Appeal
On 24 October 2007, Grell's supporters launched a campaign to finance her appeal but it was then reported that the Labour Party would pay her legal costs. On 27 November, The Independent newspaper quoted a party spokesman: "Following legal advice in the last few days, the Labour Party today withdrew its support for Miranda Grell's appeal." Criticism was levelled at the party for supporting Grell's appeal, in particular by gay rights campaigner and former Labour candidate Peter Tatchell.
Grell's appeal hearing began on 28 November 2007 at Snaresbrook Crown Court before Judge Peter Birts QC and two lay magistrates. On 30 November, Grell's conviction for making false statements about another candidate to gain electoral advantage was upheld. She vacated her seat and was banned from holding public office for three years. The by-election for Leyton ward on 14 February 2008 was won by Liberal Democrat Winnie Smith.
Following the appeal verdict, Grell resigned from the Labour Party, her job working for the Deputy Mayor of London and from the Compass management committee, but still pleaded her innocence.
Grell is single and lives in London. She is now the interim development officer of the Hackney Law Centre.
Read more about this topic: Miranda Grell
Famous quotes containing the word appeal:
“The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.”
—Adolf Hitler (1889–1945)
“I appeal now to the convictions of the communicants, and ask such persons whether they have not been occasionally conscious of a painful confusion of thought between the worship due to God and the commemoration due to Christ.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)