Many readers of this site will recall from March 2017 the case of Tim Burton, the counter jihad writer who was convicted at Southwark Crown Court of ‘religious harassment’ and jailed for twelve weeks. Mr Burton was convicted in a trial that appeared to observers to have a lot of procedural problems.
These problems, which include a failure by the judge to order a new trial when two of the jurors fell ill, along with the prosecution bringing in of extra evidence, unrelated to the communications that formed the heart of this case, are just some of the reasons why Mr Burton is pursuing an appeal.
What is emerging is that not only did the above-mentioned procedural issues such as the lost jurors and the surprise evidence contribute to a bias in the trial but that failures by the defence to ask the jury to put aside any pro or anti Islam prejudices (which is important as the trial happened shortly after the Islamic attack at Westminster Bridge) and concentrate on the evidence at hand also compromised the trial. Although the right to challenge jurors before they are empanelled no longer exists in English law, the defence should have been more robust in telling the jury to consider this case only on the evidence.
In addition, the defence counsel, in the views of some observers of the trial, failed to properly defend free speech in her closing statement and there is her inexplicable agreement with the prosecution’s suggestion that only the prosecution’s expert witness should be allowed to address the court. It is likely that Dr Sami Aldeeb, the defence expert witness, would have given an alternative definition of the concept of ‘Taqiyya’ to that put forward by Dr Matthew Wilkinson of SOAS. With Dr Aldeeb’s planned evidence that the term ‘Taqiyya’, the definition of which was central of the trial, is widely known about in the Islamic world, is used to deceive non-Muslims as to the nature of Islam; this case may have had a different outcome. In the end the Jury only had the prosecution’s take on the definition of the word ‘taqiyya’, which Dr Wilkinson gave and there was no opportunity for the defence to have their own expert to challenge the assertions about the doctrine of Taqiyya made by Dr Wilkinson.
Since the trial there have been a number of developments, including the revelation that the Crown’s expert witness on the subject of Islam, Dr Matthew Wilkinson was the founder and senior officer of a pro-Islam group called Curriculum for Cohesion, that not only had a serving Crown prosecutor serving as a patron but also shared patrons with one of Fiayz Mughal’s own groups. This connection between organisations that the expert witness runs and the complainant’s organisations, looks dodgy even if it isn’t. Readers please note that there’s more detail about and comment on Dr Wilkinson’s pro-Islam project in a subsequent article on this blog.
Those undertaking research for the appeal that is being mounted to overturn the conviction of Mr Burton, are also uncovering some worrying conflicts of interest and seemingly suspicious relationships that involve the Crown Prosecution Service. The first conflict of interest is the position of the chief prosecution witness and Britain’s mendacious grievance mongering taqiyya artist in chief, Fiyaz Mughal himself. Fiyaz Mughal has served on a Crown Prosecution Service committee that advised the CPS on how to prosecute cases of ‘Islamophobia’. In other words this case rested on the words of a man who has a vested interest in shutting down criticism by Britons of the ideology of Islam and using the CPS to do so.
There are a number of rumours circulating around the internet and also when counter jihad and Islamic sceptics meet, about Fiyaz Mughal’s backroom influence on the CPS due to his position as an advisor on ‘Islamophobia’. These suspicions in relation to the Burton case state that this case was both brought and fast tracked, not because there was any particular merit in the case or because it was particularly serious, or had any impact beyond the minor issue of Fiyaz Mughal feeling ‘offended’, but because of Fiyaz Mughal’s alleged undue influence over CPS staff and CPS policy.
It has also emerged that Fiyaz Mughal, may not have been entirely frank with the court when he gave his evidence to Southwark Crown Court. Mughal said that ‘he would not even want to be in the same room as an Islamist’. This is an admirable statement and an equally admirable position to take, unfortunately Mughal’s statement appears to be in error and this can be proven because Fiyaz Mughal has been discovered not just being the same room as Islamists, but has shared a platform with them. Fiyaz Mughal denied in court and on other occasions any association with Islamists but has appeared in 2015 on a panel alongside the likes of Hamza Tsortis, who was banned from Keele University for ‘extremism’ and Anas Altikriti whose group, the Cordoba Foundation, has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This panel event was put together by the Islamic evangelist group iERA, a group that has the known Salafist Islamic extremist Abdur Raheem Greenas its chair. Because of Mr Mughal’s willingness to appear alongside such individuals as Tsortis and Altikriti it makes a bit of a mockery of his claims that ‘he would not want to be in the same room as an Islamist’.
