Poster business and civil liberties

Is displaying offensive material a crime?

While filming a demonstration in Cardigan (rather more a flyering session)by the Pembrokeshire Against the Cull group (PAC), I came across a man with an interesting story to tell. He was a local of Cardigan who said he had raised concerns with Dyfed Powys Police about their removal of a poster from a shop window in Cardigan.

The poster depicted a cartoon of the Welsh Rural Affairs Minister, Elin Jones as the Grim Reaper, with dead badgers at her feet and the words, "a smile of pure evil, Elin Jones - blood on her hands, slaughter of the innocents, the killing fields of Pembrokeshire".

According to the man, the police asked for this poster to be removed, but it was put back up soon after. The police soon returned and removed the poster themselves, telling the shop staff that the poster was offensive and they were taking it away to be forensically tested for fingerprints. The police also taped over the whole window of the shop.

The man said he had written to the police, asking why the poster had been removed. His concern is that he thought it was within the shop owner's rights to display the poster based on his freedom of speech and that it was not a criminal matter. It is fair to say that the poster could be deemed defamatory in a civil court, but is it a criminal act?

If the police, who as I understand it, have not responded to either myself or the man in question about this matter, had removed the poster based a breach of the law, then it would have been in under the Public Order Act 1986. The test for whether displaying the poster was against the law, would be whether it could cause harassment, alarm or distress in the eyes of a reasonable person.

I personally doubt that it could have, but it is down to the police to explain why they removed it. It might possibly resulted from a complaint which they received, which would have vindicated the officers.

The individual who raised the issue with Dyfed Powys Police is not a anti-cull campaigner, he believes that the shop owner's rights to free speech were infringed and that police were wasting their time on the matter.

Police are yet to comment.