On 22 December 2009, Dr Howard Fredrics, American-born Jew and former
Senior Lecturer of Music at Kingston University, London, was convicted
in absentia of harassment against Sir George "Peter" Scott, Vice-Chancellor
of Kingston University for having allegedly operated a website that revealed
evidence of misconduct by the University. The conviction was handed down by
the Kingston Magistrates Court despite a compelling police investigation report
that indicated that there was no evidence that the site contained anything that
could lead to such a charge. (see article in Times Higher Education Supplement
of 7 January 2010 -
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode...).
Dr Fredrics failed to appear in Court on 22 December to answer
charges that by virtue of operating a website,
http://www.sirpeterscott.com since July 2007, he had breached Section 6 of
the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. The Act, which was devised to
deter stalking, was, in this case, applied for the first time ever towards
the dissemination of musical works contained on the website.
In addition to the songs and song parodies that refer to a number of
widely-publicized scandals at the University in the past few years,
including the National Student Survey Scandal, and the External Examiner
Scandal, whereby staff were recorded pressurising students into falsifying
their responses to the Survey in order to inflate Kingston University's
position in the League Tables, and whereby an External Examiner in the now
defunct School of Music was found by the Quality Assurance Agency to have
been pressurised by School administrators into changing her damning report
on academic standards. The site also exposes an example of an allegedly
anti-Semitic letter written by a University staff member to Dr Fredrics, as
well as reports of other anti-Semitic comments made in reference to the
subject matter of Dr Fredrics' research into the life of his cousin,
Jack 'Kid' Berg, World Jr Welterweight and British Lightweight boxing
champion during the 1930s.
In May of 2009, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ruled
on a complaint made by Prof Scott concerning Dr Fredrics' alleged use of
his personal name in the domain name of the site. WIPO, however, issued a
strong rebuke of Prof Scott's claim of trademark infringement in finding
that Prof Scott held no trademark interest whatsoever in the domain name
in question, and that Dr Fredrics had properly registered the domain name.
Following that ruling, Prof Scott filed a complaint with the Kingston
Police, alleging that Dr Fredrics' site allegedly constituted harassment
of him personally, despite the fact that it contained no references to any
matters relating to the personal or private life of Prof Scott, and the
fact that the vast majority of the site did not relate at all to Prof
Scott. Indeed a police report produced in September 2009 after a thorough
investigation of the contents of the site, showed that there was no
evidence whatsoever of any material that could sustain a charge of
harassment. Despite this finding, however, the Crown Prosecution Service
refused Dr Fredrics' solicitor's application for discontinuation of the
prosecution, and the Court further refused an application for postponement
when Dr Fredrics' solicitors were forced to withdraw from the case for
reasons related to a separate professional matter on the day before the
trial was set to begin.
As a result of the refusal (in breach of Article 6 of the European
Convention on Human Rights) by the Court to postpone the case so that Dr
Fredrics could locate suitable representation for the trial, and because
both Dr Fredrics and one of his key witnesses both suffered from
documented illnesses, and were unable to appear, the trial went ahead in Dr
Fredrics' absence. It was, however, only after the Court found Dr Fredrics
guilty of harassment that the Clerk of the Court informed the presiding
Magistrates and courtroom observers that Dr Fredrics' lawyers had
withdrawn. By this time, however, the ruling was issued and Dr Fredrics'
guilty verdict stands.
Following the trial, a warrant was issued for Dr Fredrics' arrest for
having failed to appear in Court. His whereabouts are unknown, however, a
spokesperson indicated that he intends to contest the verdict through the
appeals process. If, however, he does present himself to authorities, it
is likely that he will be held without bail pending his appeal,
notwithstanding his ongoing poor state of health, and his current lack of
legal representation.
Dr Fredrics was due to appear along with representatives of Kingston
University at a Pre-Hearing Review on 6 January 2010 in the Employment
Tribunal, followed by a seventeen-day full merits hearing in April-May
2010 of his case for unfair dismissal, whistleblower victimization,
disability discrimination and wrongful/automatically unfair dismissal. The
efforts by the University's lawyers to, in the name of Prof Scott, launch
various civil and criminal proceedings against Dr Fredrics are seen by Dr
Fredrics as thinly veiled attempts to silence his right to free speech and
artistic expression, with the ultimate goal of preventing him from
receiving a full and fair hearing of his ongoing Employment Tribunal case.
Sadly, his case was struck out at the Pre-Hearing Review on the grounds of his
conviction for harassment, depsite the fact that the harassment case was still
subject to appeal.