The censorship story that wasn’t
Last week I posted a story about Alan Craig, the Christian Choice candidate for Mayor of London, going to court over his claim that the BBC and ITV had censored his party election broadcast (PEB). His case has been rejected (via) by the High Court. It also turns out that the story isn’t quite as clear-cut as Craig was claiming.
The BBC agreed that it had expressed concern and Christian Choice responded by agreeing to change the form of words. The judge said that he didn’t believe the PEB had been libellous, but said that the request for a judicial review had been left far too late. If Craig seriously though he was being censored he should have launched the case before the broadcast.
BBC had indicated that if a legal challenge had been issued before the broadcast it would have “backed down and let them publish as they wished.”
What appears to have happened, therefore, is that the BBC offered some advice about a potentially controversial PEB. Christian Choice decided to follow that advice and then lie about having been censored in order to play a victim card.
Yes, I was duped and I shall – in future – bear in mind that you just can’t trust anything that Christians claim.
The judge, Mr Justice Collins, ordered Craig to pay the BBC’s £11,875 in legal costs.
Friday 02 May 2008 | Paul | UK