Other aspects of Fiyaz Mughal’s evidence under oath has also been questioned by observers such as Mughal’s claim that he wasn’t involved in the day to day running of the Tell Mama organisation at the time when the allegedly ‘offensive’ emails referring to Mughal as a ‘taqiyya artist’ were sent. Also, there is the matter of Mughal’s claim that to the court that he was a ‘non practising Muslim’ and this raises the question as to why Mughal found attacks on Islam or Islamic doctrine ‘offensive’ in the first place? It’s hardly likely is it, that someone who doesn’t practise or follow the precepts of a faith would be ‘offended’ or ‘feel harassed’ by criticisms of that faith? To give an analogy, there are plenty of lapsed Roman Catholics in the world and very few of them in my experience get as het up over attacks on Catholicism, as the lapsed Muslim Fiyaz Mughal did over criticisms of Islam and Islamic doctrine. There is something strange and not quite right here about how ‘upset’ a non practising Muslim has got over anti Islam comments. There are suspicions that Mughal being a ‘non practising Muslim’ may not have been as half as ‘harassed’ as he stated he was and that the motive for this prosecution was revenge for losing a previous case against Mr Burton and to shut down a critic of both him and his highly questionable organisations. Finally there is the matter of Mughal’s reputation among those who have dealt with him as a ‘bit of a bruiser’ politically, which didn’t sit well with his attempt to play the offended and harassed wallflower during the trial.
These revelations made about the prosecution’s expert witness Dr Matthew Wilkinson and whether all the relevant information about any conflicts of interest that he may have had because of his involvement with Curriculum for Cohesion raise questions about proper disclosure to the court. It turns out, according to information seen by this blog, that Dr Wilkinson, who is a convert to Islam, is an academic at the School of Oriental and African Studies and is a regular prosecution expert witness employed by the CPS, is also the founder of a charitable organisation that has on its board an employee or the CPS. The organisation in question is called ‘Curriculum for Cohesion’ and a senior CPS employee, Ms Baljit Ubhey OBE, who is Chief Crown Prosecutor (CCP) for the Crown Prosecution Service in London acts as this organisation’s patron. Dr Wilkinson failed to disclose this connection between his organisation and CPS staff. Non disclosure of information that may be relevant or failing to disclose whilst under oath personal and professional connections with CPS staff is an extremely serious matter and could be construed as contempt of court.
For reasons of probity and to dispel any allegations or suspicions of a conflict of interest, Dr Wilkinson should have pro-actively declared this information to the court as it was likely, as has been the case, that this information about the connections between Dr Wilkinson and the CPS would eventually come to light. Declaring this interest would have avoided any questions of probity or unstated conflict of interest. Unfortunately Dr Wilkinson did not declare a connection between an organisation that he had an interest in and CPS employees, which has given rise to questions about the wisdom of using Dr Wilkinson as a prosecution expert witness.
There may well be nothing to worry about and there is no conflict of interest, but not declaring a link between Dr Wilkinson’s organisation and a member of CPS staff certainly gives the impression to the average reader or observer of this case that there is a conflict even if it doesn’t exist in reality.
It’s vital that those in public life, whether they be politicians, civil servants or prosecutors or those whom the prosecutors rely on to gain a conviction, are not only as pure as the driven snow but also give the impression that that is the case. The connection between Dr Wilkinson, his ‘Curriculum for Cohesion’ organisation and senior CPS staff, may well be innocent, but failing to disclose the connection may lead people to think that there could be something untoward going on. This is especially the case when a senior prosecutor which Ms Ubhey is, teams up with an organisation like Curriculum for Cohesion that appears to be working more in the interests of Islam than of the rest of us.
Worryingly, here is also a connection between Dr Wilkinson’s ‘Curriculum for Cohesion’ group patrons with Fiyaz Mughal’s organisations in the form of Mohammed Aminand Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger. Both these individuals have been or are involved with Fiyaz Mughal vehicles, Amin as a former patron of Tell Mama and Baroness Neuberger as a patron of Mughal’s ‘Faith Matters’ vehicle. Mohammed Amin is also listed as a current funder of the Curriculum for Cohesion entity. Simon Hughes the former MP for Bermondsey is also linked to both Curriculum for Cohesion and Mughal’s Faith Matters vehicle as he is a patron of both. Such connections between an important prosecution witness, the complainant in the Burton case, Fiyaz Mughal and the CPS do look distinctly ‘incestuous’ do they not? It is becoming apparent that the CPS is a swamp that urgently needs draining of all the politically motivated and agenda driven ‘diversity’ types who have done so much to damage a Justice system in which we could once have some degree of trust.
