Airport tweet ‘made law look silly’, appeal told

A man found guilty of sending a “menacing tweet” was the victim of a legal “steamroller” that threatened to make the law look silly, it was argued at the High Court.

Paul Chambers, 27, said he thought that no-one would ever have taken seriously his joking threat to blow an airport “sky-high”.

Accountant Chambers said he sent the tweet to his 600 followers in a moment of frustration after Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire was closed by snow in Jan 2010.

But he was convicted at Doncaster Magistrates’ Court of sending “a message of a menacing character”, contrary to provisions of the 2003 Communications Act, fined £385 (€460) and ordered to pay £600 (€720) costs.

Yesterday he asked two High Court judges to overturn a Doncaster Crown Court decision in Nov 2010 upholding his conviction and sentence — a decision which pushed the costs order against him up to £2,600 (3,100).

Among his many supporters are fellow Twitter users Charlie Brooker and Stephen Fry.

The message he tweeted read: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

Crown Court Judge Jacqueline Davies said the electronic communication was “clearly menacing” and airport staff were sufficiently concerned to report it.

Yesterday at London’s High Court, Ben Emmerson QC, for Chambers, argued the Crown Court had erred in law — and in common sense.

Mr Emmerson suggested it was hardly likely that anyone planning to blow up an airport would post their intentions on Twitter.

His conviction caused resentment and triggered an “I’m Spartacus!” campaign in which 4,000 people tweeted the Chambers message across Twitter — “none of whom were arrested”, said Mr Emmerson.

He added: “One has to inject common sense to avoid the law ending up looking silly.”

He told the judges the questions for them were “whether this prosecution-conviction-sentence was a steam-roller to crack a small nut and whether it was a disproportionate response”.

The judges reserved their judgment and said it would be handed down at a future date.

Among those sitting at the back of the court supporting Chambers were Pub Landlord comic Al Murray and Father Ted writer Graham Linehan.

Mr Linehan said said of Chambers’ tweet: “The problem is not that it was a joke, but it was a bad joke.

“My first series was full of bad jokes. If we were all to be convicted for bad jokes, we would all be in trouble.”