.... James Bide-Thomas, prosecuting, said in his opening address to the jury last month that freedom of speech was "tradition in this country" and "people are entitled to say what they want, as long as it's not illegal in relation to the law which prevents people going out to cause harassment, alarm or distress by insulting behaviour".
He said: "It's for you to decide whether what he did was insulting or whether it was a legitimate piece of freedom of speech being exercised, or whether what he did was deliberately calculated to upset the people from the Islamic Information Centre."
The jury told the judge there was no prospect of them reaching either a unanimous verdict or one on which at least 10 of them agreed. [Local World] Read more
