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Ex-Balliol student in court for post-Finals horseplay

A former Balliol student who was
arrested and detained in custody for a night after calling a police horse “gay”
is now to face court. Sam Brown, who graduated with an English
degree from Oxford this year, is to appear
before a City Magistrate’s Court in London
next month after he failed to pay his fixed penalty notice of £80. He has been charged with “threatening,
abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour within the
hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment or distress” under
the Public Order Act. On the night of the incident
Brown and his friends left the Cellar bar and came across two mounted
policemen. Brown asked one of the policemen, “How do you feel about your horse
being gay?” and was arrested after repeated comments about the sexuality of the
police officer’s horse. Brown’s offer of an apology had
been rejected. He told Cherwell that he didn’t
pay his fine because at the time he had just graduated, “I had no money, had
just finished my Finals and I was skint. It wasn’t all about principle or about
the police being stupid: basically I didn’t think I should be fined.” He received his summons around
two weeks ago when he returned to Oxford
to visit friends and found that it had been left in the pigeon hole of a first
year at Balliol, also called Sam Brown. “I didn’t know it was coming, I thought
they might have dropped the charges.” Brown described the situation as “pedantic
and ridiculous” and said that the police were “relying on the point that could
have offended any passers-by at 2am on a Sunday morning. We pretty much had the
street to ourselves.” Brown said that he plans to plead not guilty. Brown said, “feel very strongly
about it, don’t want a criminal record.” said he said that he has obtained
legal advice from a barrister who feels he has a “solid” case. Daniel Konrad-Cooper,
former JCR President at Balliol who was with Brown at the time of the incident,
said, “It’s pretty ridiculous. It’ll be interesting to see how it bears up. I didn’t
think it warranted him being arrested, didn’t think it warranted six police
officers and I didn’t think it warranted a night in the cells.” The current JCR of Balliol, Triona
Giblin, agreed, “I think it’s a bit of a shame that something so obviously a
joke which was not meant to be offensive was taken out of all proportion.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

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