Non-Violent Southport Protestor Jamie Michael Fights For His Freedom
Update on the former Royal Marine Commando's case against the British State.
Last August, dozens of non-violent Southport protesters pleaded guilty to various charges, raising eyebrows as their sentences didn’t seem to reflect the severity of their “crimes”.
Many suspected Sir Keir Starmer’s push for fast-tracking cases, reduced sentences, and remanding those who pleaded not guilty in custody for months played a role.
But not everyone submitted to the system. Some fought back. One of those was Jamie Michael, a 45-year-old former Royal Marine Commando. His alleged crime? Posting a Facebook video.
The video came after the brutal, cowardly murder of three young girls—Alice da Silva Aguiar (9), Bebe King (6), and Elsie Dot Stancombe (7)—by second-generation immigrant Axel Rudakubana. For that post, police arrested Jamie for “publishing threatening material… intending to stir up religious hatred,” under the Public Order Act 1986.
Given the charge, one would expect the video to be damning. But by any objective measure, it wasn’t.
He talked about the ‘Roma Riots’ in Leeds, the vandalisation of Rochdale police station following the Manchester Airport incident, the stabbing of army officer Mark Teeton his doorstep, the Southport murders and the machete fight in Southend On Sea—all which occurred within weeks of each other.
He questioned details of the Southport murder, speculating that the then-unnamed suspect arrived with a migrant family that had been radicalised. He urged viewers to act, but not with violence:
“Go to the councillors, go to the police, go to the politicians… You need to start standing up and organising, okay, which doesn’t mean getting bats and knives and stuff and going and doing what they do. That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He called for increased security at schools and parks, warning, “These f*cking psychopaths are going to start targeting our kids.”
No racial focus. One mention of a mosque. An explicit call for peaceful organisation. The only factual error? He thought the suspect was a first-generation immigrant—a mistake that, under the Online Safety Act, could ironically justify his arrest if police decided he made the statement knowingly. But they haven’t.
Days later, South Wales Police arrived at Jamie’s home and arrested him.
Court listeners reporting on his trial this week revealed officers first downplayed it, telling him there was “nothing to worry about.” Then, they took him into custody. He remained in prison for three weeks—for a social media post.
Jamie wasn’t the only one arrested. South Wales Police arrested five other under the same charge, granting bail to three—a 27-year-old from Penarth, and a 33-year-old woman and 39-year-old man from Blaengwynfi, Neath Port Talbot—but not Jamie.
His trial began yesterday. Reporter and activist Dan Morgan, also known as ‘The Voice of Wales’, witnessed proceedings and outlined events.
Prosecutors first accused Jamie of “inciting racial hatred,” arguing that his words could provoke racial tensions. His lawyers countered that he was exercising free speech, raising concerns over unvetted migration and rising violence. The prosecution played the video and showed bodycam footage from his arrest.
Next up was his police interview, revealing his repeated calls for peace, denials of “racism”, and defences of his right to criticise media bias and government failures. This is when he specified that he was talking about "illegal immigrants" in the original video.
Then came the revelation of the day.
Reports revealed that Buffy Williams, a Welsh Labour Senedd Member for Rhondda, instructed her communications officer, Ryan Evans, to file a complaint to police about Jamie’s video. That complaint ultimately led to his arrest.
A politician reported a citizen for political speech. The police acted swiftly. And the legal system accommodated it.
This raised questions among sceptics over whether the arrest might be political, which our tragically vague speech laws naturally accommodate.
Perhaps it provides more insight in the minds of modern Labour politicians: expressions of the wrong politics, although clearly not incendiary or “racist”, must be reported, punished, and stopped.
For reference, in 2020, CCTV captured two Black Lives Matter protesters committing overt acts of violence. Jonathan Daley kicked a police officer—he avoided jail. Shayden Spencer threw a metal fence at fleeing officers—he avoided jail. Reports don’t clarify whether either was remanded in custody until their sentencing.
Now, if Jamie is found guilty by the jury on Thursday and subsequently jailed, it would mean words—peaceful words—have been punished more harshly than physical violence, once again.
