Ex-police officer fined and given criminal record over 'grossly offensive' Facebook post about Islam was making 'satirical' comment, court hears

A retired police officer should have a conviction for posting a ‘grossly offensive’ message about Islam on Facebook overturned because it was a ‘satirical’ comment in the vein of Monty Python’s Life of Brian or Private Eye magazine, a court has heard.While Stephen Gray’s reposting of an image on social media about Islam and the age of consent may have been ‘uncouth, coarse, not nuanced’, he was entitled to make the post as a political expression, his barrister John Beggs KC told an appeal hearing.Gray, who spent 27 years with Cleveland Police, was convicted at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates’ Court in April of making a grossly offensive message contrary to the Communications Act 2003. He was ordered to pay more than £1,000 in fines and costs. Gray had reposted a message on Facebook saying: ‘Fun facts about Bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a nine-year-old!’He said it was seen by only 15 to 20 followers.Next to the text was an image of a man in a ‘religious headdress’ and what appeared to be a ‘Nazi stormtrooper’, Teesside Magistrates’ Court was told, however Gray said he only shared the post because of the text and did not see the images.Gray was reported to the police by his next-door neighbour, Alexander Kurlandzki, with whom he had been involved in a dispute over the payment of bills relating to their adjacent cottages in County Durham. Stephen Gray, 65, [pictured outside Teesside Magistrates' Court] is attempting to overturn his conviction for posting a 'grossly offensive' message on Facebook His barrister argued that, while some may have found it offensive, it was a 'satirical' comment. He said Monty Python's Life of Brian also offended many people on its releaseMr Kurlandzki claimed he found the post ‘racist and offensive’ and had himself been subjected to ‘racist abuse’ because of his name.In a statement to police, he admitted that he did not see the original Facebook post but obtained screengrabs from another neighbour of Gray who had informed him about the message, the court heard.At a hearing today attempting to overturn the conviction, Gray, 65, said he made the post because he has two daughters and has fostered three girls and wanted to ‘bring to light what is not a very nice part of what goes on in this country – child marriage, forced marriage and just the way some children are treated.’He added: ‘I look at these girls and I think they could be married [young] or abused and it doesn’t sit happily with me.’Later, Mr Beggs said it was an ‘inconvenient truth’ in Islam that ‘the prophet Muhammad is said in reliable religious texts to have married Aisha when she was six and consummated that when she was nine’He added that there are ‘Muslims in this country who defend the right to marry and have sex with girls from the age of puberty.’‘Just because it’s not nice society, Hampstead liberals, making the comment, a less couth comment than I might make, [that means] somehow it’s a criminal offence,’ he added.‘We are entitled to be offensive in this country as we are in a liberal democracy with pluralism and tolerance.’He pointed to the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, released in 1979, which ‘lampooned the birth of Christ.’‘It was very funny to some people and offensive to other people,’ he said, adding that on its release there were calls for the film to be banned.Mr Beggs said that, while Gray’s post was ‘not nuanced’, ‘if we were only allowed satirical jokes that were nuanced it might exclude 90 per cent of the country not capable of writing in the same vein as [Private Eye editor] Ian Hislop, [18th century Irish essayist] Jonathan Swift, [former Labour Party leader] Michael Foot, or other great satirists of the past.’He added the post was ‘obviously sarcastic.’‘If you read Private Eye magazine it is full of sarcasm about public officials,’ he said.The judge, Recorder Bryan Cox KC, said the result of the appeal will be given at a hearing next month.Gray’s appeal is being supported by the Free Speech Union, founded by Tory peer and journalist Toby Young.