back to article Murdoch's PIE BOY jailed for six weeks

A protester who attacked Rupert Murdoch last month at a parliamentary hearing into the phone-hacking scandal engulfing News Corp's sister company News International has been handed a six-week jail term this afternoon. The self-styled "activist, comedian, father figure and all-round nonsense", who has a Twitter handle of Jonnie …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meanwhile...

    ... yobs that stab you, beat you up on the ground, nick your wallet and set your car on fire get £10 fine and 2 hours community service.

    To clarify my stance for those who don't get my cynical drift, 6 weeks is highly disproportionate for the offence.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      Thorpe Park

      Sorry you forgot the free team building day out to Thorpe Park and goading commuters in the evening on an M25 overbridge taunting them with "Look at you fools, paying taxes and working and not breaking the law, sat going nowhere and won't be home until gone 9! HAHA!"

      :(

      1. JimC

        > free team building bit...

        Thing is these low lives are going, over the course of their lives, to cause so much damage to society, stuff so many other peoples lives up, and cost so much to repeatedly process through the justice system that even very expensive measures with astonishingly low success rates can still be worth trying. Even they only manage to reform 1 in 100 its still worth our while it being done...

        Obviously there are cheaper options, but as they mostly involve lead weights or uninhabited islands, they are generally only of interest to Daily Mail readers...

        1. Captain DaFt
          WTF?

          Clarification, Please

          "Thing is these low lives are going, over the course of their lives, to cause so much damage to society, stuff so many other peoples lives up, and cost so much to repeatedly process through the justice system that even very expensive measures with astonishingly low success rates can still be worth trying. Even they only manage to reform 1 in 100 its still worth our while it being done..."

          Now you've confused me... were you talking about Murdoch or Jonnie?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Megaphone

          I don't read the Mail

          Sorry but don't leap to the extreme, I do not want to see people sent off to far off islands like we did with cons in the past.

          I dearly want to see people have had troubled upbringings or struggles with getting on the straight and narrow helped.

          But -- I don't have the luxury of affording to go to Thorpe Park myself (and this may have sounded a silly joke remark of mine but a local paper carried the story not too long ago) and it makes you think, I can be a pain to society and get to go to a Theme Park all paid for by yourself and myself, or, I can work hard have a reasonable life but not afford luxuries because (maybe foolishly!) I've decided to keep my life on the straight and narrow.

          I'm not going to lie and say I have an answer because I don't, but I don't think 'free' jollies for people who have caused havoc in society is the answer and I'm just not happy paying in some small way for it either. Everybody has rights, but some have more than others (a bit like the old saying everybody's equal, just some more so than others.)

          I also do a lot of work in areas with great social problems (in my own time) so I know a fair few of the problems these areas experience first hand and some of the people that cause the problems don't deserve the jollies, they really don't. As I say though, I don't have the answer although maybe sadly I have come to the conclusion that there will always be some folks beyond help and that's sad. That said, I think part of it is some youngsters lack any real meaningful connection with where they grow up and live, and the value of things is not even considered. Only very few realise that it's their own home and neighbourhood they're running down and turn themselves around. What would give them meaning, I would hope a decent job that they found value in and decent social outlet.

          Ahh well, enough of that essay ;)

          I don't read the Mail, I read the Independent if I read any newspaper.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Proportionality is...

      I'd argue he got what he deserved. In fact, it wasn't anywhere near enough. He actually managed to make some people feel a small scintilla of sympathy for Murdoch. People *apologised* to Murdoch.

      For that crime I'd say he deserves LIFE.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        So it's a crime to humiliate a tyrant but OK to be a supporter?

        >"People *apologised* to Murdoch.

        >For that crime I'd say he deserves LIFE."

        Why isn't it the people who apologised when they should have stood up and applauded who have done something wrong? Because I think that arse-kissing and kow-towing to the rich and powerful is part of the main reason they feel they are above the law and part of the main reason why Murdoch and his minions have in fact enjoyed corrupt impunity before the law for all these years.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      It is disproportionate

      Up and down the country every Saturday night people are beating shit out of each other, often for no apparent reason, and it isn't often anyone gets a jail term for that.

      So 6 weeks for a paper plate of shaving foam seems ridiculous to me. A fine and a bit of community service would be more appropriate, this bloke hardly looks like a menace to the public.

    4. Robert E A Harvey
      FAIL

      Meanwhile, elsewhere

      http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/we-get-the-message-loud-and-clear

      Police officer in pursuit of his duty gets thrown in the air by moron in a fast car, who gets a month for hitting the cop (and only for resisting, not for wilful endangerment). Rolled up in a total of 22 months, and I expect he will be out in around 3 or 4. So no real penalty for running someone down.

      There are some scrotes out there who are a complete oxygen sink.

