Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is calling for a new law to make it possible to prosecute those who spread “offensive lies and conspiracies.”
The Mayor made his comments after a man was sued for claiming that the Manchester Arena attack in 2017 was a hoax.
He wrote: “The law needs to be changed to make it a serious criminal offence to peddle these offensive lies and conspiracies with custodial penalties”
Reclaim the net reports: A survivor of the 2017 Manchester Arena attack, Martin Hibbert, is suing a conspiracy theorist who claims the attack was a hoax.
A survey conducted by Kings College, involving 4,000 correspondents, found that 14% doubt whether the attack happened at all, and 10% of people think it was a hoax.
A conspiracy theorist who believes the attack was a hoax, Richard D Hall, has targeted Hibbert, who was paralyzed from the waist down, and his daughter Eve, who suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Hall insists the attack was a hoax, and has even tracked down survivors, to investigate if the attack was real.
He claims that those that died in the terror attack are living abroad.
In an interview with BBC’s Radio 4, Hibbert said that while he respects the freedom of speech, Hall had crossed the line because he was profiting from the misery of others.
