A leading member of the English Defence League banned from every football ground in the country has been spotted heading for Arsenal matches, the Old Bailey heard.

Joel Titus, 21, was banned from football after he led a mass brawl outside Liverpool Street station more than two years ago. At that time he led Brentford fans in a charge on rival Leyton Orient supporters.

But he has dodged the ban by switching allegiance to Arsenal and joining fellow hooligans in pubs, stations and on supporters coaches, the court was told. The leader of the youth wing of the EDL has also moved to Highbury to be closer to Arsenal's Emirates Stadium.

When he was arrested during one clash he was found with a hard-knuckle Kevlar glove – the same type of weapon he used during the earlier Liverpool Street fight.

Police are now applying for his football banning order to be extended to prevent a repeat of his behaviour. Judge Timothy Pontius will pass sentence today.

Evening Standard, 6 December 2012

Also convicted along with Titus for his part the Liverpool Street station brawl was Martin Pottle, who was jailed again earlier this year over the attack on Kingston Mosque.

In addition to his 9-month prison sentence for affray, last year Titus was slapped with an ASBO banning him from attending EDL protests and entering or loitering outside mosques.

Still, Titus does have his admirers. One of them described this convicted thug as follows: "Nice fella, not afraid to get his hands dirty (so what) ... intelligent kid – best of luck to him."

The author of that encomium is former EDL activist Andy Hughes of the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog, whose witch-hunting anti-Muslim articles have been approvingly cross-posted at Harry's Place.

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The ACT Human Rights Commissioner has found a flyer opposing a mosque development in Canberra's north is unlikely to have breached the Discrimination Act.

The flyer was distributed by a group calling itself the Concerned Citizens of Canberra. It outlined a number of worries about a proposal for the mosque in Gungahlin including the social impact. The flyer raised doubts whether the mosque's proponents would be good neighbours in the community.

ACT Multicultural Affairs Minister Joy Burch declared the Government supported the mosque and referred the flyer to ACT Human Rights Commissioner Helen Watchirs.

In a decision handed down today, Dr Watchirs found the flyer was concerned with religious issues rather than race and it was also unclear whether it breached vilification provisions. Dr Watchirs said a complainant might have more success in the federal jurisdiction where there was a lower threshold to establish racial hatred.

ABC News, 2 August 2012

See also "Mosque flyer 'offensive' but not racist: Commissioner", Canberra Times, 2 August 2012

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The people who anonymously distributed anti-Islamic pamphlets to Canberra and Queanbeyan homes over the Christmas holidays are unlikely to have breached ACT law, the Human Rights Commissioner has found.

The Canberra Times revealed in January that the small, cartoon-style leaflets were hand-delivered to letterboxes in Queanbeyan, Kingston, Braddon, Lyneham and Civic, and included titles such as Is Allah Like You? and Allah Has No Son.

In a letter to Attorney-General Simon Corbell outlining her findings, Helen Watchirs said that while the characters drawn in the pamphlet appeared Middle Eastern and lived in a desert environment, precedent meant it was unlikely to meet the ACT's high thresholds for racial vilification.

Canberra Times, 18 April 2012

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