Former CPS Director: ‘We don’t create thought crimes in this country’
from The Christian Institute:
The former head of the Crown Prosecution Service has emphasised that offending someone is not a criminal offence.
In an interview with The Guardian, Max Hill KC said politicians “should remember what free speech means” and that “we don’t create thought crimes in this country”.
Hill, who was also previously the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, called the Government’s new extremism definition “divisive” and “problematic”, warning that it will be “hard to limit only to what the government apparently intends”.
Free speech
The KC stated: “There are things that people think and things that people say and sometimes things that people do, which are offensive in the eyes of many, which cause reaction, but which we shouldn’t regard as crossing a line into criminal conduct.”
He warned: “We should remember that we don’t create thought crimes in this country.
“And that we go into very difficult territory if that is what we do, because it is very complex and difficult to draw up a definition, which captures true criminal conduct, but doesn’t at the same time capture ordinary if offensive conversation, which is part of free speech, political debate, the sorts of things that the people can engage in.”
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