I had my first visit to Court 38 today. If you want to sample it yourself, you have some seven days of hearings left. It’s due to end a week on Friday.
However, Commissioner Mawrey QC, who you have to see in person to appreciate what a class act he is (his asides and put downs are comical), has stated he will make no judgment until shortly after Easter. That could well be mid-April. That means were he to set aside the May 2014 election, a mayoral by election would not take place on General Election day.
Any appeal from Lutfur Rahman on an unfavourable ruling would delay that further, perhaps by a couple of months. There’s no real harm in speculating what might happen in those circumstances but there is already talk about standing a possible unity candidate against Lutfur’s choice (it’s likely he would be barred from standing again). John Biggs vs Rabina Khan perhaps?
But this really is getting ahead of ourselves. The odds at the outset of this hearing were stacked in Lutfur’s favour.
Because this is Tower Hamlets, some of the proceedings are surreal. And with Alibor Choudhury, Lutfur’s election agent in the witness stand, it was a sure bet we’d have a bit of theatre.
For example, mid-afternoon, this piece of evidence was passed to both the judge and Alibor to examine.
This is an official Tower Hamlets First mug. Commissioner Mawrey remarked it was clearly well used as it was chipped.
It was presented to him as evidence that Alibor had arranged for gifts for the 500 or so guests who turned up to a dinner in Canary Wharf’s East Wintergarden in January last year. I reported on it here. Today, we learnt the mug was part of a collector’s dream “party pack” that also included a pen and a brochure. Alibor denied it was a “bribe” to get people to vote for Lutfur. The dinner itself was hosted by Canary Wharf Group, which also paid for the £23,000 of catering provided by the Pride of Asia restaurant. Canary Wharf Group really are very generous aren’t they.
For me, the most interesting allegation against him is the so-called Section 106 charge: ie false statement against John Biggs. There’s decent explanation of it here:
Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 specifies that it is a criminal offence to make or publish a false statement of fact about the personal character or conduct of an election candidate. The purpose of making or publishing this false statement must be seen to be to affect how many votes the candidate will get.
Section 106 thus specifies that, in this offence, it must be a distinct statement of fact as opposed to an expression of opinion or comment about a candidate.
If a defendant can show that he/she has reasonable grounds for believing that the statement was true at the time of publication, then they will not be successfully prosecuted for this offence – even if the statement does turn out to be untrue. This differs from other defamation and libel actions whereby the defendant must prove that the statement is in fact true.
The onus is on the petitioners to disprove that Lutfur or his agent did not reasonably believe John Biggs to be a racist, if that’s what they labelled him. This is difficult to achieve. In other words, it might be untrue that Biggs is a racist but if Lutfur and Alibor Choudhury really thought he was then it would not be an offence.
So much of the cross-examination of Alibor by Francis Hoar over the past two days has centred on a BBC Sunday Politics interview with John Biggs in September 2013. This interview was broadcast a couple of weeks after the EDL had tried to march through the borough. In the broadcast, John referred to Lutfur’s Bangladeshi-only cabinet and suggested the mayor was favouring the Bangladeshi community in his policy-making.
Alibor has told the court this incensed him. He said he wanted to confront him immediately and that he was hearing complaints about these words from residents on the doorstep. He said Lutfur asked him to remain calm and that he instead would write to the general secretary of the Labour Party, Iain McNicol, requesting he tell Biggs to retract his words. Alibor said it was only when McNicol failed to reply that he issued a press release in February 2014, five months later, highlighting the statement and claiming Biggs was out to “divide the East End”.
Francis Hoar, cross-examining, suggested this was a cynical political ploy and wondered why, if there had been such widespread anger at the time of the broadcast, there was not one press article or TV report about it, nor indeed any comments on social media.
The Commissioner also wondered why Alibor, if he was sincere in his anger, had not simply written to Biggs directly. Alibor denied the press releases were politically motivated and that he was merely trying to get John to make a statement. The judge, in a slightly incredulous tone, asked him if he really believed that John, having been the subject of an aggressive press release, would then come back and say “Yes, I’m a racist.”
Shortly afterwards, Alibor exclaimed that “we didn’t start this race war…[it was] the Labour party”.
Really, there is so much on this that you will have to read it for yourselves in the transcript. It won’t disapppoint.
The transcript for Monday’s hearing is here. Alibor began his evidence yesterday and the transcript for that is here.
