Brighton Evening Argus Brighton, Sussex (UK), 1994

Irving attacker is found guilty

A DEMONSTRATOR who attacked a car carrying controversial right-wing historian David Irving was convicted by a court yesterday.

Paul Haining, 24, of Charlotte Street, Brighton, was given a conditional discharge for six months by Brighton magistrates for using threatening behaviour.

He had denied the charge.

Unemployed Haining (photo) was one of a group of Anti-Nazi League supporters who attacked a rented blue Vauxhall Corsa in the Old Steine, Brighton, last December as it took revisionist historian Mr Irving from a meeting at the Royal Albion Hotel.

Mr Irving has been criticised around the world for his views on Nazi Germany and his claims the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed, did not happen.

Defence solicitor Daniel Jerome said the meeting was organised by the British National Party.[1]

It took place in a charged atmosphere with hundreds of ANL demonstrators surrounding the hotel and chanting and waving placards while police tried to keep the sides apart.

The Corsa carrying Mr Irving sped away afterwards but was caught in traffic near the Royal Bank of Scotland where Haining started hitting it with a stick while others punched and kicked it.

The damage to the car was considerable[2] and Mr Irving had to pay the £100 insurance excess to rental firm Avis.

Mr Jerome told the court Mr Irving had been overheard saying he was on his way to desecrate a Jewish cemetery.[3]

Under Section 31 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, Mr Jerome claimed his client was allowed to use force to prevent a crime being committed.

But the chairman of the Bench, Michael Listern, refused to allow the argument and ordered Mr Jerome to stick to the facts.

Mr Jerome said: "In those circumstances, the defence would be hypocritical to play a part in a trial in which they do not have faith."

Mr Jerome claimed if more people had stood up to the Nazis as Haining stood up to the historian, "then the Holocaust might have been prevented."

He said: "I would ask you to say that there should be more people like Paul Haining and less like David Irving."

After the case, Mr Jerome said his client would be appealing to allow the evidence to be heard in a higher court.  [4]

1. A lie. The meeting was organised by the Clarendon Club, which has no links whatever with any other organisation.
2. The Avis rental car was a total write-off, with its windows smashed, doors, roof and trunk stove in, aerial and mirrors ripped off.
3. This tells us something of the fantasy-world that Mr Jerome and his legal brethren live in. Mr Irving was wearing a Savile-row pin-stripe suit for the function -- probably not clothing normally worn by people bent on "desecrating cemeteries". The statement was made purely to smear Mr Irving, who was not allowed to contest it in court (indeed he did not hear of it until he read it in the next day's papers). See Mr Irving's protest to the Daily Telegraph, whose report gave this smear nationwide coverage.
4. The Court of Appeal refused to hear the case.

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