Not a week goes by that someone gets sacked for saying or doing something stupid, misguided or just out-and-out hateful on the internet; a month ago, a guy lost his job at a Bristol stockbroker for joking on Twitter about committing a hit and run on a cyclist on his way into work. Our minds weren’t so made up about the decision to sack him. On the one hand it’s a shitty thing to joke about, on the other, did it really affect his ability to do his job? This weekend provided us with a couple more clearer-cut cases from the weekend. Over in America, a girl tweeted ahead of her first day at a pizza restaurant, which one of her co-workers-to-be promptly sent to her new boss.
She then tweeted:
And she really did mean the cry-smile emojis, because she later tweeted this to her old boss:
Meanwhile, over in the UK, in a little And over the past few months? Barrister David Osborne has been writing blog posts insisting that as soon as a woman drinks she consents to sex, under such charming titles as 'She Was Gagging For It’.
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His litany of offensive remarks, all carefully typed out to his blog (which sometimes plays host to chapters of his self-published books, which are just as Alan Partridge as they sound) include these gems on rape (warning, they’re pretty horrible):
‘I have always found it distasteful and unattractive the suggestion that as the victim was blind drunk she was therefore unable to give her consent to sex, or more to the point, she gave her consent which she would not have given had she been sober…
'In my book, consent is consent, blind drunk or otherwise, and regret after the event cannot make it rape...If the complainant (I do not refer to her as the victim) was under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or both, when she was “raped”, this provides the accused with a complete defence.’
He later told The Mirror: 'If you get rat-arsed, you're asking for trouble.'
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He also said that multiculturism brings: ‘the overpowering smell of curry and the screams of animals being butchered alive in the back garden,’ and insisted that juries lack importance because they let women, LGBT and poor people in: ‘Today we have a jury of both sexes, Joe, Jane, and even undeclared, swinging both ways, and as important, bringing to the jury box all the gravitas of a comprehensive education, which means they can neither read nor write.’
Obviously, charities for rape survivors have said his statements are 'suggesting the opposite of the law.'
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Though blogging might not be part of Osborne’s job (sorry, we just don’t think he’s making that much money from the serialization of that self-published book), and Osborne isn’t a criminal lawyer (he’ll never adjudicate in a rape case, thank fuck) perhaps, maybe, people like him shouldn’t be able to practice law. After all, he doesn’t seem that interested in living in the 21st century or following what the law, or Alison Saunders, the Director Of Public Prosecutions has advised (to help rape victims come forward). The Bar Standards Board told The Mirror: ‘The BSB does not comment on individual cases.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.