[Jack_]

Frankie Boyle sues Mirror over 'racism' claim

Comedian Frankie Boyle is suing the Mirror newspaper for libel, over an article which labelled him racist.

He is complaining about a story published on 19 July 2011, saying he was in talks for a new Channel 4 show.

The first sentence read: "RACIST comedian Frankie Boyle could soon be returning to TV despite upsetting thousands of viewers".

The Mirror said it will defend itself "on the basis of truth and fair comment".

The trial, which is taking place at the High Court in London, is expected to last a week.

Boyle's lawyer told the court that the newspaper had also defamed his client, by asserting he had been "forced to quit" the BBC comedy show Mock The Week.

His barrister, David Sherborne, said that to call someone "racist" was "obviously defamatory".

Mr Sherborne said Boyle's humour was "deliberately challenging".

Controversial humour

He said the comic did not object to being criticised but did object to being described as racist.

"Saying 'vile' or 'offensive', or his material is 'vile' or 'offensive', is one thing," Mr Sherborne told the jury.

"He realises that that goes with the territory, so to speak. But accusing him of being a racist is an entirely different matter."

Mr Sherborne added: "You can call him 'offensive', you can call him 'tasteless'. That's fine. But he is not racist."

The Glasgow-born comedian's humour has often proved controversial with audiences.

Last year, broadcasting watchdog Ofcom upheld more than 500 complaints about his Channel 4 show Tramadol nights, during which he joked about Katie Price's disabled son, Harvey.

Ofcom ruled that the joke appeared to "target and mock the mental and physical disabilities" of the then eight year-old.

In 2008, the BBC apologised when Boyle made a joke about Palestine on the Radio 4 comedy show Political Animal.

Break from Twitter

A year after that, BBC Two's Mock The Week was criticised by the BBC Trust over comments Boyle made on the show about swimmer Rebecca Adlington's appearance.

As yet, The Mirror has not removed the article about Boyle from its website.

A paragraph added to the top of the story reads: "Frankie Boyle is taking legal proceedings against us for the description of him as a 'racist comedian'. He claims it is untrue and defamatory. We are defending this claim on the basis of truth and fair comment.

"We are also defending his claim that we libelled him by suggesting that 'he was forced to quit Mock the Week' in 2009."

Boyle's lawyer said any suggestion his client was forced to leave the show was "completely untrue".

Boyle has taken a temporary respite from Twitter, telling his followers: "I'm afraid I must disappear from Twitter for a while. See you on the other side of this thing."

BBC News

I think the bit in bold is particularly true...

Frankie Boyle: 'Racism at heart of UK government policy'

Frankie Boyle has today said that racism is ''at the heart'' of British Government policy, and claimed that his Channel 4 show Tramadol Nights was meant as "ridiculous, over the top nihilism".

Boyle said that he felt it was "important" to highlight the issue of racism in society by mocking the racists that he "despised" in comedy routines.

He said that his jokes about immigration were meant as a parody of "racism at the heart of British policy", and claimed that they had been taken out of context by the papers.

"I think one of the things about comedy is it's easy to read stories in the papers and think it's a terrible thing for someone to have said but when you see it in the context of the show it can be more easily explained," he said.

Boyle is suing Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of The Mirror, over an article in the paper last year about Channel 4 considering commissioning a new show featuring the comic.

However, lawyers for MGN have denied that he was defamed by being described as a "racist comedian", and claimed that Boyle exploits negative stereotypes of black people for ''cheap laughs''.

Jurors in the case were today shown footage of an episode of BBC Two show Mock the Week in which Boyle discussed immigration.

In response, the comic said that he was "pretending" to have racist views for the episode, and insisted that he felt it "important" to mock people who actually think like that.

''I don't think British people are racist. I think it is a top down thing. I think you have a lot of rich and Conservative people who control our country who are racist and their views trickle down through things like tabloid papers," he said.

He added: ''I think there is racism at the heart of British policy and has been both in Labour and Conservative times.''