If you’re reading this on a mobile, you might want to stop now because I’m pasting below a long and unedited extract from yesterday, including line and page numbers. It’s a bit messy, so if anyone has the time to clean it up for me, be my guest and email it to me. Thanks. On the other hand, if you feel this lengthy extract is just too cumbersome for the blogpost, again let me know and I’ll delete it.
ALIBOR (WITNESS): When I saw that, I saw the Sunday Politics show, initially
20 I was more than outraged. Once I had calmed down, I realised
21 what John had done. There was no need for him to say, to pick
22 on the ethnicity of the mayor and his cabinet members. What
23 hurt the most was the lie, the lie that the primary policy
24 focus was Bangladeshi, his Bancroft library, the project for
25 the Bangladeshi community. If I am honest with you, I do not
[Page 3063]
1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 think that many Bangladeshi people use it. Is the Tower
3 Hamlets street pastors a Bangladeshi project, I do not think
4 it is. It belongs to the church. City Gateway belongs to the
5 church. I can go on and on and on about how we have resourced
6 and supported white projects, if you like — although these
7 projects do not, you know, exclusively support and deliver to
8 the white community, but these projects have a focus. And to
9 say that in the context of a lot of racial tension at that
10 time because, remember, the EDL had just marched through our
11 borough two weeks before on the 7th, they had marched through
12 the borough. Britain First had started to send threats to
13 local mosques and threatened through the media, socially media
14 mainly to march and start these — they are not proper
15 christian patrols but they are — that is what they call them,
16 and knowing that there was an election looming, I think that
17 was the wisest and most damaging thing a person in his
18 position of his stature could do. If I had said that, can you
19 imagine, Mr. Hoar, if I had said that about the Jewish
20 community or the black community or the Chinese community,
21 that would received very badly.
22 Q. So, you were and you have said outraged?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. You thought this was extremely divisive?
25 A. Very.
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2 Q. You considered that it was dangerous because the EDL had
3 marched only two weeks beforehand and yet you did nothing
4 about it, save from a private letter from the mayor to the
5 Labour Party for something like five months, yes, five months;
6 that is true, is it not?
7 A. Mr. Hoar, again, it really depresses me to say this. I had to
8 bite my lip for a long, long time. The mayor, who I have a
9 lot of respect for, is a lot wiser than me and a lot maturer
10 than me when it comes to dealing with situations like this.
11 He had written to the general secretary, Iain McNicol, asking
12 him to intervene on this and get John Biggs to retract what he
13 had said. Obviously that had fallen on deaf ears. There was
14 only so much I could do. I knew that if I had asked the mayor
15 if I could write a letter and kind of deal with this myself,
16 he would not necessarily approve.
17 Q. There is a thriving Bengali media, both in Tower Hamlets and
18 nationally, is there not?
19 A. I cannot speak for the national Bangladeshi press, but
20 locally —-
21 Q. A number of newspapers, television channels and so on; that is
22 true, is it not?
23 A. Mr. Hoar, I live in a bit of a bubble so I can only speak for
24 Tower Hamlets.
25 Q. A lot of it is based in Tower Hamlets because of the
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2 concentration of the community in Tower Hamlets?
3 A. I know several media outlets, yes.
4 Q. Yet despite that we hear nothing about that comment by
5 Mr. Biggs in the Bengali media until February, do we?
6 A. That is correct. Because we abided by the mayor’s action on
7 this, his advice and intervention was that we would speak to
8 the Labour Party to get this resolved and we do it quietly and
9 we do it amicably. It clearly did not work and when I am on
10 my campaign trail knocking on doors and having residents say
11 to me, “How could you let this man speak like this divide us
12 and portray this borough as a basket case run by Bengali
13 supremacists, that is an insult to us all”.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Choudhury, a sort of tailpiece to
15 Mr. Hoar’s question is this. He said the Bengali press in
16 Tower Hamlets did not appear to pick this up or say anything
17 about it for several months. I can appreciate your answer
18 that you say, “Well, we did not stir it because the mayor
19 thought it would be sensible not to stir”, that I fully
20 understand. Is it a coincidence that the Bengali press did
21 nothing about this public broadcast, or were they asked, as it
22 were, to tone down any reaction to it?
23 THE WITNESS: All I can say, my Lord, is that the mayor decided to
24 resolve it by having the Labour Party speak to Mr. Biggs about
25 this. There was no media work done on our part and I cannot
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 really speak for why the media did not pick it up themselves,
3 if that is —-
4 Q. So, nobody had a quiet word with the London Bangla saying
5 “cool it”; is that correct?
