Blackface routine ‘grotesque’ but not a crime, appeal judge rules
A PRIORY GROUP worker who dressed up in blackface has had his hate crime conviction overturned after an appeal judge ruled his behaviour was “crass, grotesque and excruciating” but not meant to cause offence.
Brian Davies, 62, had been ordered to pay £450 in February for blacking up his face and directing a “racist” song and dance at Loretta Doyley.
However, Cardiff Crown Court said yesterday it could not be sure the maintenance engineer intended the perfor- mance to be abusive to Mrs Doyley at the Priory Group Christmas party, and cleared him of racially aggravated threatening words or behaviour.
Judge David Wynn Morgan said the court “deplored” Davies’s actions, but concluded his intention was to “entertain and not cause upset”. He said: “The court is not persuaded on the basis of the criminal burden and standard of proof that the appellant intended his behaviour to be threatening or abusive towards the complainant. Or that he intended and demonstrated hostility, or was motivated by hostility towards her based upon her membership of a racial group different to his.”
He added: “The court does not – emphatically – condone the appellant’s behaviour. The court deplores it. The court found the experience of watching the recorded evidence excruciating.”
The judge said Davies was not “a man of profound intelligence, wisdom or judgment”, and his song and dance routine was a “grotesque lapse of taste”.
The court previously heard that Davies denied knowing that The Black and White Minstrel Show, from which his routine derived, was today seen as “derogatory and demeaning to black people”.
He said: “It didn’t even cross my mind. I didn’t even think of anything racist. I just thought I was dressing up as something that used to be on telly on a Sunday night.”
Mrs Doyley said: “I felt humiliated and wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.
“I went into shock and I felt myself laughing, not because it was funny, I just didn’t know how else to act.”