    5. StooMonster

      Middle-class hatred

      But what all the above posters miss, is that Mssrs Marbles and Gilmore are middle-class and thus beneath contempt.

      Whereas the feckless and yobs are poor lambs who are not responsible for their own actions, it woz society what dun it to em.

    6. Geo
      WTF?

      I wholeheartedly agree with this comment!

      which idiot voted this comment down?!?!

  2. Pete 2 Silver badge

    How it breaks down

    So that would be a couple of days for the pie and five and a half weeks for humiliating the government on prime time TV and showing their security theatre to be utterly ineffectual.

  3. Dave 64 Silver badge
    Flame

    Charlie Gilmour

    "Charlie Gilmour got 16 months for swinging on a flag during student protests"

    But you fail to mention that the flag was on a war memorial, which makes his actions all the more reprehensible.

    1. JimC

      Gilmour

      It wasn't just swinging on the flag though was it... That was just the tabloid headline bit.

    2. 142

      just flag waving!?

      he did far more than that... 16 months is maybe a bit harsh, but frankly he earned it... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8639930/Pink-Floyd-guitarists-son-Charlie-Gilmour-jailed-for-drug-fuelled-rampage.html

    3. Steen Hive
      Flame

      War memorial

      The best way to honour the war dead is to take down the flag and wipe your arse with it. The inbred scum and old money that ran the UK never deserved the life of one pleb, and they still don't.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      makes you think....

      i was incarcerated at her majesties pleasure a few years ago. there were rapists and paedophiles doing 15 months. i was doing 18 months for possession of some ecstasy (yes, the drug that all scientists say is less dangerous than nicotine and alcohol )

      glad to see swinging on a flag is rightly more serious that sexually assaulting babies or women!

      hurrah for common sense!

      1. Sir Cosmo Bonsor

        Re: makes you think

        I don't believe a word of your post. You simply would not have been imprisoned for possession unless you possessed such a vast quantity that you could only have been dealing and/or trafficking.

        As for the paedos on 15 month terms, I'll call your bluff there too. News reports or it didn't happen.

        Still you're probably so far off your tits on hallucinogenics that you imagined the whole thing.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          really?

          ok then, i dont care. i know FOR A FACT that there was people in there doing 15 months for rape and one guy was doing 15 months for molesting a baby. ignore the facts if you like and believe you have a just legal system.

          yes, i was caught with plenty on me and i got charges with conspiracy to supply a class A drug. why would i make this up?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: really?

            "i know FOR A FACT that there was people in there doing 15 months for rape and one guy was doing 15 months for molesting a baby."

            In order to make meaningful comparisons, we need to compare the details of such cases, rather than assume things on the basis of mere headlines. But I guess these are the lightest sentences you know of, so are likely to be for the least severe cases, with the strongest mitigating factors, etc.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      Re: Charlie Gilmour

      ""Charlie Gilmour got 16 months for swinging on a flag during student protests""

      No he didn't.

      He got 16 months for a bunch of stuff, but this did not include swinging from the Cenotaph.

      "Passing sentence at Kingston-upon-Thames Crown Court in Surrey, Judge Nicholas Price QC accepted that his antics at the Cenotaph on Whitehall did not form part of the violent disorder, but accused him of disrespect to the war dead." - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8639930/Pink-Floyd-guitarists-son-Charlie-Gilmour-jailed-for-drug-fuelled-rampage.html

    6. kissingthecarpet
      Facepalm

      Swinging on a flag

      was not on the charge sheet. You don't get charged with violent disorder for swinging on a flag. If that was all he did, he certainly would not have been jailed, nor should he be. Although the tabloids seemed to think it was by far the most criminal act that day, thankfully they don't run the courts. Real law & real crimes aren't as subjective & arbitrary as that - the justice system is very flawed, but if the Sun were running it, it would be a living hell.

      I mentioned the recent Iranian acid blinding case to a couple of Sun readers & the "eye for an eye" punishment that nearly happened - they both thought the victim pouring acid into the perps eyes was "fair enough", without a moment's thought as to how the idea would work in reality for other crimes.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    It seems

    It seems that Murdoch still has a few friends left. 6 weeks? Give him a fucking medal I say!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yes, that's right...

      Give a medal to the guy who - with premeditation - attacked an 80 year old man in the house of commons, while that man was giving crucial evidence to a select committee. Also note, that the house of commons is a court.

      The guy didn't do himself any favours by telling the judge at his trial that he wouldn't be there today because he was going to be on holiday. That can't have helped in his treatment.

      Now I dislike Rupert Murdock as much as the next person, but this is just not excusable behavior, particularly when Rupe was on the ropes when the pie was thrown. I have absolutely no sympathy.

  5. Tony Green

    What a total arse!

