I'm sure I read it on one of the news reports.

He may well be lowlife - but some people may think it a sad sign of the times that simply being offensive is a criminal offence.

Bet he thought it would be sick innit in frot of the blood down the endz - somehow I don't think even the roughest of nasty crims would share his amusement at this terrible crime. I'd say he's going to feel mighty stupid and also going to feel a lot of pain from the assults he will suffer.

I'd be interested to know what he wrote, if only for comparison to some of the sick st i've read from the people who want Bridger hung.

Before facebook and twitter people told sick jokes, some people laughed at them others didn't.

Nobody went to court and the media didn't get themselves all excited over it.

If I made a comment on here or on facebook about want to see Bridger hung from a lamppost people will agree with me or ignore it.

I wonder what the response to a gag about the poor child would be or perhaps me saying something bad about her family on here or another social network?

Neither thing is in good taste but our new media liberal society casually turns a blind eye to the bad taste stuff that it agrees with. The way things are heading using Twitter, facebook or forums will be against the law because holding views that disagree with the majority already seems to be.

So telling a joke in poor taste deserves an assault, but wishing pain or death on someone wholly unconnected to you who has done something that didn't touch your life is entirely appropriate?

Double standards?

The British police stitch people up all the time.
Remember the Birmingham 6. Or how about Hillsborough?
And in Wales we have the horrendous Lynette White stitch up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Lynette_Whi...

A joke is always going to be funny to someone. Just because you thinks its "out of order", doesn't mean it is, whatever the topic.

Said this before so going to say it again, there is not and never has been constitutionally protected freedom of speech in this country EXCEPT at speakers corner.
There has only been accepted lattitude to say some stuff and not other stuff depending on the period of history.

Its time that was changed and codified imho!

Also, re. people talking about there 'always being sick jokes' etc - well yes, that's true, but the people who told them generally told them to people they knew would find them funny. On Twitter you're telling them to the entire world regardless. Any newspaper with a similar reach and circulation wouldn't dare print that sort of thing or put it on their website so I can't see it being in Twitter's interest to allow that sort of thing.

And again, that's not 'curtailing free speech', it's encouraging discretion. No-one's stopping people saying things, but perhaps they shouldn't be saying them quite so publically.

Same goes for the press in the aftermath of Leveson. The Press Compaints Commission's differentiation between 'public interest' and 'the interest of the public' needs codifying asap. It'd have the side-effect of strengthening good journalism too - corrupt companies trying to threaten newspapers with injunctions wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court, while the gutter-press types who go to any length to get a photo of someone for the sake of it would find themselves out of a job.