Peterborough bloke warned over 'offensive' t-shirt A Peterborough forklift driver who threatened to undermine law and order in the former Roman city by wearing a t-shirt declaring "Don't piss me off! I am running out of places to hide the bodies" has been warned he'll cop an 80 quid fine if caught again wearing the offending apparel. The suitably-monikered David Pratt was …
How is this news, the police have been stopping people who have what they deem as "offensive" clothing for years. Many times when I lived in Newcastle I was told to take my t-shirt off by the police. Personally I think my pasty white chest is more offensive than anything I could possibly wear.
"In what was an amicable conversation, the street warden advised the gentleman concerned that his t-shirt could cause offence and if he was to wear it again he could run the risk of being issued an £80 on-the-spot fine from the police."
This is the kind of thing that sparked off the Brixton riots. Some officious, overzealous public servant pushing the public trust too far. The street wardens should be nervous and polite when they wander the streets. They should be humble. And the only way to make this happen is for T-shirt wearers to unite, and present a solid front, a solid brick wall of "funny" t-shirts, e.g. the Adolf Hitler European tour, Viz, something with beer on it, etc. Then the street wardens will think twice before stirring up a hornet's nest. A hornet's nest of t-shirts.
I'm no expert, but mens rea may be relevant:
"A person is guilty of an offence under section 4 only if he intends his words or behaviour, or the writing, sign or other visible representation, to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or is aware that it may be threatening, abusive or insulting."
So, if he neither intended offence, nor was aware of it, then presumably he's off the hook.
Of course, since he's now the subject of the complaint, from now on the t-shirt should only be revealed inside a dwelling :-)
John
Would I have bee asked to take my old T shirt off when I was a kid in the 80s ?
It had Adolf Hitler European tour 1939 - 1945 with details such as
September 1939 Poland
September 1940 England Cancelled
May 1940 Belgium
August 1942 Russia Cancelled
etc etc
Massively offensive but bloody funny for a fourteen year old kid.
Someone once refused to serve me in a shop and he demanded I leave his shop. It made my week !!!!
Anyone remember the first story of this nature from a few years ago? Black metal band Cradle of Filth printed a t-shirt with a masturbating nun and the slogan "Jesus is a C**t"... resulted in a "ban" on offensive t-shirts for a brief spell however the band cleverly tried to justify the slogan by saying that "devout Christians consider themself born through jesus, and as c**t is a slang word for something pretty obvious involving giving birth the slogan is technically correct... in a longwinded, somewhat pointless way.
Anyway, isn't "offensive" purely a matter of personal opinion? I personally would giggle at silly £2-off-the-market-doodled-by-a-two-year-old slogan t-shirts, but a single coloured branded t-shirt that cost over £100 would offend my wallet and cause emotional distress, i'd have to cross the road quickly to avoid being passively converted to a chav... possibly resulted in me getting run over through running away from sheer terror and blind panic at the offensive t-shirt being worn in my general presence. Should the wearer be made to remove the offending garment?
No, course not. (cue "only if its a woman with huge jugs" in the replies!)
"Personally I think my pasty white chest is more offensive than anything I could possibly wear."
Perhaps the street wardens are using this as a pretext to force public toplessness upon women. And no doubt there is a plan to make it illegal for women to be topless in public. I imagine the street wardens have wet dreams about topless women with offensive slogans written across their breasts, thus combining two illegal things.
... who wouldn't want their children to be reading stuff like that when out and about in town? It's long been an offence, like swearing in public can actually be deemed a public order offence as well from memory. Sure, it may only be a bit of humour, fine inside a pub etc. (I have a choice, don't take my children in there). There's a time and a place, we don't all want our children to be 4 year olds using mainly 4 letter words - leave that to the chavs.
They'll ban all of the FCUK t-shirts as someone might be offended by them as well? What about the Star Wars Lego t-shirts? Surely some fixated fan could find it extremely offensive to see a scene, formerly portrayed by their favourite actors, now portrayed by blocky lego characters instead?
The Public Order act has much to answer for, including why people with no genuine training whatsoever (Street Wardens) are sent out to be cut-price coppers with nothing but an over-inflated sense of self-importance guiding their actions.
To call it farcical is to master the art of understatement.
There... I *think* that just about covers all the necessary elements to make it eligible for a Daily Mail editorial... Oh no, hang on, I've failed; I've made two basic errors: firstly I haven't mentioned the phrase "It's political correctness gone mad!" and secondly (and more importantly) I have managed to blame it on asylum seekers/imigrant workers/fundamentalist terrorists. Damn and I was doing so well!
I'm sad to say I live in Pete-bog-horror!
Over the past few years we've really lost the plot - we're fining people who 'overfill' their rubbish bins, we are not allowed Xmas lights - now winter lights, we have the 2nd highest immigration influx other than Slough - and now another ridiculous story like this.
I agree with the other poster - traffic wardens are a virulent strain of sadly repressed individuals - fair enough Police officers can and do actually make a difference - but traffic wardens fall into the same category as debt collectors - people that love to make others lives harder!
I for one shall be pioneering a new set of T-Shirts
"PISS ON TRAFFIC WARDENS (they love it!)"
I got warned back in the late Seventies, a policeman warned that he could arrest me for the t-shirt I was wearing.
