Protester who harassed Anna Soubry handed suspended sentence

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/22/protester-who-harassed-anna-soubry-handed-suspended-sentence

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Self-styled yellow vest protester James Goddard has been handed a suspended prison sentence and banned from an area around parliament for hurling abuse at the remain-supporting MP Anna Soubry. The pro-Brexit campaigner, 30, was filmed calling the former Conservative a Nazi and a traitor outside the Houses of Parliament in December and January.

Goddard was sentenced to eight weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for a year, on Monday after pleading guilty to one charge of using disorderly behaviour with intent to cause Soubry harassment, alarm or distress.

He was also handed a five-year restraining order banning him from contacting Soubry, told he cannot enter an area including Parliament Square, College Green, the Palace of Westminster, Portcullis House and Downing Street, and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

Goddard was ordered to pay Soubry £200 in compensation, £215 in other court costs, as well as another £200 compensation to a Lithuanian police officer after admitting a separate racially aggravated public order offence towards him.

The chief magistrate, Emma Arbuthnot, who had already indicated that Goddard would not be sent to jail, said his protest group had acted “like a pack pursuing its prey”. “What is striking from the video is how long this goes on for. It was a sustained and relentless tirade,” she said. “You say you were demonstrating for a political cause you feel passionately about, but at no point do you attempt to engage in a debate. You engage in bullying behaviour.”

The district judge said Soubry had shown “great courage” but was vulnerable because of the circumstances.

Footage played in court showed Goddard wearing a high-visibility vest shouting insults at Soubry, who defected from the Conservatives to join the party now known as Change UK in February.

Another clip captured protesters hurling abuse at her as she made her way into the Palace of Westminster in January after a live television interview in which she struggled to be heard above protesters’ insults.

In a victim impact statement, read in court on Friday, Soubry said she was “really intimidated” and “very shaken by what happened”. “I have developed a mechanism for cutting off large parts of my emotions,” she said. “I was disorientated … I felt intimidated and harassed.”

Dominic Thomas, defending Goddard, said his client had suffered personally since “Ms Soubry has plainly made a case of him”, adding that it had caused Goddard “some difficulty with his daughter and in his home”.

“He has taken onboard, in what can only be described as the full public glare, the fact that he has crossed, so far as the criminal courts are concerned … the line,” he said. “There is another side to Mr Goddard. He is not just a criminal thug as he has been characterised by some.”

Goddard, of Timperley, Greater Manchester, was sentenced alongside 55-year-old Brian Phillips, of Erith, Kent. Phillips was sentenced to four weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for a year, and was handed the same restraining order after pleading guilty to the charge relating to Soubry, a curfew, and ordered to pay £200 in other court costs.