Griffin escapes contempt verdict
By politics.co.uk staff
BNP leader Nick Griffin was today found not guilty of contempt of court.
The verdict brings the long-running legal battle brought against the BNP by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to a close, much to the chagrin of anti-BNP campaigners.
EHRC lawyers had accused Mr Griffin, along with other party officials Simon Darby and Tanya Lumby, of failing to comply with earlier judgments which found the party still indirectly encouraged discrimination on racial grounds.
But today the High Court dismissed this call, in a result Mr Griffin called “fantastic”.
The EHRC argued that despite the defeat, the case as a whole had still forced the BNP to change its constitution to accept non-white members.
“Today’s judgment makes no difference to the substance of our action against the BNP”, said John Wadham, the EHRC’s leagal director.
“The County Court ruled that the BNP’s constitution was racially discriminatory. That ruling remains in place and has now, finally, been obeyed by the BNP.”
Although Mr Griffin did secure this, a further judgment in March found the amended constitution still discouraged “the indigenous British” from any form of “integration or assimilation” with non-white people.
The EHRC brought the contempt proceedings last month, which Mr Griffin did not attend due to being in hospital “in extreme pain” with kidney stones.
If the verdict had gone against the BNP, then the EHRC were pushing for party assets to be seized.
The result comes as a relief to the party which is thought to be suffering severe financial difficulties and internal strife, since a poor general election performance which saw Mr Griffin comprehensively defeated in his target seat of Barking, by Labour MP Margaret Hodge.