Mr Burton and his supporters are fighting back against what is looking like a monstrous miscarriage of justice and an attempt by Fiyaz Mughal and his supporters to shut down criticism both of Islam and of high profile Muslims (or even lapsed Muslims) such as Fiyaz Mughal himself. At the time of writing, Mr Burton and his supporters have sought additional legal advice which has identified a number of peculiarities about this trial which are going to be the basis for further legal challenge to this conviction. A transcript of the trial has been obtained, at great expense it seems, by Mr Burton’s legal advisers and this transcript is being currently examined in great detail by the appellant’s legal team. This blog is also making available to Mr Burton’s team the extensive contemporaneous notes that were taken in the court by this blog in the hope that this will also be of assistance in challenging the CPS’s conduct of this case.
The Burton case is a monstrous example of how easy it is for a Muslim (or even a lapsed Muslim) to use the law to shut down critics of Islam by claiming that they are ‘offended’ or felt ‘harassed’. Laws that allow this are easy to abuse for ideologues, charlatans and those with an agenda to push and are an affront to the concept of equality before the law.
This conviction of Mr Burton, is also a prima face case as to why ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crime’ laws are inimical to the idea of equal justice. The sort of laws that Fiyaz Mughal used to get Mr Burton incarcerated rely almost completely on the alleged victims ‘feelings’ about a particular word, gesture or physical incident. Hate crime laws elevate feelings, something that cannot be independently examined or tested, or measured, over real world evidence. These ‘hate crime’ offences do, in the words of the commentator Ben Shapiro, place ‘feels over reals’ and can and do end up with people losing their liberty because some thin-skinned snowflake or someone with an ideological axe to grind, is pandered to and the ‘offence’ they’ve taken becomes treated as fact. This situation is something that Britons should no longer tolerate if they want an honest justice system unsullied by grievance mongers or those who wish to use the legal system to remove our rights to express opinions that Muslims (or even lapsed Muslims such as Fiyaz Mughal) do not like or which they find unpalatable.
If you wish to help Mr Burton fight back against Fiyaz Mughal and his friends in the CPS then you can help by contributing to Tim Burton’s legal fund. You can find a link to contribute to this fund on the website of the Liberty GB party or by clicking the PayPal link below.
I urge you to contribute as much as you can because this is not just Mr Burton’s fight, it’s a fight that concerns all of us. A political and administrative culture that appears to have become so bent that it allows people like Fiyaz Mughal to advise prosecutors, when he is the founder of an organisation that has a long history of dishonesty when it comes to ‘anti-Islam hate crimes’, is one that could target any Briton who expresses a less than enthusiastic opinion about the ideology of Islam.
Links
On the sentencing of Tim Burton
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2017/05/01/on-the-sentencing-of-the-patriot-writer-tim-burton/
The website of the pro-Islam group Curriculum for Cohesion that was founded by the prosecutions expert witness in the Burton trial and which has as one of its patrons a senior Crown prosecutors
http://curriculumforcohesion.org/
Cordoba Foundation and its links to the Muslim Brotherhood
Stoke Sentinel article on how Hamza Tsortis was banned from speaking at Keele University because of his links to extremist Islamic groups
http://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/keele-university-cancels-visit-radical-islamic/story-28830231-detail/story.html
iERA talk with Mughal and a couple of Islamic nasties of the sort that Mughal swore blind in court that he wouldn’t want to be in the same room as.
https://www.iera.org/video-islam-cause-solution-extremism-debate/
Wiki page on iERA’s Islamic extremist chair Abdur Raheem Green
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdur_Raheem_Green
Just in case the video and pages of Fiyaz Mughal attending an iERA gig ‘goes missing’, this blog has put screen shots of the page up on here. The full video (which can at present be found via the iERA website) of Fiyaz Mughal at the iERA discussion is available on this blog’s vidme channel in order to preserve it for posterity. You can reach the video by clicking on the link / video image below
https://vid.me/wmV6z
Screenshot one from iERA site
Screenshot Two from iERA page
Screenshot three from IERA page
This case needs to be fought and won!
I’m with you on that one.