6 A. I would have to see the article, my Lord.
7 Q. No. If the press does not run something on it, it might be
8 that they have decided all individually that they are not
9 going to touch it?
10 A. It could be possible, my Lord.
11 Q. Or that somebody has said, “Cool it because it does not help
12 us”?
13 A. It could be possible, my Lord.
14 THE COMMISSIONER: Do you think this would be a good time to take
15 a break, Mr. Hoar? It is twenty past three. Shall we say
16 half past three?
17 (A short break)
18 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, Mr. Hoar?
19 MR. HOAR: Mr. Choudhury, before the break we were talking about
20 the media, in particular the Bengali media, after the remarks
21 by Mr. Biggs on the 30th or so of September 2013. In addition
22 to an absence of response in that quarter, there was no
23 response on Twitter and no response on Facebook, was there?
24 THE WITNESS: I cannot account for what happened in social media,
25 Mr. Hoar; but I can tell you that on the doorstep it was
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 definitely being talked about.
3 Q. Certainly nothing has been produced — I appreciate that you
4 are not a party to these proceedings — but certainly no
5 evidence has ever been produced from Twitter or Facebook. You
6 are a not a party but you are the election agent, are you not?
7 A. Sure.
8 Q. Therefore, you know there is a lot at stake in this petition
9 for you as well as for Mr. Rahman; yes?
10 A. (No verbal response)
11 Q. If you had found —-
12 THE COMMISSIONER: Is that correct?
13 THE WITNESS: I understand, my Lord.
14 MR. HOAR: So, if you had been aware of any comments about this
15 remark between that five month hiatus, you would have got them
16 together and given them to K&L Gates, the solicitors to the
17 mayor, would you not?
18 THE WITNESS: Mr. Hoar, for me if there is a tidier way to sort
19 something out, I will use that as my first option. Clearly it
20 did not work. I was still getting feedback from people out in
21 the community, feedback which suggested to me that what John
22 had said on the Sunday Politics show was deeply, deeply
23 offensive. I made it very clear that I would not act
24 spontaneously on a whim and I would, if possible, get a second
25 opinion. And, you know, and I have given you evidence of this
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 already, I sought a second opinion from the EHRC.
3 Q. That is just it, is it not? If, Mr. Choudhury, it was right
4 that this remark had caused outrage, the outrage would be all
5 over Twitter and it would be all over Facebook, would it not?
6 A. Mr. Hoar, it was all my over my brain and that is why I felt
7 I needed to act and I had to bite my lip, because the mayor
8 would not approve of direct confrontation on this matter.
9 Q. You say that people on the doorstep and on the street were
10 outraged by this and they told you so?
11 A. Absolutely.
12 Q. You say that despite the fact, and you say that because this
13 was a comment on a south eastern area BBC broadcast?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. Which had a relatively widespread audience and yet, despite
16 that, nobody thought to put it in the press and nobody thought
17 to complain about it elsewhere, did they?
18 A. Mr. Hoar, I cannot explain the actions of the press. I can
19 explain the social media element because I am not a great fan
20 of social media myself, although I do have Facebook page, and
21 I do use Twitter occasionally, but I am not someone who checks
22 social media on a regular basis, so I cannot confirm anything
23 with regards to that. What I can say is, on a personal level,
24 as in like through my engagement with residents, that people
25 were outraged, very upset and some people just clearly scared
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2 of the consequences. They were just like, “What is going on
3 in this borough? How can we have someone of his stature,
4 someone who is supposed to be representing at least three very
5 diverse boroughs, say something like that and get away with
6 it”.
7 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Choudhury, would you accept that in general
8 the Bangladeshi press in Tower Hamlets is supportive of Mayor
9 Rahman?
10 THE WITNESS: My Lord, the Bangladeshi press, in my view, aim to
11 provide objective news, impartial news, you will see that they
12 cover the mayor as well as prominent members of other parties.
13 If they deliver on something or if there is an activity or
14 even an incident worth reporting, then that is reported.
15 I would not say, my Lord, forgive me if I sound disrespectful,
16 I would not say they were solely promoting the mayor and have
17 any kind of connection in that sense with him.
18 Q. Would it be fair to say that they were in general sympathetic
19 towards the mayor?
20 A. My Lord, for me they are sympathetic to news. If someone is
21 going to deliver news, then they will report that. I do not
22 recall them treating the mayor in any special way. There are
23 stories that are put through the Bengali media are stories
24 where there has been something great delivered or there has
25 been a situation, it is all standard news to me, my Lord.