Asked about why he used the word "n***er" on an episode of his Channel 4 show Tramadol Nights, Boyle replied: "Context is everything. If you use this at a dinner party to insult someone that would be a terrible hate crime. It's not a word I would use lightly."

Boyle has consistently denied claims that he left Mock the Week after making a controversial joke about swimmer Rebecca Adlington.

In court today, he expressed his surprise at the reaction, which included 75 complaints being lodged with the BBC, leading to an official rebuke from the BBC Trust.

"There was no malice in the jokes [about Adlington] in particular," he said. "I was really surprised by the Rebecca Adlington thing."

Later, Boyle added: "I had no idea Rebecca Adlington was as famous as she was or that she had been a huge success."

However, he again insisted that he was not sacked regarding the incident, a claim that was repeated in the Mirror article at the heart of the libel case.

"Absolutely not," he said when asked. "The idea you would be forced to quit the show for saying someone looks like they are looking in the back of a spoon, it just seems ridiculous because they just don't sack people on those panel shows."

The trial continues.

Digital Spy

I hope he wins it. The fact that a comedian has to go to court to defend his jokes is quite frankly absurd.

[Omah]

IMO, Boyle is a talentless to$$er who appeals to the LCD in audience mentality - no doubt he would have gone down well in Nazi Germany .....

[the truth]

i hope he loses... him and jimmy carr abuse the so called free speech to go out of their way to offend minorities , where they think they can get away with it, didnt this idiot boyle laugh AT jordans disabled son harvey? didnt jimmy carr suggest the more british soldiers who get their legs blown off means more people can go for the paralympics? I have zero res[ect for this tastless attention seeking drivel....with cheap laughs and tastless mean spirited humour than mocks the victims. this has made them millions but there is a high price to pay for cheap laughs and sick humour that plays on victims, now theyl have to pay that price.... horrible people

[Shaun]

Crap comedian. Not a racist, though.

[the truth]

Originally Posted by Shaun

Crap comedian. Not a racist, though.

hes a bigot

[thesheriff443]

i like boyle, he is not the first comedian to push the boundries and wont be the last,
after watching him i dont run to get a pillow case.

[GypsyGoth]

Frankie Boyle seems to insult everyone in his jokes, I don't think he's a racist or a bigot.

[King Gizzard]

Who cares when he also does things like this

https://twitter.com/frankieboyle/sta...09084138823681

hero

[Tom4784]

He's a dull comedian but only a fool would think of him as a racist for his jokes.

[Jack_]

His X Factor tweets are hilarious.

On Union J:

Yeah, you keep bleeding because you're *****s #xfactor

You could sell out the O2 tomorrow if it was a public hanging #xfactor

On Kye:

I hope the next chimney this ***** goes up is in a crematorium #XFactor

[King Gizzard]

I don't think he's necessarily a great comedian he's just not scared to make the jokes other people wouldn't..controversy = fans

[the truth]

this is just the tip of the boyle iceberg, a disgusting bigotted unfunny horror of a human being. if a kid said any of these things to a fellow pupil he would be expelled for bigotry and bullying, we should treat boyle foul vulgar abuse just the same way as an example to kids and adults. take it in any context you like its horrible

Apparently the Saudi Arabian Paralympic team is mainly thieves," he quipped.

Other tweets the Scottish funny man sent last night to his nearly one million followers included:

"Wow, Austrian Paralympians seem a lot more able-bodied than most regular Scottish people."
"Sadly our Paralympian in the high jump isn’t expected to match his personal best. But I hear it doesn’t count as it was ‘Taliban assisted’."
"Got to be weird being a British Paralympian under this government, knowing that a medal means you'll lose your Disability Living Allowance."
Seeing the Queen enter the stadium, Boyle said: "The Queen hasn't cracked a smile since Diana died."

The thing that nobody really said about Rebecca Adlington is that she looks pretty weird. She looks like someone who's looking at themselves in the back of a spoon."

He caused further offence by returning to the subject in the same show, saying: "When she arrived back on the flight she met her boyfriend. Did you see her boyfriend? He was really attractive. He was like a male model. So from that I have deduced that Rebecca Adlington is very dirty."