Sentencing Council guidelines suggest that if his crime is deemed ‘high culpability’ and ‘high harm’, he faces between three and seven years in prison.
According to Morgan, after reviewing legal arguments yesterday, the judge acknowledged Jamie’s right to free speech but remarked that there is a case to answer.
Amid the flurry of non-violent Southport protestor sentences last year, many ignored claims of judge bias. Yet, records show sentencing judges routinely made politically-charged remarks.
One judge told Peter Lynch, “You were unquestionably endeavouring to rev up the situation the best you could,” and labelled him a “full participant”, despite no evidence whatsoever of him committing violence. This concerned a protest-turned-riot where some rioters set fire to a hotel housing “asylum seekers”. Full participant?
Another judge pontificated to Lucy Connolly about “diversity and inclusion” before sentencing her—not for violence, but for a vague, non-immediate incitement to violence online. Something that wouldn’t come close to meeting the burden of proof for inciting violence across the pond.
Both were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences (not suspended like Daley and Spencer). Peter later died in jail.
A 2019 survey by The Lawyer revealed many lawyers sympathise with Labour. Specifically, over 53 per cent of 888 respondents said they would cast their vote for Labour, compared to 18 per cent for the Conservatives.
To what extent this translates to judges we cannot be sure but it certainly hints at possible bias. The vast, vast majority of judges are former lawyers.
We certainly know what the ruling Labour establishment thinks of such subjects.
In November 2024, a GB News exposé uncovered a Home Office paper—authored by Labour civil servants—labelling concerns over mass migration and “Western culture” as extremist.
It warned that “right-wing views” on immigration and policing were “leaking into mainstream debates.”. Two-tier policing was cited as an example.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is creating a 16-member council on Islamophobia, set to define “anti-Muslim discrimination.” Critics warn she’s essentially reintroducing blasphemy laws under a new name.
The Telegraph noted that among those shortlisted for the council is Qari Asim, an imam who was dismissed as a government adviser in 2022 after backing calls to ban a film about the prophet Mohammed’s daughter.
It seems anywhere and everywhere, as so many expected, Labour is clamping down on dissenting speech, stifling debate, and attempting to capitalise on our subjective speech laws.
Jamie’s trial is a good test of where we stand, at least with the public, just months after the mass prosecution and sentencing of other non-violent Southport protestors.
One can only hope the jury puts these charges where they belong—into history’s trash can, right next to Hitler and Stalin.
I’d wager if Jamie pleaded guilty, as he was initially advised to, and it was up to the judge, we’d likely see another draconian sentence.
I’ll post any big updates on his case via Substack Notes.
*UPDATE* — Jamie was acquitted by the jury at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court on Wednesday February 5th 2025. They took 17 minutes to find him not guilty.
Further details were published on Spiked here.
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Jamie was found NOT GUILTY. He should never have been put through any of this, including the almost unprecedented (for such an ‘offence’) three weeks on remand. I was due to attend the original hearing in the autumn before he was bailed and the case put back. I couldn’t make it today, but some friends (some of him know him well) were there.
It was revealed in court that Buffy Williams, the Labour MS for Rhondda, made the police complaint via her communications officer. Naturally after this revelation she has received thousands of messages demanding an explanation as to why a good man was targeted in this way. Her response was to issue a snivelling statement blaming members of her constituency for highlighting the case (bs has been called). The moniker ‘Buffy the Free Speech Slayer’ is sticking.
This was 100% a political prosecution with malicious intent. Only Jamie’s knowledge of his rights and courage in refusing to plead guilty saw him emerge a free man. Thanks for bringing this to wider attention. Welshmen will not yield!
We must be able to do something to help. As a former colleague of Kier Starmer’s, I’m so angry that the criminal justice system has been weaponised against its citizens. We are a laughing stock across the world. Violent prisoners let out on the streets to make way for individuals standing up for their communities, and ultimately our country. I haven’t watched the video, but I have seen the wrongs done to others. I’m sick of the fact we are being silenced. Social media is full of Islamists openly discussing the strategies they have to take over the West. I fail to understand how they can be so open about it, and yet if we so much as refer to it, or forward on what they say, it becomes a criminal offence.