Private prosecution case against Reginald D Hunter quashed by judge
The Campaign Against Antisemitism says it is "deeply disappointed" by the decision, in which the judge criticised the charity directly
A judge has dismissed an attempt by the Campaign Against Antisemitism to bring a private prosecution against the comedian Reginald D Hunter, stating that the motivation of the charity was to “have him cancelled”.
District Judge Michael Snow quashed the summons against the American comedian, who had been accused of three counts of sending an offensive communication, on three different occasions. Hunter was alleged to have sent both a computer-generated sexual image and antisemitic messages via Twitter last year to Heidi Bachram, a counter-antisemitism activist.
The judge was scathing in his rejection of the case, describing what he called CAA’s “misleading and partial way in which it summarised its application and its wilful, repeated, failure to meet its disclosure obligations”. He also described the application made by CAA as “wholly inadequate” and accused the charity’s summary of having “misled” him.
The alleged communications from Hunter to Bachram were reported to have taken place shortly after the comedian received significant censure for a performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year. At that performance, Hunter was involved in a verbal altercation with a Jewish couple, who took issue with a line in his show about Israel. After the couple left, Hunter told a “joke” about his wife in which she supposedly said, in reference to a Jewish newspaper, “Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe.”
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We are of course deeply disappointed by the District Judge’s decision. Our mission is, and always has been, to stand up for British Jews and their allies, particularly at a time when levels of antisemitism and antisemitic violence are rising at an alarming rate. Our lawyers are examining the ruling and considering our next steps.”
While Hunter did not comment directly regarding the outcome of the case on social media, he shared a tweet by someone describing it as “a historic victory for free speech and a massive defeat for the Israel lobby (and its law fare tactics).”
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