A former Royal Marine who was acquitted of a speech crime by a jury has said he thinks the authorities are trying to “punish” him.
Speaking on GB News Jamie Michael said:
“It was a shock to me after being found not guilty, to find just weeks later on, with the letter from the safeguarding board saying that they felt that their decision to ban me was substantiated, even though that the evidence they looked at in that meeting was incorrect as well.
“They didn’t seem to have even looked at my video. [They] didn’t seem to take into account the court case itself and the acquittal within 17 minutes. None of that was taken into account when they made that decision.
“There was numerous errors in the evidence. The police officer that attended the meeting actually said that the racial element of the charge had got dropped, and that I had been charged with ‘distribution of threatening, abusive and insulting words or images that were likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress.’
“I don’t know where she’s got that from, but there was multiple errors, actually, during my court case as well in the evidence that was submitted the court.
“They actually said that I was still allowed to come and watch my daughter training, but my behaviour would be monitored on the side of the field, and I just thought that was absolutely ridiculous.
“I’ve been coaching there for three years, there’d never been any prior problems leading up to that. They said that I had been a good coach. I was good with the girls and was I pass all the DBS checks.
“Even in the panel meeting that decided that I wasn’t suitable anymore to coach children, all the coaches that knew me there all said good things about me and never once said that there was a problem with myself.
“I think the establishment didn’t really like my decision, because it proves that if you put someone like myself in front of a jury, you’re likely to get that not guilty verdict.
“And now they’re just trying to punish me in other ways, just through the safeguarding board. It’s taken a lot away from me, taken the opportunity to for me to be in football with my daughter.
“I’ve got another daughter that will be coming through soon and she’ll want to be playing football, and that’s taking that away from me.
“I put a lot into football myself. I’ve been an ex kind of semi professional footballer signed from with Manchester United as a kid. I still play for the Welsh veterans now and it’s just a massive overreach.
“To me it feels like they’re acting like spoiled kids that didn’t get their own decision so they’re trying to punish me in other ways.
“I’ve got three operational medals. I’ve being willing to put my life down on the line on multiple times for this country. And then to have so this happened to me. The ironic thing was that I was looking out for the children in the first place. I just wanted to try and a community meeting so that we could try and implement some security on the schools and parks.
“Because last summer, you know, we had the Southport riots. But leading up to that, we had riots in Leeds and Manchester, and I just felt things were getting out of control.
“So the first thing I was thinking about was the kids, how we can keep the kids safe because they were the ones that got attacked in the Southport murders.
“They’re easy targets, kids, so that’s what I was thinking.”