"I worry that Rebecca Adlington will have an unfair advantage in the swimming by possessing a dolphin's face."

[the truth]

Originally Posted by Nathan

I don't think he's necessarily a great comedian he's just not scared to make the jokes other people wouldn't..controversy = fans

hes a rubbish comedian........great comedians can make jokes about everything and get awya with it, if its funny enough....take larry david, mel brooks, jerry seinfeld, bill hicks, richard pryor, the list goes on....even chris rock gets away with it, simply because hes so darn funny....boyle simply isnt

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by the truth

hes a rubbish comedian........great comedians can make jokes about everything and get awya with it, if its funny enough....take larry david, mel brooks, jerry seinfeld, bill hicks, richard pryor, the list goes on....even chris rock gets away with it, simply because hes so darn funny....boyle simply isnt

to be fair thats your opinion!
each to there own! next you be compareing him to habu hamza

[King Gizzard]

Whether he's a great comedian or not, it's entirely subjective

[Ammi]

..nobody can say whether he's funny or not..or whether any comedian is...it all depends on what you consider humour to be...

..I don't find him particularly funny but he's successful in his career, so obviously a lot of people do....

...funny or not, he isn't a racist...

[Livia]

He has made me laugh, and he's made me cringe. I can say that about a lot of comedians.

[Jack_]

"Got to be weird being a British Paralympian under this government, knowing that a medal means you'll lose your Disability Living Allowance."

What's wrong with that? It's a dig at the government which is exactly how he describes a lot of his jokes in the article in the OP.

And funnily enough...it's practically true.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Livia

He has made me laugh, and he's made me cringe. I can say that about a lot of comedians.

...I can't think of a comedian who does make me laugh atm....they kind of just have the same old material and are so similar...

[the truth]

heres just a few snippets of his genius

they should have a speeding advert showing richard hammond trying to remember his wedding day 9said whilst he was fighting for his life)
the way they should have commemorated lady dianas life was by staging a gang bang in a minefield" etc

cheap mean tacky unfunny attention seeking trash

I consider him a bigot and a bully. I shall not dignify this bigot with anymore attention.

[MTVN]

I find him funny, as do a lot of other people evidently seeing as he's one of the most popular comedians atm, sure a lot of his humour's offensive but it's easy enough to avoid it

He's definitely not a racist either

[the truth]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...I can't think of a comedian who does make me laugh atm....they kind of just have the same old material and are so similar...

none of them are anecdotal like billy connolly in his pomp...we need anecdotale, honest self deprecating , brilliant observational comics....the greatest living comic is larry david, also steve coogan,george carlin, louis ck,dylan moran, seinfeld, lee evans,bill burr, rhod gilbert,garry shandling, jon stewart,rob brydon, (im told dave chappelle is great too)

ive always loved bill cosby, billl hicks , steve wright, lenny bruce, eddie murphy, steve martin, robin williams and richard pryor... etc

[Me. I Am Salman]

His tweets are ****ing hilarious (he had a conversation with Azealia Banks the other day it was a bit random) and I miss him on Mock The Week. Tramadol Nights was funny too.
Oh and he isn't racist

[the truth]

Originally Posted by Salman!

His tweets are ****ing hilarious (he had a conversation with Azealia Banks the other day it was a bit random) and I miss him on Mock The Week. Tramadol Nights was funny too.
Oh and he isn't racist

I disagree I find him 100% unfunny , I think most of his so called comedy is predictable attention seeking sick drivel....but heyho we all have opinions thats mine, thats yours , no problem.

[Alf]

Originally Posted by the truth

heres just a few snippets of his genius

they should have a speeding advert showing richard hammond trying to remember his wedding day 9said whilst he was fighting for his life)
the way they should have commemorated lady dianas life was by staging a gang bang in a minefield" etc

cheap mean tacky unfunny attention seeking trash

I consider him a bigot and a bully. I shall not dignify this bigot with anymore attention.

sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you, that was a saying i learnt in primary school, i guess the saying now in schools is, knifes and guns will kill our enemy's but name calling is far more worse