This, from C4, gives a pretty fair summing up of the issues involved in the #daftarrest libel trial which concluded last week:
Blogger’s legal fight shines light on council transparency
She was arrested for filming a council meeting – the situation escalated and now she’s in a high court libel trial. But citizen journalist Jacqui Thompson says she will still fight for transparency.
It’s a David and Goliath case which lays bare the challenges – and, some would say, the importance – of citizen journalism.
LLandwrda resident Jacqui Thompson is a blogger who writes about her local authority, Carmarthenshire County Council. She says she just wants to raise awareness of what’s happening in local government – but she has been locked in a legal struggle with the council authorities over her work for much of the last 18 months.
Back in 2011, Mrs Thompson was ejected from a council meeting and arrested when she refused to stop filming for a report on her blog. She says there is nothing in the council rules which indicates that she cannot film – but the council disagreed. Read on…….
I felt that the TImes Leader said it well:
Lets hope that the judgement goes for Mrs Thomson against the Carmarthenshire CC – it surely must, they Came over as Clowns in Court.
As Milan Kundera once put it:
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
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Mrs.Thomson has a cast iron defence. Put the council on notice as to why they are defying the ruling from DCLG/Eric Pickles? Mr.James will have to explain to the High Court why he thinks he is above the law and why it does not apply to his council.
Simples.
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