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 They would do the same for Rushanara Ali and I am sure they
3 have done the same for John Biggs and other prominent members
4 of the Labour Party in Tower Hamlets.
5 MR. HOAR: Any part of the Bangladeshi media, no part of it shows
6 special favour to the mayor, do you say.
7 A. That is my understanding, Mr. Hoar.
8 Q. Did you read the London Bangla on the first Friday of
9 February?
10 A. The first Friday of February?
11 Q. Friday, the 6th or something?
12 A. I cannot remember.
13 Q. Do you remember that the headline —-
14 MR. PENNY: Which year are you talking about?
15 MR. HOAR: This year.
16 THE WITNESS: No, it was not this year, was it, last year.
17 Q. I am talking about this year actually. Do you remember that
18 the headline was anyone who attacks Lutfur Rahman, attacks all
19 British Bangladeshis; do you remember that headline?
20 A. I am sorry, I read a lot of newspapers, mainly non-Bengali, so
21 I cannot say I remember that.
22 Q. Is it fair to say that was more or less sympathetic to Mayor
23 Rahman?
24 A. Mr. Hoar, I cannot explain the motivations of that newspaper.
25 Q. Despite all this, and I suggest that the Bangladeshi media is
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 very much in favour of the mayor, despite all that, nobody
3 thought until you prompted them to put anything on in their
4 newspapers, on their television stations about that comment,
5 nobody thought to do so?
6 A. Mr. Hoar, just for clarity, I did not want to go about
7 challenging Mr. Biggs for his actions in this way. It was not
8 me that went on the Sunday Politics show and blurted out
9 things that would be hurtful, insulting and very, very
10 damaging for our community. He was given a chance. Iain
11 McNicol failed to act. I then spoke to the Equalities and
12 Human Rights Commission who, at the time, agreed with me and
13 said I should refer this matter to the police because it could
14 be tantamount to incitement of racial hatred —-
15 Q. We will get to that.
16 A. Mr. Hoar, I did not do that. I will tell you why later.
17 Q. We will get to that. But the point is, that is not the
18 question, is it? Because I accepted that they did make a
19 complaint when you prompted them, a lot of people did. We can
20 see, if you wish, the press headlines that that generated, but
21 it was generated by you, the outrage was generated by Tower
22 Hamlets First and, most of all, it was generated by you and
23 the press released you had authorised, was it not?
24 A. For the record, Mr. Hoar, I acted very independently and, as
25 I have said earlier, I know that the mayor would not have
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 approved of what I did. I knew that I could not act with a
3 Tower Hamlets First hat on, I had to act as Alibor Choudhury
4 the outraged British Bengali who had heard someone very
5 responsible in this community say something super-destructive.
6 Q. You were happy to e-mail Mr. Biggs on occasion in this period,
7 were you not?
8 A. Yes, I know. I asked him to retract his comments —-
9 Q. You did that and we can see it at 878 of file F, you did that
10 on 28th February, did you not?
11 A. That is correct, Mr. Hoar.
12 Q. Neither you, nor the mayor, nor anybody anyone else in your
13 team thought to e-mail Mr. Biggs before 28th February, some
14 five months after this broadcast; that is right, is it not?
15 A. Mr. Hoar —-
16 THE COMMISSIONER: Is it right?
17 THE WITNESS: That is correct.
18 MR. HOAR: Thank you.
19 THE WITNESS: There is an explanation, my Lord, if you will let me
20 explain.
21 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes.
22 THE WITNESS: My Lord, we had different options to us. We could
23 have gone to the press straightaway, but we did not. The
24 mayor chose in a calm way to deal with this. His action was
25 to go to the General Secretary of the national Labour Party
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 and ask him to intervene. That did not get us anywhere. That
3 was done a month after or several weeks after. We sat on it
4 for a long hoping that John Biggs would see the error of his
5 ways. He refused. Then I went to the EHRC. Then I asked
6 John by e-mail to retract what he said. He did not even have
7 the courtesy or the decency to at least acknowledge my e-mail
8 and say “I have received it, I will deal with it”.
9 Q. Is it your evidence, Mr. Choudhury, that you entertained
10 serious expectations that Mr. Biggs or his superiors in the
11 Labour Party would retract what he had said on the Sunday
12 Politics show?
13 A. My Lord, the bare minimum that I expected was a
14 acknowledgement that this would be investigated properly and
15 there would be a formal response to what Mr. Biggs had done on
16 the Sunday Politics show.
