The Truth is no Defence in British Courts
January 24, 2024
Posted by Steve Blake
This afternoon at Leeds Crown Court Sam Melia, the Yorkshire PA Regional Organiser and husband of PA Deputy Leader Laura Towler, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred and encouraging criminal damage.
The jury of nine men and three women unanimously found Sam guilty for creating downloadable templates for stickers which bore slogans such as:
- Reject White Guilt
- It’s OK to be White
- We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066
- White Lives Matter
- Stop Anti-White Rape Gangs
- Love Your Nation
The prosecution contended that despite the content of the stickers being lawful, they were produced as a body of work intended to stir up racial hatred. Out of a total of 310 stickers which were read out in detail to the jury during the eight-day long trial, only a handful mentioned race and the jury was reminded by the prosecution that it did not matter whether the content of the stickers was true, as the truth is no defence in such a case.
Sam awaits sentencing on 1st March and has been advised not to talk about the case as it could impact the sentence.
Earlier Laura posted of her pride for her husband:
“I will say that I am proud of my husband. He put his head above the parapet, defended his people and told the truth.
“As detailed above, I won’t say any more about Sam just to be on the safe side, but I and many others unapologetically stand for a safe homeland for the British people. This will never change for us, no matter what they throw at us.”
Prosecution claims
The prosecution, in their opening statement, claimed that the stickers in isolation were lawful, however the Hundred Handers (HH) project in whole was incitement to racial hatred. The prosecution also claimed throughout the trial that the stickers being truthful was no defence.
The judge stated that Sam was not on trial for being racist, if the jury should decide he was, he was on trial for inciting racial hatred through HH stickers only.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution made numerous statements proving Sam’s innocence of the crime he had been accused of: intending to stir up racial hatred. The prosecution claimed multiple times that Sam had no intention to threaten anybody, commit “hate speech” or do anything illegal. The following two quotes are from the prosecution’s own opening statement:
“The defendant claimed in one exchange on Telegram that he was careful to keep a tight control on what stickers were published under the auspices of the Hundred Handers group, or which bore the Hundred Handers logo, so as to avoid the risk of someone else creating or posting stickers which potentially linked to his operation, but which were overtly threatening or illegal.” “…and he made clear that he wanted to avoid anything that was openly “fascistic, threatening, or hate speech”
When the prosecution’s “expert witness” was called – a far left academic activist who writes for the far-left gossip rag, Searchlight Magazine – he was asked why people on the right may use stickers to spread their message. The “expert witness” responded by saying “to spread a message, recruit people, to start conversations, etc.” The prosecution then responded by adding, “and they could be used to threaten, couldn’t they?”, to which the “expert witness” responded “yes”.
The jury were advised by the judge during the trial, if they were 99% sure that Sam was guilty, they should vote not guilty, so let’s look at the evidence of Sam intending to incite racial hatred vs the evidence of him not intending to.
Sam’s defence evidence
- The Hundreds Handers archive contained a rule which advised not to put the stickers on any private property, and not to put them anywhere where they could be considered threatening or intimidatory
- There were multiple streams played of Sam saying publicly that he had no intention to incite hatred and the stickers were created to raise awareness and start a conversation
- In the Hundred Handers change log, Sam removed sticker number 188 because it bordered on incitement. The log read: “01/09/19 – Addition of 13 new stickers. Removal of #0188 as it bordered on incitement, it’s use is not condoned by the Hundred-Handers.”
- Sam archived each sticker with its own personal number, writing in the archive that he had done this so that nobody could create any illegal or threatening stickers and link them to him, as that kind of language is not condoned
- There were multiple private and public messages from Sam, dating back many years, stating that the Hundred Handers was created to raise awareness and spread a message and that there was no intention to cause hatred or violence
This is all clear evidence of Sam stating, publicly and privately, that he had no intention to incite hatred, the crime he was being accused of.
There was not a single piece of evidence indicating that Sam intended to incite racial hatred.
Circumstantial evidence
So what evidence did the prosecution rely upon?
They referenced a picture of Adolf Hitler in a garage that Sam and his friends rented to exercise in during the Covid-19 lockdown. The picture of Hitler was a funny picture placed in an amusing position.
They referenced a book written by and a canvas featuring Sir Oswald Mosley. Both were owned by Laura, who admitted to this in her testimony.
After looking through Sam’s entire message history dating back many years, they found four examples of slurs, averaging at one per year. None of these words were said to anybody of another race but were communicated in private messages, mostly in humour.
Other Points to Note
The prosecution brought up stickers during the trial that were not part of the Hundred Handers project, and then admitted they made a mistake and they weren’t part of the project and had nothing to do with Sam.
The prosecution brought up two articles about razor blades behind stickers, and then admitted they’d had no police reports about razor blades behind HH stickers and no proof that this had happened at all.
The police admitted there had been zero incidents of crimes being reported (or hatred being incited) that related to the stickers.
The jury were asked to consider all 310 stickers in the archive and whether the archive in whole was considered to be incitement to racial hatred. In his closing statement, the defence barrister revealed that over 80% of the stickers didn’t mention other races, religions or ethnicities, or even reference words like “multiculturalism” and “diversity”, seemingly making it impossible that the archive in whole could be considered incitement to racial hatred.
Support Campaign
Over the last few years, Sam and Laura have worked tirelessly for PA, despite having this court case hanging over their heads. Now Sam has been found guilty, it is likely he will serve a custodial sentence. As such, PA is launching a campaign to raise money to allow Sam and Laura to go away for a week as a family before the date of Sam’s sentencing.
The campaign can be found here:
https://www.givesendgo.com/sammelia
Finally Sam may have been the one in the dock throughout the past eight days, but it is the wider community of nationalists who are in the gun sights of the British State. Our people are under relentless attack from the globalists who seek to replace us with a flood of migrants. Those of us in Patriotic Alternative who defiantly resist this programme of demographic replacement are all in the frame.
We cannot allow that to happen and we must stand together as one to resist our wholesale removal.
We stand with Sam. We are all Sam today.
