(While the charges brought against Englishman Leese were of libel, the actions against him were more an attempt to silence him while at the same time ending his publishing efforts (he was the publisher of ‘Gothic Ripples‘ - an ‘anti-semitic’ newsletter).
The PDF file (linked below), besides the trial transcript itself, it also contains select writings from Mr. Leese).
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Nonfiction - Trial held on 12/12/50, London, England.
(Below, a few excerpts should anyone want to review prior to clicking the PDF link - to see if this is of interest to you or not. You can always skip reading now, and go directly to the PDF link).
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Excerpt: (starting page 6) - and after the prosecutor (Mr. Humphries), made his case and finished questioning the police inspector involved in the case, and after the inspector had left the stand… Mr. Leese begins to be questioned….
Mr. Humphreys: There is a question to go to the jury. The point at issue is whether this particular libel should be criminal libel or civil libel. The libel is to be proved to the satisfaction of the jury and that it is a libel on a person's reputation. Here of course it will be on the jury to say whether allegations like these are going too far. That is the ground for bringing criminal as distinct from civil libel. This is a libel not so much to Sir Harold Scott as about him. The presentation is brought, as the witness has said, for the sake of the reputation of the police.
Judge: A case of this sort usually involves some likelihood of a breach of peace, or an attempt, and criminal libel is confined then to such cases. However, Mr. Leese you can say what you like to the jury, as to whether it is libel or not.
The accused - Mr. Leese: I wish to make a brief statement on oath. (Sworn.) I am a veterinary surgeon, 72 years old, and retired in 1928. After which time I made a study of public affairs and as a result, rightly or wrongly, I became anti Jewish. For the last 23 years I have worked with others of my opinion, on the question of the Jews—without monetary reward, without malice, and from a sense of duty to my own race. The object of Gothic Ripples, which was started in 1944 and has now reached 70 issues, is as stated on the front of each issue.
Judge: Started in 1944?
Mr. Leese: Yes, sir. . . front of each issue: "An occasional report on the Jewish question issued for the Jew wise by Arnold Leese's Anti Jewish Information Bureau". By Jew wise is meant people who regard Jews and their descendants as aliens no matter what their legal status may be. In other words they are people who wish by lawful means to have the whole matter revised and make it impossible for Jews to be naturalized. It is intended to keep Jew wise people up to date and to impress upon them the extent of Jewish interbreeding. It is not intended primarily for the man in the street who would have difficulty in understanding much of it. The special object of the article called "The Soap Box" in No. 67 is to free Anti Jewish workers at street meetings in London from what I allege to be an unfair constraint forced upon them by the practical working of section 5 of the Public Order Act—by which practice greater strictness is enforced when Jews are present in the audience than when they are not.
Gentlemen of the jury, one thing I wish to say, that I have been called a fanatic. I have been, in my past life as a Veterinary Surgeon, employed for many years in many countries on field scientific investigation of the diseases and proper management of the camel. My book on this subject is still considered the authoritative treatise in the English language. A copy of it was accepted by his late Majesty King George V.
Mr. Humphries: Would not the witness be better advised to keep to the point of the charge?
Mr. Leese: I am just coming to that. My investigations on the Jewish problem have been conducted in exactly the same scien tific spirit as my investigations on the diseases and management of camels. There is no malice in my heart over the question of the Jews. What I am striving for all the time is to prevent my own race from going down under an influence which is in my opinion evil. I have just two things to add, sir, which are not really relevant to malice or anything else. But I wish to prevent possible prejudice. Just this, sir. I have never had anything to do with Sir Oswald Mosley, never, and since I have become Jew wise I have never voted at parliamentary elections as I considered it a waste of time.
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