On 6/23/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jun 2006 11:24:29 -0600, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
I suggest focusing on his political activities. If they are not notable, the personal details of his life are not either.
Tony Sidaway closed the last "real" AfD as keep because he was secretary of the Monday Club. I thought this a tenuous claim to fame, myself. Actually the theft, appeal, imprisonment and custody battle for his daughter which the theft funded are far and away the most interesting things about him. Otherwise he's just a generic "darkies go home" far-right Tory.
Indeed. I wouldn't be put out at all if the article was deleted; he's at the threshold of notability if that. However, if we're to have an article, it should be brief but accurate.
It does seem that, aside from being a source of juicy 'nutjob tory right' quotes when needed, his conviction for pilfering funds from his health authority position is the most newsworthy thing he's done. And I'd certainly agree that most of THAT press was sheer schadenfreude at seeing a "high Tory" caught with fingers in the till.
I couldn't find any reference material that suggested that reporting upon a spent offence that had entered the public consciousness through publication in the national press at the time was likely to be forbidden under the Act. Granted, I'm now in the USA and the only law libraries I have access to are American ones, but I suspect that Sussexman and sundry anon contributors would have raised some if there were to be found.
It would be a much different matter if it were regarding an conviction that had never garnered press attention, I suspect.
This is a very difficult area for Wikipedia because, unlike most complaints, it has nothing to do with publishing untruth or speculation. It's about our publishing a sourced fact with more than enough in the way of citations to justify it, but that someone is arguing should be removed because of privacy law - despite the public nature of the very sources upon which the article is based.
Note that the article has not gone into salacious detail of his conviction - the article's words were (more or less - not looking at it right now) 'retired from public life following a 1992 conviction for theft". Nothing else.
I'd also note that it's easy to get a solicitor to write threats on headed paper - regardless of the legal methods.
-Matt