Appeals
Chambers lost an appeal against his conviction. Judge Jacqueline Davies, sitting with two magistrates,[12] heard his appeal in Doncaster Crown Court; she judged that the tweet contained "menace" and that Chambers must have known that it might be taken seriously.[19] Thousands of Twitter users responded by reposting Chambers' Tweet including the hashtag #iamspartacus,[20][21] in reference to the climactic "I am Spartacus!" scene in the 1960 film Spartacus.
A further appeal to the High Court was heard on 8 February 2012, in which the two judge panel of Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Irwin failed to reach a decision after initially reserving judgement.[22][23] The appeal by case stated was made by Chambers' barristers, Ben Emmerson QC and Sarah Przybylska; David Allen Green, who acted for Chambers in earlier proceedings,[24] also acted as his solicitor, through Preiskel & Co LLP.[25] The appeal was entirely on points of law and centred on the correct interpretation of section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003.[23]
A second High Court appeal, before a panel of three judges, headed by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, opened on 22 June 2012.[26] One of the arguments made by Chambers' barrister for this last appeal, John Cooper QC, was that if the tweet was "menacing" so was John Betjeman's poem, "Slough", pleading "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!".[27] He also asked whether Shakespeare would have been prosecuted if he had tweeted his line from Henry VI, Part 2 (Act IV, Scene 2), "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".[27] The latter reportedly drew laughter from the judges. On 27 June, the judges announced a reserved judgement.[28] Chambers arrived at court accompanied by Stephen Fry and the comedian Al Murray.[28]
Chambers's conviction was quashed on 27 July 2012.[6] The approved judgement concluded that "a message which does not create fear or apprehension in those to whom it is communicated, or who may reasonably be expected to see it, falls outside this provision [of the 2003 Act]". Accordingly, the appeal against conviction was "allowed on the basis that this 'tweet' did not constitute or include a message of a menacing character".[29][30]
It has been claimed by sources talking to The Guardian that staff at the Crown Prosecution Service had been in favour of dropping the case, to the point of informing Chambers, via his solicitor, that they would not oppose the final appeal, but had then been overruled by the head of the service, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer.[31] Chambers' MP, Louise Mensch, called for a House of Commons committee to investigate Starmer's behaviour.[31] However, a spokesperson for the CPS said that Starmer had not taken part in decisions about the case.[31]
