BNP beats up man outside pub?

Here's an interesting story. The BBC report that David Drew, the MP for Stroud, says that British National Party supporters gave a man "one hell of a hiding" after spilled beer on party leader Nick Griffin.

Nick Griffin - with some beer. We hope that it was only St***a Ar***s that was thrown over him - we'd hate to think of nice beer being wasted on a neo-Nazi.
Image from Wikipedia, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.

According to Deputy Leader Simon Darby, Mr. Griffin and guests were having a meal in the pub when an unnamed man spilled beer on him. Both Mr. Drew and Mr. Darby agree that there was an altercation in the pub and the man was asked to leave by the landlord, but at this point the stories differ. Mr. Drew says that the man was then taken out of the pub and beaten up by the holocaust denier's supporters, while Mr. Darby says that the man then lay in wait outside where he threw the beer over Mr. Griffin, at which point he was "restrained by our [the BNP's] security because he had a glass in his hand..." Mr. Drew is "trying to distort and warp the situation," he claims, adding that the party "have yet to decide whether to report it to the police." Notice the difference in the two stories over when the beer was spilled - was it in the pub, resulting in the man being ejected, or outside the pub as Mr. Darby claims? Was beer spilled twice, and if so why hasn't Mr. Darby emphasised this, if only to make his version of events watertight?

Hmm. Definitely worth keeping an eye on. Mr. Griffin is always, when in public, accompanied by group of rather large and tough-looking men: "I am not prepared to accept that any politician has a private army," Mr. Darby says. Bodyguards are one thing - even we would agree that Mr. Griffin - who is most certainly more likely to be attacked or even killed than most of us - has the right to exist, even if we do hate everything that he and his party stand for; but if it is shown that they really did give the man "a hiding" rather than merely restrained him to prevent injury, it shoots rather a noticeable hole in their claims to be a legitimate, democratic party.

There is no mention of whether or not the unnamed man is also considering pressing charges. If he does, however, it may well be the case that he has witnesses. If he does and the BNP do not, it will be very hard to believe Mr. Darby's claims. Like we say - worth keeping an eye on.