Terry Fitzpatrick: guilty of racism

For over a decade Terry Fitzpatrick has waged a race hate campaign against a number of leading Black figures working in race equality, including Unite against Fascism boss, Weyman Bennett, Lee Jasper, Lester Holloway and myself.

Last Friday a jury of his peers at Snaresbrook Crown court found  the racist Fitzpatrick unanimously guilty of racially aggravated harassment charges .

The two week long trial wasn’t without its twist and turns. On the first day of the trial, Fitzpatrick, having been afforded legal aid sacked his barrister and proceeded to defend himself.

With no defence witnesses Fitzpatrick sought to present himself as an anti-racist, bizarrely claiming that the profound racist language used to both Lee Jasper and myself was ‘caustic political banter’.

To complicate matters further, at the eleventh hour, one of the three indictments -one that was direct  attacks against me - could not proceed because the judge ruled that the indictment stated  the harassment was made  towards OBV and not to  me personally even though the emails were directed to me. 

A few days before the Judge had ruled the first indictment could not stand for lack of evidence. Of the initial three charges only one was left. Due to legal technicalities Fitzpatrick may have thought things were going his way. Thankfully the jury had a different view.

Having been found guilty Fitzpatrick will be sentenced later to today.

For many years Terry Fitzpatrick was able to plough his racist trade in the ‘wild west’ of largely unregulated websites and blogs.

His favoured website was ‘Harry’s Place’, where he would spew his bile of race hatred, goading others to do likewise.

It took OBV to bring this case to court before ‘Harry’s Place’ eventually barred Fitzpatrick.

Nevertheless,  racist undertones and sometimes explicit racist comments  still often go unchecked at ‘Harry’s Place’ and many other sites.

This extract was not on any website but emailed to Lee Jasper at his home and copied to us at OBV. It was one exhibit of more than 20. 

This letter demonstrates why we brought the case to court. (Letter).

We have exposed Fitzpatrick for the rabid racist that he his. I hope that this is a warning to both individuals and websites that we will not tolerate racial abuse or threats of violence.

Simon Woolley