17 MR. HOAR: Another of the comments you made in your answer to my
18 Lord was this. You were hoping that John Biggs would have the
19 decency to retract his comments. Why not ask him,
20 Mr. Choudhury, directly, directly?
21 THE WITNESS: Mr. Hoar, how would I do that?
22 Q. By e-mailing him?
23 A. I did e-mail him, Mr. Hoar.
24 Q. You did not until 28th February, some five months after the
25 broadcast, did you?
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 A. Mr. Hoar, you are clearly not listening to what I am saying.
3 Q. I am listening.
4 A. I spoke to his superior, the General Secretary of the national
5 Labour Party; how higher can you get?
6 Q. You said in answer to my question: “Why not ask him?”, you
7 said, “I did”. I then asked you, yes, five months later. You
8 did not ask him directly for five months after this broadcast,
9 did you?
10 A. Mr. Hoar, for the third or fourth time, my mayor had decided
11 to take this up with the General Secretary of the national
12 Labour Party and that obviously did not get us anywhere.
13 Q. Mr. Choudhury, for the third or fourth time, why not answer my
14 question?
15 A. I do not know, my Lord.
16 THE COMMISSIONER: Why was the decision taken to go to the Labour
17 Party itself rather than to the person you saw as the
18 principal offender?
19 THE WITNESS: My Lord, if anybody knows Mr. Biggs, he can be very
20 arrogant and he can be very brash. What we did not want was a
21 brush off from Mr. Biggs because we felt, particularly I felt,
22 that what he had done was very serious and he needed to
23 understand the implications or the impact of his action. That
24 is why we went high up the chain to get this resolved; and it
25 did not happen.
[Page 3075]
1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 MR. HOAR: So that we can pin down your answer here, are you
3 suggesting that you did write to John Biggs directly or
4 telephone him before 28th February or are you agreeing with me
5 that you did not?
6 THE WITNESS: Where did you get the impression that I had e –
7 mailed him before —-
8 MR. HOAR: Because you are not answering my question, that is why.
9 I am asking you to answer it.
10 THE COMMISSIONER: Do you accept that you personally did not
11 contact Mr. Biggs personally about this matter until
12 28th February 2014.
13 THE WITNESS: That is correct, my Lord.
14 MR. HOAR: Thank you. Now we can move on, at last. Page 867, the
15 difference —-
16 THE WITNESS: Hold on, please.
17 Q. The difference, Mr. Choudhury, between 19th February and
18 30th September is that 19th February was but three months
19 before the election; is that correct or not?
20 A. It appears to be a fact, Mr. Hoar.
21 Q. That is why you held on to this outrage for five months, is it
22 not?
23 A. No, Mr. Hoar. We could have done a lot more damage, if that
24 is what you think we were trying to do, if we had gone to
25 Tower Hamlets straightaway.
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Choudhury, I wonder if you could answer
3 this. Page 86& appears to be dated 19th February 2014.
4 THE WITNESS: Correct.
5 Q. It is a press release that is, let us put it neutrally,
6 critical of Mr. Biggs. What purpose did you think it served
7 nine days later to send him on e-mail asking him to retract;
8 by this time you had gone public? Did you really expect in
9 answer to your 28th February e-mail that John Biggs would
10 reply saying, “It is a fair cop, I retract everything”?
11 A. My Lord, I would have appreciated a response at least.
12 Q. Why should he respond when you have gone public with this
13 press release?
14 A. My Lord, the intention was to do a bit more than this. If
15 I am perfectly honest, the EHRC actually recommended that I go
16 to the police. I could have gone to the police and reported
17 him for incitement of racial hatred and we would be in a very
18 different place today, if that had happened.
19 MR. HOAR: Would we?
20 THE WITNESS: There would be a police report, would there not?
21 Q. Would we? You think he is guilty of incitement to racial
22 hatred?
23 A. I am not the police —-
24 Q. Are you accusing him of that criminal offence?
25 A. I cannot pre-empt that, Mr. Hoar, can I?
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2 Q. Is it your opinion?
3 A. Can I pre-empt that, Mr. Hoar? I do not think it would be
4 proper to comment —-
5 Q. You can give your opinion. Because, Mr. Choudhury, for this
6 reason: because the only basis on which you could possibly
7 accuse Mr. Biggs of incitement to racial hatred is that
8 comment; so, you can give your opinion to this court about
9 whether he was guilty of it. Please do so.
