed him that he would be “monitored” if he watched from the sidelines. Jamie was told that just two weeks after his acquittal, a “child protection concern” raised against him had been deemed “substantiated.” This is outrageous. As Jamie said: “It’s a horrible feeling to have to tell people I am banned from coaching a girls’ football team. What comes to people’s minds is that I must be a pervert or I’ve done something violent to children.” He added: “When they first suspended me, they said I could bring my daughter to the game and watch her play, but my behaviour would be monitored at the pitchside.”
Jamie is now suing the authorities for £25,000, stating: “It makes no sense. It seems they want to punish me because of my opinions and because my views don’t align with theirs.”
But Jamie is not alone. The Free Speech Union has represented more than a dozen people who have been referred to safeguarding boards for alleged “extreme” views — a trend that has escalated sharply since the Southport attacks.
Lord Young of Acton, General Secretary and Founder of the Free Speech Union, said: “Citing safeguarding concerns to silence people you disagree with is a scandalous abuse of the system. Those protocols have been put in place to protect children from abusive parents and sexual predators, not people with patriotic views.
“Jamie’s case is particularly egregious, but it’s by no means isolated. At the Free Speech Union, we’ve seen this again and again. We have 15 people on our books who’ve been branded a risk to children because of their political views.”
Speaking to The Telegraph, Jamie questioned why footballers are allowed to “take the knee” for Black Lives Matter, while those on the left seem able to “say what they like,” whereas people on the perceived right are quickly labelled “far-right” or even “terrorist.”
The Free Speech Union believes that child protection services should focus on protecting children from genuine harm — including grooming gangs — rather than misusing safeguarding laws to target individuals with political views they dislike.
Jamie’s case is one of many that highlights the increasingly sinister attempts to silence those who do not hold views that align with the prevailing orthodoxy.
The Labour council is expected to fight this case with its full weight, so the Free Speech Union are assembling a top legal team to challenge them. The Free Speech Union has launched a crowdfunder to help Jamie fight back against this unjust and insulting decision, and we urgently need your support.
If you can help Jamie, please consider donating to his crowdfunder.
You can read more in the Telegraph.