Wed, 16th Sep 2009 | BigCol | Created on: visionarydictionary.com | 956 Views, 10 Nods.

MASTERSIGNWRITER - CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES (2010)

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/8258910.stm Today Torbay artist MasterSignwriter has been found not guilty of planning a terrorist attack on France.

MasterSignwriter, or MS as he has come to be known was accused of planning to attack the North Coast of France by using a home built giant trebuchet and dead cows.

On the 14 August 2009 in a post on the increasingly popular social networking site Visionary Dictionary, MS supposedly mapped out what he was intending. "To begin with I propose we make one (a trebuchet) and stick it on the Dover cliffs and for starters we can start propelling any non-national criminal back to their home country and maybe just a few dead farm animals at France to raise spirits."

He was arrested, on 30 September, under the terrorism act and an ancient law that forbids anyone to be nasty to the French even though they smell of onions and the women refuse to shave under their armpits.

A jury at Exeter Crown Court took 45 minutes to clear him of conspiracy to be nasty to non-national criminals and cruelty to animals. His barrister said "How can you be cruel to animals when they're bleedin' dead?" He also said he hoped the prosecuting authorities would "make more allowances for the frivolity of youth in future".

Jurors even laughed in court as MS's wife, Red, told the court her husband was full of "hare-brained" schemes, and that if he was guilty of anything at all it was just having an 'over-active imagination'.

MS always maintained the plot was a "fantasy", and his barrister dismissed the prosecution as "heavy-handed" and a waste of public money.

Speaking after his acquittal, MasterSignwriter read a statement in which he said he hoped the case had not affected his chances of becoming a priest.