10 A. Mr. Hoar, as you have prompted me, I believe what he did was
11 hugely damaging, it was wrong on many levels and he should
12 have corrected the information that I put out in the public
13 domain. He clearly did not do that. He felt this was
14 something trivial, something that he could brush off,
15 something that he clearly thought would not really be
16 considered as damaging for this community.
17 THE COMMISSIONER: I do not think, Mr. Choudhury, you have
18 actually answered my question. That is this. Why do you send
19 the e-mail on 28th February, demanding a retraction in effect,
20 when you have already gone public with the press release about
21 Mr. Biggs? Surely the time to approach him for a retraction
22 is before the press release so that you can say, “I put it to
23 Mr. Biggs, he has retracted and he is terribly sorry”, or
24 alternatively, “I put it to Mr. Biggs and he told me to take a
25 running jump”. Either way, one would have expected this to
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 happen before you go public. I cannot understand,
3 Mr. Choudhury, and I would be grateful if you would explain,
4 what the point is nine days after the press release writing to
5 Mr. Biggs when you know either you are not going to get an
6 answer at all or you are going to get an unfavourable answer?
7 THE WITNESS: Thank you, my Lord. It was always our intention to
8 use Iain McNicol to try and address this. So, if his Labour
9 Party superior would get him to apologise or at least to
10 respond to us, then that would have been the ideal situation.
11 As I said earlier, my Lord, I was considering police action.
12 I was considering reporting him to the police for what he said
13 on the Sunday Politics show, based on the advice that
14 I received from the EHRC. Now, before I took that step, which
15 I did not take in the end, I wanted him to apologise or at
16 least explain, my Lord, why he ended up doing what he did on
17 the Sunday Politics show and causing so much discomfort for
18 the Bangladeshi community and for everyone really. It was not
19 really the Bangladeshi community, people were appalled across
20 the spectrum.
21 Q. If that is right, Mr. Choudhury, why did you not ask him to
22 explain, before issuing a press release, condemning him for
23 what he said on the Sunday Politics show? If he had come up
24 with an explanation, then it might have been different. Why
25 fire first and then ask him for an explanation. I simply do
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 not understand this, Mr. Choudhury; unless, of course, the
3 e-mail of 28th February is, as it were, intended for the
4 record, rather than intended for a sensible reply?
5 A. My Lord, so I am clear, there was no political motivation for
6 doing this. He clearly did something which insulted not just
7 myself but a lot people. In hindsight, I will agree with you,
8 my Lord, it would have been wiser for me to e-mail him. But
9 it is clear that there needed to be impetus, there needed to
10 be something that would stimulate a response from Mr. Biggs.
11 Maybe I have got it wrong, maybe tactically I did something
12 which in hindsight —-
13 MR. HOAR: Tactically, Mr. Choudhury, you were very clever. Do
14 you agree or not? I suggest you were very clever, tactically.
15 A. I wish I was.
16 Q. I suggest that you are very clever indeed, Mr. Choudhury, and
17 you know it. “Pressure was today mounting”, that is the first
18 line of the body of the message. Pressure by whom, and why
19 today, on 19th February 2014?
20 A. I thought I had already explained that, Mr. Hoar. Pressure
21 from out in the community.
22 Q. “Pressure was today mounting”. There was no pressure, other
23 than from you and the broadcast you had kept for five months,
24 was there?
25 A. If the insinuation is, Mr. Hoar, that I held off so I could
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 use —-
3 Q. Yes, that is the insinuation.
4 A. Can I finish, sir — for some political advantage, then you
5 are totally wrong.
6 Q. You are — go on.
7 A. The purpose of this is to get accountability. I am sure they
8 would do the same thing if we had made a similar statement.
9 So, it was for accountability purposes.
10 Q. If they had done it, they probably would have done it
11 straightaway, rather than five months later. Can I take you
12 to your quotes, please, Mr. Choudhury? “Councillor Choudhury
13 said”, second sentence, “‘Secondly, John may want to think of
14 me as a foreigner, but I was born here and am as British as he
15 is’.” You were accusing Mr. Biggs of racist thoughts at least
16 in that, were you not, by thinking of you as a foreigner,
17 despite being a British man?
18 A. Mr. Hoar, what he did on the Sunday Politics show, for me — I
19 am not going to deny this — there is a sliding scale of
20 racism for me. On one end, you have smears and at the other
21 you have institutional racism. For me, what he did, that act,
22 was racist.
