Britain First leaders charged over Belfast rally speech
Written by News on 15/12/2017
Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen have been charged with offences following a rally in Belfast.
Golding, 35, is charged with using threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour in relation to a speech he made at the August rally, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.
Fransen, the far-right group’s deputy leader, appeared in court on Thursday on charges related to comments she made at the same rally.
Mr Golding was arrested on Thursday as he accompanied her to the court in Belfast.
Fransen was re-arrested after the legal proceedings over comments she made during a visit to a wall dividing Catholics from Protestants in Belfast this week.
She was later charged with threatening behaviour.
During the initial proceedings the court ruled that, as a condition of her release on bail, she should not go within 500 metres of any demonstration or parade in Northern Ireland.
Police had also sought curbs on her social media use, but district judge Fiona Bagnall expressed doubts about whether her jurisdiction extended to this.
Fransen’s lawyer, Richard McConkey, said potential curbs on her freedom of speech would be disproportionate for a politician.
Britain First found itself at the centre of a diplomatic spat between the US and UK last month, after Donald Trump shared anti-Muslim videos posted online by Fransen.
Two of the videos retweeted by the US President featured violent scenes, including someone being pushed off a roof and another person being assaulted.
At least one of Fransen’s tweets falsely accused Muslims of perpetrating violence.
The group has since claimed it received hundreds of new membership applications and said its Facebook posts were reaching hundreds of thousands more users.
(c) Sky News 2017: Britain First leaders charged over Belfast rally speech
