Twitter joke trial
| Chambers v Director of Public Prosecutions | |
|---|---|
| Court | High Court of Justice (Queen's Bench Division) |
| Full case name | Paul Chambers v Director of Public Prosecutions |
| Decided | 27 July 2012 |
| Citation | [2012] EWHC 2157 (QB) |
| Transcript | High Court transcript |
| Case history | |
| Appealed from | Doncaster Magistrates' Court |
| Court membership | |
| Judges sitting |
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| Case opinions | |
| The message was not objectively menacing; the conviction was therefore quashed. | |
| Keywords | |
R v Paul Chambers (appealed to the High Court as Chambers v Director of Public Prosecutions), popularly known as the Twitter Joke Trial, was a United Kingdom legal case centred on the conviction of a man under the Communications Act 2003 for posting a joke about destroying an airport on Twitter, a message which police regarded as "menacing". The conviction in the Magistrates' court was widely condemned as a miscarriage of justice, but was upheld on appeal to the Crown Court. Chambers appealed against the Crown Court decision to the High Court, which ultimately quashed the conviction.