23 Q. You say that his comments were gleefully used as propaganda by
24 the EDL, and you say later: “Biggs’ slogan is uniting the
25 East End, but with far right patrols on our streets and bomb
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 threats to the town hall and East London Mosque, his remark is
3 doing the opposite.” If that was not stirring up trouble by
4 equating his remarks to bomb threats and far right patrols,
5 what is?
6 A. Mr. Hoar, what I said there was a statement of fact. These
7 events occurred soon after his unwise comments on the Sunday
8 Politics show. I have just stated the facts.
9 Q. In your complaint to the EHRC, which was and was intended to
10 be part of —-
11 THE COMMISSIONER: Have I heard any evidence about far right
12 patrols on the streets or bomb threats to the town hall and
13 East London Mosque after the broadcast?
14 MR. HOAR: No, my Lord, we have not.
15 THE COMMISSIONER: I thought not.
16 MR. PENNY: There are documents produced by witnesses from whom
17 you have heard evidence in relation to it.
18 THE COMMISSIONER: After the broadcast?
19 MR. PENNY: Well —-
20 THE COMMISSIONER: We can look them up.
21 MR. PENNY: You have the speech from Tommy Robinson — it is
22 7th September, though — and the text of it.
23 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. But that is the EDL March. We have had
24 that; it has gone.
25 MR. HOAR: It is not bomb threats, is it?
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 THE COMMISSIONER: There we are.
3 THE WITNESS: Sorry, my Lord, may I speak?
4 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, of course.
5 THE WITNESS: My Lord, I produced — I think it is somewhere in
6 the bundle — I produced a letter from the Council, to
7 basically confirm that there was an evacuation because they
8 received a suspicious package and we were all evacuated and
9 the emergency services got involved, et cetera, et cetera. As
10 for the bomb scare at East London Mosque, it was widely
11 reported in the media, mentioned in (unclear), and I
12 understand that that has also been provided; so, the sequence
13 of events which spring from what Mr. Biggs has said.
14 MR. HOAR: Hang on. Well, you have reported the comments as being
15 on 22nd September and you have reported the bomb threat as
16 being on the 25th. We may have to look that up overnight.
17 What you do say to the EHRC is that “there is a clear appeal
18 to racial prejudice which is equally irresponsible,
19 particularly given the backdrop of tensions around the EDL
20 March which had taken place weeks before the programme and the
21 constant negative press coverage”, and you mentioned that bomb
22 threat. The purpose of that is to imply heavily, is it not,
23 that John Biggs’ remarks were responsible for that bomb threat
24 and those comments?
25 A. Mr. Hoar, I was not making those comments flippantly. They
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 were very serious comments, and the aim of going public with
3 those comments is to highlight the danger and the risk of
4 behaving in such a way.
5 Q. If they were serious, you would have made them at the time,
6 would you not?
7 A. They were made soon after, Mr. Hoar.
8 Q. If you were serious about those comments, they would have been
9 made at the time, would they not?
10 A. They were made, Mr. Hoar, roughly about that time.
11 Q. Roughly about that time? Right.
12 A. You might want to check that.
13 THE COMMISSIONER: Mr. Choudhury, I will be corrected if I am
14 wrong here, but I seem to recall that Mr. Rahman said that
15 this press release had been drafted by you.
16 A. That is correct, my Lord.
17 Q. And it was?
18 A. Yes, it was.
19 THE COMMISSIONER: Thank you.
20 MR. HOAR: Now, did you show it to the Mayor before you sent it
21 out?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Are you sure about that?
24 A. Unfortunately, yes.
25 Q. Why? He racked you over the coals for it, did he; told you
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 off for sending it out, did he?
3 A. Let’s say he was not best pleased.
4 Q. He was not best pleased. All right.
5 THE COMMISSIONER: Forgive me, Mr. Choudhury, as I understand it,
6 your explanation of the apparent gap between the broadcast
7 and, as it were, the press release was that the Mayor had said
8 that, as it were, going public was not an appropriate way to
9 deal with it. I fully understand that as an answer. But
10 given that this press release is going public, one would have
11 thought that you would have said to the Mayor, “I think we
12 ought to go public on this. You have been soft-pedalling for
13 five months. Let’s go public.” But you do not seem to have
14 run this past the Mayor; is that right?