I was dead proud of that shirt, it was blagged from the launch party for Stiff records and read 'If it aint Stiff it aint worth a fuck'
Didnt stop me wearing it and I never heard a complaint from anyone else.
"There's a time and a place, we don't all want our children to be 4 year olds using mainly 4 letter words - leave that to the chavs."
Would I be alone in finding some hypocrisy in being so upset by an innoccuous four-letter piece of slang whilst making pejorative generalisations about other people with another four-letter word?
Its hard to believe that this bloke is getting warned about wearing a T-shirt which is quite obviously less offensive than many, many others.
I will admit that people do get targeted when wearing offensive T-shirts as a traffic cop booked me for dangerous driving after "accellerating excessivly" to 30mph - on a scooter - however i was wearing a "US School Shooting Tour" T-shirt sporting a list of events and body-counts at the time. It did make me wonder if the cop really took offence to the shirt and booked me regardless. ((which reminds me, i really should get a new, up-to-date version of that))
Never mind. +1 to the dumbass cops this round!
Next week sees the annual Peterborough Beer Festival, thousands of drinkers converging on that busy little market town wearing their funny yet slightly offensive t-shirts as a tradition along with the drinking.
I wonder if the Street Wardens are going to try this when the t-shirt wearers number in their hundreds, and have imbibed of a few jars of ale?
Muzchap said, "I agree with the other poster - traffic wardens are a virulent strain of sadly repressed individuals - fair enough Police officers can and do actually make a difference - but traffic wardens fall into the same category as debt collectors - people that love to make others lives harder!..."
Surely the subject here is "street wardens", not "traffic wardens"...
Sadly the good burghers of Peterborough would not agree with you. The Queensgate Shopping Centre in Peterborough displays large signs making people aware that they will not even tolerate topless men!!
Re. the original T-shirt slogan, you have to appreciate that it is cutting edge wit by Peterborough standards. The ideal sophisticated night out would be a Jethro concert, followed by several pints and the obligatory curry! NOW I remember why I moved back to London!!
...that i am currently wearing to work has "ME = GOD, YOU = MINION" and no one has complained yet...
I live in Derby, and the local police have seen me wearing it, even asking where i had bought it as they wanted one... See, not all police are miserable gits with no sense of humour...
Maybe the coppers should show up to his flat and start digging up the grounds looking for the bodies. Probably too hot with all the global warming to do something like that.
The urge to wear a shirt which has words on it that you are too chicken to use in public, is just a sign that says look at me, I am a stupid adolescent potty mouth that wants to be arrested. So I say start making people take off offensive shirts and confiscate them. Either that or have the cops carry some kind of spray body paint and spray paint the shirt and give it back to the person. Either that or the cops can have a shirt that says:
"I am a potty mouth, so the cops took my shirt!"
... When I overheard a copper in Fulham ask a young chap "What the f*ck he though he was doing unloading his car" in some location that said copper felt was an unreasonable location for such behaviour! For the record, it was a quiet early evening, and the lad was in a perfectly reasonable place and posed no threat to anyone at the time...
I am strongly for freedom of speech, I'm not adverse to swearing and don't have kids (who would probably know more obscenities than me anyway), but I can see the other side to this arguement.
Some people don't want to be subjected to certain things in public, nudity & obscenity being the two obvious things. The problem is balancing their wishes with peoples freedoms.
For example is a Shirt that reads "God Damn", "Bugger" or such ok? Is that not vulgar enough? Yet "Cunt" is? Topless woman? Man with a ruddy great hard-on? Two men having sex? Or do we really need to be able to do ANYTHING ANYWHERE to be a free society?
"Let's get drunk and screw"
"When in trouble I call 1911" with picture of a Colt 1911.
".308 holes make invisible souls" with a picture of a Remington 700
".50BMG, reach out and touch someone" with a picture of a Barrett
"I didn't climb to the top of the food chain to become a vegetarian" Salt Lick BBQ
"QQQQ"
"Will not hack for food" DEFCON 8
"I am Jack's overwritten stack pointer ..." DEFCON A
"This T shirt is a munition" with the encryption algorithm. This is a really old one.
"This T shirt is banned by DMCA" with a version of deCSS.
"Francis Uticus Cornelius Kirkland University" stacked vertically, with the first letter of each word in red and the rest in black.
"Eating out is fun" This was the advertising slogan of the Texas Restaurant Association in the 60s and 70s, only this one has a pair of shins splayed out.
Remember during the last football world cup, got stopped by "community warden patrol" (jobsworths) for wanting to go into a pub wearing an england shirt (in Dundee,Scotland).which would cause "a disturbance".
It wasn't an england shirt- it was a USA shirt- never mind it had US on the badge and "AMERICA 06" on the back- they still thought I was "inciting trouble" and would have to remove it before going in.
Shame the pub I was going in was full of Scots & Americians enjoying the game
"Some people don't want to be subjected to certain things in public, nudity & obscenity being the two obvious things."
May i just relate an experience i had recently. I had to walk off the pavement to make room for two of the most fattest 20 year olds i have ever seen in my life.
To me, they could hardly have been more obscene if they had indeed been naked. And no doubt if the t shirts they were wearing carried slogans you would not have been able to read them, buried as they were in massive rolls of fat.
What is obscene to one is not obscene to another.
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