Helen Clark former Labour MP guilty of using threatening words and behaviour.

Helen Clark gets off with a slap across the wrist...A former Labour MP has been given a conditional discharge after being found guilty of using threatening words and behaviour to hotel bar staff.

She has also been charged £800 in court costs.

Helen Clark, who represented Peterborough between 1997 and 2005, was convicted after a two-day trial at Peterborough Magistrates' Court.

Clark, who had denied any offence, was found not guilty of being drunk and disorderly.

Prosecutors alleged that Clark, a 54-year-old former English teacher, lost her temper after bar staff refused to serve her more alcohol in the Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, during the afternoon of Sunday June 15, 2008.

The court heard that Clark, her husband Alan and a friend had been drinking from around midday to around 5pm while discussing politics.

Clark told the court that she had downed "in the order of" a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. But she denied being drunk and denied calling a barmaid "Portuguese b*tch".

Part of the episode was filmed on a barmaid's mobile phone - and footage was shown in court. In the film, Clark was seen holding her head in her hands and screaming and shouting. The court was told the mobile phone footage later appeared on the internet site YouTube.

District Judge Nicholas Leigh-Smith said prosecutors had not proved Clark was drunk and disorderly but had proved she was guilty of using threatening words and behaviour.
Judge Leigh-Smith said Clark had had a "preoccupation with self and self-image".

He added: "I am satisfied the behaviour on the whole was threatening and abusive. It was certainly disorderly. Mrs Clark was clearly out of control."

**Quite how society is going to promote responsible drinking when we have feral former Labour MP's running about the place, abusing Portuguese staff and firing off the C word I don't know? 

Then she showed her contempt of the police with her pig comments, she was a past chairman of a parliamentary all-party police group and so escaped very lightly; a case of the Lord Ahmed style justice that is doled out to members and former members of the ruling elite.

According to the police she became angry when arrested at her house in Peterborough and told officers: “I remember in the Seventies when police were referred to as ‘pigs’. “That’s what you all are – pigs. Look, everyone, I’m being arrested by the pigs.”

Her videoed diva strop which was captured on film would have been worthy of Naomi Campbell and she did her best by attempting to get that removed from Youtube. Thankfully another site has it here, so her censorship efforts were sadly doomed to failure.

 

Although I feel what would really have made my day and also shown that ex-MP's are not above the law would have been for her to be served with an ASBO, maybe barring her from the towns drinking establishments for a year as part of that.

One mildly humourous point is that she threw her rant in the Old Soke Bar, quite an apt name.

Bar staff have a hard enough job to do at the best of time, they certainly do not need the antics of uncivilzed former MP's to deal with as well.

After all if it is good enough for the knuckle dragging thug from the local sink estate it should be good enough for diva strop throwing former Blair babes.

Think on this had she not been a "respected member of the community" would she have escaped so easily for this sort of language:

 “Who is the bitch giving orders... you, you, calling me drunk?”

Plus this nice remark to a member of the wholesale staff: “Don’t patronise me... f*** off.”

I am sure that should anyone else be up before the Justices the following terms of enderment would have had them slapped down for racial abuse:

 “The bitch couldn’t speak English who denied serving me... that Portuguese bitch... she couldn’t speak English properly.
“She doesn’t know how to deal with complaints... why can’t you serve me? Why? You bitch. You can’t even speak English.”

One rule for the plebs and another for the New Labour "elite"

Final amusement is that she is not giving up, Clark's lawyer Andrew Cave said she has lodged an appeal against the verdict.

Previous posts: here, here, here, here and finally here.

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