Protesters who shouted ‘Tory scum’ at Sir Iain Duncan Smith WON’T face retrial after being acquitted of harassing the former Conservative Party leader

• Radical Haslam and Ruth Wood were previously acquitted of harassing Sir Iain

The protesters who shouted ‘Tory scum’ at Sir Iain Duncan Smith will not face a retrial after the pair were acquitted of harassing the former Conservative party leader.

Radical Haslam, from Salford, and Ruth Wood, from Cambridge, were previously acquitted of allegations of using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress against the MP for Chingford and Woodford Green.

At a trial last year, Sir Iain said he was subjected to a ‘cacophony of sound’, a banging drum, abuse and insults, as he walked from the Midland Hotel to the Mercure Hotel, in Manchester city centre, on October 4 2021, during the Conservative Party conference.

Sir Iain also told Manchester Magistrates’ Court he felt the term ‘Tory scum’ was an ‘appallingly abusive piece of language’.

But the High Court has today rejected the attempt to overturn the duo’s acquittal, ruling that Haslam and Wood were ‘reasonable’ and within their freedom of expression rights when they made the remark.

A third suspect – former Greenpeace activist Elliot Bovill, 32 – accused of hitting Sir Iain with a traffic cone was also acquitted last year due to a lack of evidence. 

Acquitted: Radical Haslam (left), 29, of Salford, Ruth Wood (centre), 51, of Cambridge and ex-Greenpeace activist Elliot Bovill (right), 32, leaving Manchester Magistrates’ Court in November 2022

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith (pictured) was ‘astonished’ after protesters who harangued him and his wife as ‘Tory scum’ walked free from court

Acquitting Haslam and Wood, chief magistrate Judge Paul Goldspring said using that phrase in the context of them targeting Sir Iain as they followed him was ‘both insulting and pejorative, and I don’t accept that that wasn’t their intention’.

But he accepted that this behaviour was ‘reasonable’ in the context of Articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act – the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly and association.

The judge said: ‘The courts do not criminalise free speech. The Crown has not shown me it is proportionate to criminalise those words.’

But he stressed that his decision that the use of the words ‘Tory scum’ was not criminal was only relevant to ‘this court, in this case, on this evidence’ and ‘could not be applied to other contexts.’

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) brought a legal challenge against the decision at the High Court, arguing at a hearing in October that Judge Goldspring’s decision was ‘unreasonable’ and the protesters should face a retrial.

But in a ruling today, Lord Justice Popplewell and Mr Justice Fordham dismissed the CPS’s bid.

Giving the decision, Mr Justice Fordham said there was ‘no misdirection in law’.

He added: ‘The judge’s approach, reasoning and conclusion on the proportionality question involved no error.

‘The judge had very well in mind the context and circumstances.’

Mr Justice Fordham continued: ‘Importantly, there was no finding of using ‘threatening words’ or of ‘threatening behaviour’, nor indeed of using abusive words or of abusive behaviour, nor of using insulting behaviour.’

Sir Iain Duncan Smith (centre) leaving Manchester Magistrates Court with his wife Betsy (right) and Primrose Yorke (left) after giving evidence in the trial of Elliot Bovill on November 14, 2022

Wood, who manages a project for a homelessness charity, previously told the Manchester Magistrates’ Court that ‘there was nothing particularly threatening about what we were doing.’

Haslam, who said he was a general artist and student, added he saw it as an ‘opportunity to have my voice heard’.

Sir Iain, following the acquittal last year, highlighted how the incident took place just 11 days before fellow Tory MP Sir David Amess was murdered by an Islamist terrorist, which prompted calls for politicians’ security to be stepped up.

He said that in stark contrast, the acquittals meant ‘every MP and public servant is now fair game’.

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