For advocates of free speech in Britain, victories are scarce and treasured. But I suspect many of us have mixed feelings about a recent verdict which let the maker of a more than usually eye-catching placard off with even less than a slapped wrist. 

The case in question is that of Marieha Hussain, a pro-Palestine activist prosecuted for depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman on a placard as coconuts at a march last November. Earlier this month, she was found not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.

Of course! The placard was definitely not racist. We know racism when we see it. And we know our beloved judges know it too. They’ve been very properly trained (and selected, by the Judicial Appointments Commission). Not. A. Racist. Placard. Is that clear? Let us continue.

Prosecutors made the case that “coconut” is a well-known racial slur, aimed at somebody suspected of being a race traitor — or at least “less brown or black than you should be”, in the words of prosecuting lawyer Jonathan Bryan. 

The judge could have found the same by reading the obscure purveyor of right-wing esoterica, er, Wikipedia, which tells us that in the UK “coconut is … used against people of color to imply a betrayal of their Aboriginal or other non-white ethnic identity”. You need not take it from me or Wikipedia’s editors. Less than two years ago Ella McLeod wrote in the Guardian that “a ‘coconut’ is a uniquely hurtful thing to be called”. 

Indeed, in 2010, black Liberal Democrat councillor Shirley Brown was convicted of racial harassment for using “coconut” to describe a political opponent. Brown managed to avoid incarceration, but was given a 12-month conditional discharge and a £620 fine.

But one cannot help wondering why lenience has not been applied elsewhere

Curiously, though, Hussain’s barrister Rajiv Menon claimed that experts could not see how “coconut” was a slur without “some qualifying word, behaviour, context” that makes it about race. It would be intriguing to hear how it would make sense if applied to a white person.

Still, district judge Vanessa Lloyd found that Hussain’s placard was “part of the genre of political satire” and not “abusive”. Certainly, advocates of an expansive right to speak one’s mind should be glad that she was not convicted. Whatever the implications of the “coconuts” insult — again, definitely not racist — we should be able to criticise politicians harshly without being prosecuted.

But one cannot help wondering why lenience has not been applied elsewhere. Consider some of the recent convictions for speech related to the summer riots. For example, Lee Joseph Dunn of Sellafield posted three images to Facebook that portrayed migrants as threatening — but without any calls for violence — and was not merely convicted but jailed for eight weeks.

These rulings bolster a body of censorship law that has ballooned in recent years

The encroachment of the censorship lobby has even reached private messaging groups. Last December, six former police officers were given suspended jail sentences for sharing racist, sexist and homophobic jokes via WhatsApp. The judge didn’t care that these messages were not intended for public consumption, citing the reputational damage done to the police among the aggravating factors (if such a thing was possible).

These rulings bolster a body of censorship law that has ballooned in recent years. The implementation of April of Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act joins the likes of the UK-wide Public Order Act and Communications Act in threatening malicious communicators with legal reprisal. The Online Safety Act will further restrict what we can say through our computers and smartphones.

In this context, it is hard not to be confused by the lenience extended towards Hussain for her joyous, diversity-celebrating placard. Her complaint that hate speech laws had been weaponised against her, as well as similar remarks by supporters, seem to call for a carve out for ethnic minorities from the censorship that the majority face. Hate speech laws for thee but not for me.

Such cases can hardly hope to dampen down perceptions of two-tier policing that do much more to damage respect for the law than spicy WhatsApp chats. In fact, it would be better if the leniency shown to Hussain was more widely applied.

This is especially so when the British state is failing to lock up violent crooks. Yet even if the prisons were empty, being obnoxious is not worthy of jail time, a fine, or even an uncomfortable chat with a police officer.