15 A. Yes, my Lord.
16 THE COMMISSIONER: There we are.
17 MR. HOAR: So, despite the fact that Mr. Rahman was very upset
18 with you for sending out this press release, you were still
19 happy to send out another one on 15th April — you can find it
20 at page 887 — in which you quote from Mayor Lutfur Rahman
21 himself? That is a bit funny, is it not?
22 A. Not really, Mr. Hoar. It was done a good two months after.
23 Obviously, by then, the Mayor was aware of what I had done.
24 What did not help was the unresponsiveness from Mr. Biggs and
25 the Labour Party.
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 THE COMMISSIONER: You were in the middle of an election campaign,
3 Mr. Choudhury. Did you really expect, in the middle of an
4 election campaign, that Mr. Biggs was going to accept any
5 claims which you made, or, indeed, vice versa?
6 A. Forgive me if I sound naive, my Lord, but I thought that was
7 serious enough to at least prompt a response. Whether he
8 would outright apologise would be pushing it a bit, but I know
9 that we deserved a response or an explanation as to why he did
10 what he did.
11 MR. HOAR: The thing is, though, you are not naive at all; you are
12 a very shrewd political operator, Mr. Choudhury, if I may say
13 so. You can thank me for that or disparage me for that
14 comment, as you wish. Is that fair: are you a shrewd
15 political operator?
16 A. I would not describe myself that way, Mr. Hoar. You would
17 find that my colleagues and those that know me would not share
18 that view.
19 Q. You would not share the view?
20 A. Would not share your view, I meant. Sorry.
21 Q. It is not my view. It is a question. I am suggesting that
22 you are a shrewd political operator.
23 A. Mr. Hoar, I would say that I am someone who tries his best to
24 do good by the community that elected me into office and
25 someone who is not fallible. I mean, I make mistakes.
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 Q. Except, you are not such a shrewd political operator when you
3 lose your rag; and you did that on 26th February, did you not,
4 when you said, at a full Council meeting, “Oswald Mosley had
5 his blackshirts. John Biggs has his black cardigans”? You
6 agree you made that remark; you have accepted it in your
7 witness statement.
8 A. Regretfully, yes.
9 Q. Why do you say “regretfully”? You have just accused
10 John Biggs of incitement to racial hatred. Why do you regret
11 contrasting him to Oswald Mosley?
12 A. Because I offended a colleague of mine, who at the time was
13 mourning the death of her ex-husband, and it was clearly
14 stupid and insensitive of me to use those words. I mean,
15 I was not aware at the time of her mourning, but —-
16 THE COMMISSIONER: Is the suggestion, therefore, that if this lady
17 had been wearing a black cardigan purely as a fashion
18 statement, your comment would have been justified?
19 A. My Lord, I have no —-
20 Q. Is the only thing wrong with it that the lady was in mourning,
21 in other words?
22 A. My Lord, it was a spontaneous comment, and I have obviously
23 since understood the seriousness of what I have said and made
24 an apology, a full apology, to my former colleague,
25 Anne Jackson.
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 MR. HOAR: It sounds like that is a “yes”, does it not? You
3 regret saying it about Councillor Jackson; you regret nothing
4 else about the comment; that is correct, is it not?
5 A. I said the comment in the context of division. Now, when it
6 came to my mind — and like I said, it was a spontaneous
7 reaction from me, maybe not the wisest — I thought of
8 Oswald Mosley as a divisive character, and I could compare
9 that division or the act of trying to divide communities with
10 what Mr. Biggs had been doing.
11 Q. So, you do think it is appropriate to compare John Biggs to
12 the fascist leader Oswald Mosley, who led race riots in the
13 East End of London? You do, do you not?
14 A. Let’s not over-egg it, Mr. Hoar.
15 Q. It is not over-egging it.
16 A. Let’s keep it simple. I am saying to you that Oswald Mosley,
17 for me, clearly was an unpleasant person, was someone who was
18 clearly divisive. What John had done, and what John continued
19 to represent for me — because he clearly had no remorse for
20 what he said on the Sunday Politics show or said anywhere
21 else — said the same thing, really.
22 Q. This is John Biggs, who has spent his entire political career
23 fighting racism, including voluntarily going to Barking and
24 Dagenham, campaigning against the BNP there, campaigning
25 against Derek Beacon, campaigning against racism, and you
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1 ALIBOR CHOUDHURY – HOAR
2 think it is appropriate to call him an Oswald Mosley, do you,
3 Mr. Choudhury?
4 A. Mr. Hoar, have you seen him out campa