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The Magistrate's Blog (2005-2012)

This blog has migrated to www.magistratesblog.blogspot.co.uk This blog is anonymous, and Bystander's views are his and his alone. Where his views differ from the letter of the law, he will enforce the letter of the law because that is what he has sworn to do. If you think that you can identify a particular case from one of the posts you are wrong. Enough facts are changed to preserve the truth of the tale but to disguise its exact source.

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Location: Near London, United Kingdom

The blog is written by a retired JP, with over 30 years' experience on the Bench.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Harrassed? Alarmed? Distressed?


So a man selling t-shirts from a market stall has been given an £80 PND (Penalty Notice Disorder) for displaying t-shirts bearing the legend "Bollocks to Blair". Several of our newspapers pursed their lips when reporting this story and asterisked out the middle letters of "Bollocks", which is a bit thick when you see the kind of stuff they do print when not on their moral high horses.

I was musing on this yesterday, wondering just who was harrassed alarmed and distressed by the shirts, which are a common enough sight on the streets of London. When the airwaves are awash with previously-taboo expletives, from radio DJs to 'Gordon Ramsay's F-Word' in which the toilet-mouthed chef's whole schtick is based on his profanity, and when the ubiquitous FCUK fashion brand is found on every High Street, there can be few adults or children who are truly shocked by swearing any more.

If the t-shirt man has any sense he will decline to pay the PND and take his case before a bench of magistrates who might well regard it as a load of - oh well, you can guess the rest.

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