Member

I know that it will be suggested in response to my amendment that the underlying behaviour giving rise to alarm in Sections 4A and 5 must be threatening, abusive or insulting for the threshold of the crime to be established. Of course, I agree that threatening or abusive words or behaviour can never be justified, but the reference to insulting in Section 4A is a lower threshold. It potentially catches speech by which some might be offended. It was Lord Justice Sedley who in a famous judgement in 1999 said: