Dean Tate sentenced for racially-aggravated malicious communications to then-MP who defended wrongly-arrested Black woman
Claudia Webbe, the former independent MP for Leicester East, has welcomed the conviction and sentencing of far-right hate-monger Dean Tate (case ref 13LD1323923) at Leeds Magistrates’ Court on a charge of racially-aggravated malicious communications in relation to racist messages he sent to her for defending a wrongly arrested Black woman.
Ms Webbe said:
The words and actions of Dean Tate are an appalling reflection of the growth of racism and misogyny in our country, and I welcome his conviction and sentencing for sending hateful communications.
My ‘crime’ was to defend Jocelyn Agyemang, a Black woman who had been wrongfully arrested in front of her young son over a bus ticket – the police officer, Perry Lathwood, was ultimately convicted of assaulting her.
Because I had spoken out in support of her as an MP at the time, Mr Tate sent me foul racist comments and even dared me to send them to the police, in a clear attempt to intimidate me into silence. His words, while hateful and deeply hurtful, were unsuccessful.
Tragically, the sentiments he expressed are far from the exception that they should be. Ever since I began public service, and even more so as a Member of Parliament, I have been subjected to a significant and constant stream of racist and misogynist abuse, as have other Black and Asian MPs, especially women and especially those on the left.
But all too often, such behaviour goes unpunished and both main political parties have pandered to and even fanned hate for short-term political gain, targeting racialised groups, refugees and the vulnerable to divert from their own political failings, instead of challenging hate and bigotry. These tactics have poisoned our nation, yet no lessons appear to have been learned, as we can see from the new government’s targeting of Bangladeshis.
Criminal prosecution of those using hate speech should be the rule rather than the exception and it should also be a prosecutable offence to incite racial hatred. It’s time for such bigotry to end and I call on the new government to ensure that measures are put into effect as a matter of urgency to achieve it.”
The magistrate said of Tate’s comments to Ms Webbe, at the time MP for Leicester East, that the:
offences are so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified racist nature of offence committed against a Member of Parliament.
Tate’s racist comments that were emailed to Claudia Webbe’s then parliamentary office included:
The only ‘Black History’ in this country is CRIME. Crime and savagery, violent brutal murder, looting, rioting, stabbing, shooting, dealing drugs and fatherless children. Moaning, whinging bastards, quick to play the ‘race’ card and ‘victim’ card. Always victims, never criminals. The eternal victims.
Black people have ruined this country and the Empire Windrush (Crimerush) was the biggest mistake this country ever made, they should have fucking sunk it before it reached England. They only came here for their own gains and benefits.
Tate also taunted her that he ‘could not give a rat’s fucking arse’ if she contacted police about his hate message and cited late anti-immigrant politician Enoch Powell:
Keep this email as evidence and call the fucking police, I could not give a rat’s fucking arse.
The biggest mistake this country ever made was letting people like you into the country. Not needed or wanted. This country was far better without imported blacks. They have ruined this fucking country. The majority of English people did not want them in the country, including me. We had them forced on us. The Rt Honourable John Enoch Powell MBE was 100% correct.
Tate was convicted to two months imprisonment, to run consecutively, for each of two counts of “sending by public communication network an offensive/indecent/obscene/menacing message/matter” on 23 October last year.
Claudia Webbe has been repeatedly targeted by racist comments and threats. Last year, Hasmukh Doshi was sentenced to 28 months in prison for racially-aggravated abuse and harassment toward her and in 2021 Daniel Weavers was convicted of threatening to kill her.
Other Black and Asian MPs have suffered constant racism, especially women on the left of politics. In 2017, Diane Abbott was found by a survey of abuse to be the most abused MP in Parliament. In 2018, current Health Secretary Wes Street left Abbott ‘shell-shocked’ after launching a ‘disgusting’ and ‘disgraceful’ verbal tirade in her face in a Commons corridor after she quoted comments from her local Orthodox Jewish community.
Tate’s reference to Powell shows the impact that politicians’ racist comments can have on the behaviour of some sections of the public. The Labour party, shamefully, pandered to and incited racist narratives up to and during the general election campaign and has continued to do so since entering government – thanks to the fascist Reform ‘party’ despite receiving fewer votes than in either general election under Jeremy Corbyn – in July.
Jocelyn Agyemang, whom Ms Webbe spoke out to defend, was handcuffed by police in Croydon and wrongfully arrested after being falsely accused of failing to buy a ticket for a bus journey. A video of the incident went viral.
Ms Webbe was also granted an indefinite restraining order banning Webbe from any form of direct or indirect contact with her.
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“Tate’s reference to Powell shows the impact that politicians’ racist comments can have on the behaviour of some sections of the public.”
An impact not limited to politicians or individuals such as the individual sentenced in this particular case.
The kind of attitudes producing the offence to which Tate was found guilty of do not occur in a vacuum. Nor are they the product of spontaneous combustion. Powell’s incendiary views from that 1960’s Wolverhampton speech not only echoed the views of Churchill some thirty years earlier* on the hierarchy of races but are repeated in various forms on an almost daily basis by much of what passes for the printed and broadcast media.
From the perspective of legal consistency, if individuals at the level of Tate are to be tried and sentenced on this basis they should not only be joined in the dock and in the jails by many politicians, regardless of rank or status, but also those in the media, both individual and corporate, whose malign influence in this regard far exceeds that of people like Tate – whose reach and influence in disseminating speech and attitudes considered worthy of a custodial sentence is extremely limited in comparison with that of the political and media classes.
Only when those with the greater reach to commit such crimes are pursued as vigorously as those with limited means to commit those legally designated crimes will it be possible to take seriously the pearl clutching hypocrites pick and choose to whom such crimes are applicable.
*In 1937, while speaking in favour of allowing Jews to settle in Palestine, Churchill stated that:
“I do not admit … for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”
One punch In fatty guts would have ended his supremacists guts would have ended his beliefs forever. Good post Dave as usual.
Deserves everything he gets, the imbecile. Be most amusing if he got banged up with a 6′ 8″ name with an irrepressible, undiscerning libido 😙🎶
(You might wanna alter that last paragraph,@skwawky)
Bame…not ‘name’.
I hope he gets a cell in prison with a Black man lets see how racist he is then because there is a lot of black and Asian men in prison
Wow is there??