An East Sussex keyboard warrior has been convicted of harassment after falsely branding a Wirral man a criminal on social media.
Paul Hendry, 59, of Pevensey Bay, East Sussex, denied a charge of harassment, but was convicted at trial at Wirral Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, 2nd August 2023.
He was cleared of a second offence under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003.
Harassment is an offence under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The maximum penalty on summary conviction is 6 months' custody and/or an unlimited fine.
- The defendant pursued a course of conduct;
- The course of conduct amounted to harassment of another person;
- The defendant knew, or ought to have known, that the course of conduct amounted to harassment of another person.
The defendant is guilty of the offence if all three elements are proved beyond reasonable doubt.
The term "harassment" is not specifically defined in the legislation, but section 7(2) of the Act states that: "References to harassing a person include alarming the person or causing the person distress".
The court heard that Hendry runs a website and social media channels under the name of "Art Hostage", where he provides commentary on criminal investigations and law enforcement.
Art Hostage, which has 11,000 Twitter followers and 7,200 YouTube subscribers, came to the attention of Merseyside Police in September 2022 when several posts were made about crime in the force area.
Merseyside Police sent Hendry a cease and desist letter after he made a series of social media posts about the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel. The police were concerned that Hendry's comments would prejudice the investigation and subsequent trial of Olivia's killer, Thomas Cashman.
After a short break in his Art Hostage activities, Hendry quickly resumed posting about crimes on Merseyside. He posted crackpot conspiracy theories about another murder investigation, which led to the assault of a 40-year-old Birkenhead man wrongly implicated in the crime. Hendry falsely accused the man of supplying guns and drugs to criminal gangs and being involved in human trafficking.
On 9th November 2022 the victim contacted Merseyside Police to report that a video falsely naming him as a "high level gangster" had been uploaded on the Art Hostage YouTube channel. The video also gave the man's address and details of his business. In the video Hendry encouraged viewers to "look into" the victim.
Hendry chose to represent himself at trial, denying that the man had been caused any distress because he was "a scumbag criminal". Hendry claimed that he had received information about the man's criminal past from law enforcement sources, even though no such information existed.
Having considered the evidence, the court was of the view that Hendry was guilty of harassment.
He was fined £250 and ordered to pay £660 towards prosecution costs and £100 surcharge.
Hendry was also made subject to a restraining order, which prohibits him from contacting or making online posts about the victim.
Thomas Hanlon of CPS Mersey Cheshire said: "Paul Hendry claims to be a form of crime journalist.
"But his social media posts were nothing but fiction claiming to be fact and caused real problems for those involved.
"He creates this content to raise the profile of his social media and YouTube channels, feeding his ego, reckless as to the collateral damage his content causes and without conducting due diligence on the information received.
"Spurious allegations such as these cause real problems for our communities and ongoing investigations by the police.
"They can also endanger the trial process for the Crown Prosecution Service and the Courts.
"This victim had nothing to do with the crimes Hendry accused him of being connected with. His course of conduct implicating the man with high level organised crime, firearms and drug dealing is criminal and he has now been found guilty."
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