The CPS has defended its decision to continue the prosecution for posting antisemitic tweets of a former North Yorkshire town mayor now suffering from dementia.
Patricia Marsh, now 78, was not in court to hear the outcome of her trial over a series of tweets she made relating to Israel’s actions in Gaza in 2024 and may not now even know about the case, York Crown Court heard.
At the time she was a member of North Yorkshire Council, and since then her health has deteriorated to the stage where she had been declared mentally and physically unfit to stand trial.
A jury decided she had done the act of distributing written material likely to stir up racial hatred after reading tweets in which she said publicly of Jews: “For a so-called religious group, you are evil” and “you are a disgrace to this world”.
Prosecuting barrister Ashleigh Metcalfe told the jury the state of Israel was different from Jewish people in general and though free speech was allowed in this country, there were limits and stirring up racial hatred exceeded those limits.
After the jury’s decision, the Recorder of York Judge Sean Morris said Marsh, of Harrogate Road, Knaresborough, was now suffering from dementia and if not bed-ridden then she was certainly housebound. He said the only option open to him was to give her an absolute discharge.
“She probably won’t even know about this case or the absolute discharge,” he said.
Throughout every case the CPS has to consider whether it is in the public interest to continue the prosecution, including when a defendant is declared unfit to stand trial.
A CPS spokesman said: “In this case it was determined that, due to the seriousness of the offence and the impact on both the witness who saw the posts and the wider community, the public interest test continued to be met for a trial of fact.
“It is also important to maintain public confidence in the administration of justice, which may be upheld by hearing the evidence of witnesses and the impact of such posts, and seeing how the legal system accommodates accused persons who have serious mental health conditions or disorders.”
The jurors took more than three hours to reach their unanimous finding. They were not asked to decide if Marsh was guilty of an offence as she was unfit to stand trial.
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The judge told them the trial had not been a waste of time.
Because Britain is a plural society, for the safety of everyone the public needed to know there were boundaries that must not be crossed, he said.
And they needed to know that there were consequences to using words to stir up racial hatred, even when defendants were mentally ill.
Had it been a criminal trial, the defendant would have been given a prison sentence, he said.