It's great news to see Nick Hogan back with his wife Denise and out of jail. He should never have been there.
Securing his release in the name of freedom, justice and choice, was a remarkable achievement by us, the little people, and whatever anyone thinks about the law, it cannot be right that anyone is jailed because they owe a fine. Isn't that what we did in Dickensian times?
I donated because of my conscience. Nick stood up for smokers and ultimately lost everything because of it. How could we not stand up for him? I'd do it again and so would many others. This spiteful law tried to make an example of a man who couldn't pay a huge fine. The fine was imposed because Nick allowed people to smoke in his pub. The day before this incident, and for centuries before that, what he did was legal.
I'm glad I donated and I'm inspired that so many other smokers and non-smokers did as well. We showed that we stand together in our condemnation of a bad law that does discriminate and does not allow for choice. An amendment is all we seek. Compromise. Why is that too much to ask in a free and democratic country?
Old Holborn and Simon Clark went to get Nick out of jail in Manchester yesterday, No Smoking Day, with a briefcase stuffed full of used fivers and tenners to the value of almost £9,000. This was all the prison would accept. It took some time to get the money released from Paypal who needed convincing that it was not a money laundering exercise.
There have been loads of media reports on this and links to them all appear on Simon Clark's Taking Liberties Blog as well a links to Anna Racoon and Old Holborn who made all of this possible.