    Successfully gave all the Murdoch media a nice "look how they're victimising our Rupe" story and pushed what needed to be publicised off the front pages.

    He should have a copy of the Sun shoved up his backside every day for the rest of his life.

  6. Tom_

    Not bad

    If he gets the same treatment as our fraudulent MPs he'll be out in quarter of that.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    For the crime of getting Rupert Murdoch off the hook...

    ... and making him look sympathetic - couldn't we just forget to ever let this fat double-barreled idiot out?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    and murdoch's wife gets?

    What exactly?? After all she is guilty & on camera of commiting assault too.

    hmmmmm, lovely set of double standards there isnt it

  9. Player One
    Alert

    Trophy wife not in jail as well ?

    So doesn't the wife get done for assault as well, i clearly saw her hit the pieman on the tv coverage?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Charlie Gilmour...

    He didn't swing on just any flag. He did it at the Cenotaph. That'd be similar to someone publicly peeing against the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

    However, that's NOT what he was sentenced to 16 months for. He was sentenced for violent disorder (which included damaging a Jaguar that was part of the Royal protection detail and throwing a rubbish bin at the Royal Rolls Royce).

    The judge let him off with a severe talking to over his actions at the Cenotaph.

  11. Bassey

    Horrible

    An aquaintance of mine got 4 weeks for drink driving - a second offence! Although, when he came out, he admitted it put the shits right up him, he sorted himself out and, six years later, is still on the straight and narrow. But still, 4 weeks for operating a potential killing machine whilst pissed. 6 weeks for a paper plate with foam. Rediculous.

  12. Nigel 11
    Thumb Down

    Ridiculous

    A lot of people don't go to jail for causing actual bodily harm, and this guy gets six weeks for injuring Murdoch's pride and messing up his clothes, with clear intent NOT to cause actual injury.

    Even so, he's probably laughing all the way to the bank. They've made him into a martyr. If this can't make his career as a comedian take off, nothing can.

    The loser? Us, the taxpayers and victims of crime, paying to keep a harmess idiot in jail. And to make space for him, there's a rapist or armed robber again prowling our streets.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No

      No, he got 6 weeks for walking into what is effectively a courtroom and assaulting someone in front of a select comittee. If you actually read the report rather than the Register's rather ignoring of the important points:

      "Mrs Wickham said that only the intervention of others had prevented Mr Murdoch from coming to potentially greater harm.

      "No one save you could have known what that foam was," she said.

      "I have to take into account the fear that you caused in that room."

      If you had done that in any other courtroom, you would probably face a similar sentence.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A gift

    While I think the pie throwing should have waited Murdoch grilling was over, a six week jail term hands an absolute gift (OK, in May-Bowles case a very painful one) to anyone who wishes to make a point about "one rule for us, another for them". None of the top brass of the Murdoch brigade will have to defend themselves in court, because - barring the odd case of perjury - that's just not the way our justice system works. If you have cash or clout, you're immune, after all who the fuck cares if you've spent 30 odd years systematically subverting democracies around the globe?

    For all the irritation at the time on these pages with his antics detracting from the main event, I take my hat off to May-Bowles, because his actions are the nearest to direct justice Murdoch will face in the UK, and the only payback we'll see. The law is very good at making very public but ultimately trivial points, but crap at speaking truth to power or jailing actual criminals.

  14. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    @Charlie Gilmour

    >But you fail to mention that the flag was on a war memorial, which makes his actions all the more reprehensible.

    A memorial built to all the people who died in WWI so we could live in a free country and protest all we want. Rather than live in an authoritarian state, ruled by a few well connected Junkers, presided over by a German monarchy and with a militarized police.

    1. David Neil

      not quite accurate

      WWI, fought at the behest of one load of German monarchs squabbling with their cousins, and once it was over they deployed their troops and tanks in several cities in the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to put down 'subversive elements'

      Same as it ever was, we just get more pictures nowadays

    2. Miek

      Damn

      I cannot up-vote this post enough!

    3. yoinkster
      Thumb Down

      one man crusade

      I down-voted you even though your post thoroughly deserved an up-vote. Why? Because there is a "Reply To This Post" button. You decided not to use it and it annoys the nuts off me when people can't be bothered to keep all relevant conversations nicely threaded so when people, like me, come late to a discussion, it is easy to follow.

      I've decided to go on a one man crusade to down-vote anyone not bothering to use the correct button, maybe then people will learn. Ta.

  15. Dances With Sheep
    WTF?

    Six weeks!

    With this menace off the streets, I feel safer in my bed already.

    I just hope the poor fucker can cover his rent/mortgage for the time he is in the nick and still has a job to go back to.

    Our taxes at work people.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    "world's most powerful octogenarian"?

