In Court Again Today
This will be the second time this week. I was in "court" for a few minutes on Wednesday to defend my first Employment Tribunal in 20 years of employing people (I currently have about 100 staff).
Later today I will pop in for ex Labour Councillor Tony Kennedy's Malicious Falsehood Action against Lib Dem Councillor Martin Mullaney. This will be its second part in court.
It last hit court on November 6th
The background is that there was a row in a pub which resulted in someone (jp) getting their head cut and concussed. Tony Kennedy was banned by the landlord and later arrested by the police.
Martin Mullaney made an email post to a yahoogroup stating that Tony Kennedy was about to be arrested and Tony Kennedy threatened to sue him unless he withdrew.
He did not withdraw and TK issued a county court summons online through a system that is supposed to mainly be used for debt actions and the like.
TK also sued "Birmingham Liberal Democrats". The point about Political Parties is that generally they are not legal persons and as a consequence you cannot sue "Birmingham Liberal Democrats".
I attended Court last time to make this point which the judge accepted.
The whole point about the issue is that court proceedings have "absolute priviledge". Therefore, every time Tony Kennedy goes to another court hearing he gets another batch of bad publicity. C'est la vie.
Generally Birmingham Politics is not that violent.
Labour councillors did chase one of their own members into the toilet who later joined us and then was threatened with jail for campaigning on Post Office closures.
Toilet terror for councillor Feb 14 2001
A 72-year-old councillor was forced to cower in a toilet for his own protection after he was allegedly manhandled by his own party members.
and
Hemming hits back as post row rumbles on May 24 2004
A Birmingham councillor threatened with jail in a row over post office closures has hit back at his critics.
The third councillor threatened with imprisonment last year was Peter Douglas Osborne who turned up at the Iraq War demonstration with a couple of placards (but noone else to hold them) campaigning "against appeasement". He then ran his own one man demonstration in favour of war on Iraq.
I did have a stone thrown at me last night, but I think that was general vandalism and thuggery rather than a political statement. There have been Labour Councillors beaten up by other Labour activists. Mohammed Afzal and Amir Khan were both victims of this.
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