On Tuesday 25th June 2019, I attended Manchester Magistrates Court to sit in at the trial of James Goddard, one of the content creators on 3Speak. He had told me previously that they were doing a hatchet job on him, and I decided to come along and see for myself.
I took copious notes all day, and wrote pretty much everything down that I could, in my own scrawling shorthand, which to be honest when I came to check the notes later, was a little like trying to read a doctors prescription note whilst sat on a bucking bronco.
Anyway, the point here is that what I saw in the court room was somewhat misrepresented by the British press. And what was very interesting was that this made pretty much EVERY national news outlet in the UK, and even made it into small local newspapers serving towns and cities all across the country.
The question is, with literally hundreds of common assaults taking place every day, why did this get so much media attention? Could it be that James Goddard says things that the establishment don't like? Could it be that he's gained quite a lot of support amongst the northern British working class? Or maybe that he's taken on far leftist groups like Hope Not Hate?
And of course, the court of twitter exploded with the opinions of people who weren't there. In fact, the only people who really know what happened on that day were the 20 or so people who were actually present in the courtroom. Let me be very clear, what was reported was a well spun version of the events that actual did take place.
If you want to see the actual incident, as filmed by the victim himself, you can see it on his Newsflare page:
As always, make up your own mind, question everything, and never trust what you see on the internet.
▶️ 3Speak