    Warren Buffett is also 80. I would say he's just a wee bit more powerful than Murdoch.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Buffett

      And about 1000 times more honourable. Wasn't Buffett the one who said his secretary pays more tax than he does, in reference to the current US tax rates.

      1. YouAreTooAFascist

        Buffoon

        And he is free to give his money away how he chooses. If he wants to send more money to the government what's to stop him? Honorable. You are "on the line" hooked.

  17. raving angry loony

    too short

    As I understand it the bugger MISSED. He should be jailed for longer for that error.

  18. Sandy106
    Trollface

    You're paying for the jail

    may as well use it, right?

  19. Mr Young

    In this case?

    I just can't help snigger at that - it's even funnier than being taxed

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most Powerful

    Please, have you sheep ever heard of Soros, your boy? Who has more money and buys more elections? Baaaaaa said the soon to be extinct sheep. Too wimpified to even fight for their own lives. <insert middle finger>

    1. Darren Barratt

      conspiraloonacy

      You forgot to call everyone sheeple

  21. Darren Barratt
    FAIL

    Pointy end

    I think he got the sentence for the crime of coming across like a prick in interviews.

  22. This post has been deleted by its author

  23. Andus McCoatover
    Windows

    Personally...

    I'd have sentenced him to have another go at it.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    I think the other issue

    Is that this 'stand up comedian' (who I found to be as funny as swallowing cold piss with nettles in it - I do like a nice pint of Fosters... ;-)) took away from the real issue and that is of media ownership and hegemonies thereof in the UK, and this is a serious issue whatever you political point of view.

  25. Al 18

    Waste of public money

    We should take a pragmatic approach to these things.

    He should have been given an eye watering huge fine and as much community service as allowed, with the comment, "how's that for a laugh".

  26. Winkypop Silver badge
    Pirate

    On that scale.....

    The real crims should get 500 years!

    I'm looking at you old man.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all good

    Maybe the clown will get an education while in prison?

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    War memorial so bloody what?

    Several posters have said that swinging on a flag is somehow much worse when that flag is on a war memorial.

    Why? We don't worship idols in our society. He swung on the physical lump of rock and metal, not on the purely conceptual and intangible hopes and ideals that it represents - that's like saying you can destroy freedom by burning the dictionary page with the 'f's on it.

    If you think that you can damage an idea by damaging a symbol that represents it, you are explicitly believing in magic.

    1. Reg Blank
      Headmaster

      What is there to not get?

      If you don't get why people think Charlie Gilmour is a complete waste of community time and resources, then probably none of us can explain it to you. But I'll try.

      There are people in human societies that do things for others. They do these things in exchange for money. We call these jobs.

      In order to get this money for performing these jobs, certain requirements or expectations must be met. Sometimes in the course of doing these jobs, a person might do something above and beyond these job requirements.

      These actions aren't reimbursed or remunerated, and are considered an altruistic gift bestowed upon a third party, which can be an individual, a group, a nation or humanity as a whole. In most human societies, such gifts are considered special and most humans are grateful to receive them.

      Such an action might simply be time, effort or resources, but to be considered special there should be some measure of sacrifice on the givers behalf. The more that is sacrificed by the giver, the more such actions are prized and valued by those that receive the benefits of the gift.

      In most human societies, such gifts are held up to be positive moral or ethical (*) examples and the givers as positive role models for members of the society. Such is the esteem that societies have for some gifts that they will create lasting memorials to those gifts and those who sacrificed to give it.

      You may have surmised that it is one such memorial that is at issue here. What most human beings find offensive about the actions of the drunk-selfish-selfentitled-rich-boy is that the memorial he chose to show his contempt for society on was one that the community built to honour and remember those who gave the gift of their lives to their society.

      You see, what makes the gift of their lives so special is that as finite beings, human have very little time in which to think, experience, feel and explore their reality. To freely and voluntarily give up the rest of their existence for the benefit of their society is considered to be the ultimate sacrifice (especially as those who do so are often near the beginning of their lives). Given the permanent and irrevocable termination of the givers existence, no amount of money or other fringe benefits can recompense the givers for their sacrifice (**). Therefore the community of humans that recognise and appreciate the sacrifice gather to raise a memorial that remembers both the gift and the giver as a mark of solemn gratitude.

      What made the matter worse in the eyes of most feeling human beings that weren't emotionally stunted, was that the memorial was not respected by a drunk-selfish-selfentitled-rich-boy that has given nothing of himself that wasn't piss and vomit.

      [*] If required to, I can explain the difference in another lesson of How To Be A Human Being In Mixed Company.

      [**] Such a determination does not take into account any non-corporeal afterlife that the giver may be entitled to or rewarded with, as the certainty that such a reward will be forthcoming is something that humans have yet to come to agreement over.

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