Richard Burgon is the Shadow Justice Secretary, who is a member of Parliament and works with UK’s Secretary of State for Justice.
Burgon is also a metal fan and contributed vocals to a friend's band Dream Troll, who used a parody of Black Sabbath's We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll as their cover. Observe.
Somehow, this led to British tabloids The Sun and Daily Mail accusing the Shadow Justice Secretary of performing with a band that promotes Nazi imagery. The Sun said "the group uses the name of Hitler’s infamous SS security unit as lettering in its promotion posters" and they spell their name "in German military font, complete with an umlaut over the letter 'o.'"
You'll notice this claim is pretty dumb, which is also what London’s high court thinks. According to MetalSucks, Burgon recently won his suit against The Sun, who now has to pay him £30,000 in damages. Here's the ruling from Justice Sir James Michael Dingemans.
“When dealt with fairly there is a story to be had. One is about Mr. Burgon joining a band which as he knew took great pleasure in using Nazi symbols. The other is about Mr. Burgon joining a band which had produced an image based on the Black Sabbath album cover which used stylised ‘S’s, which some persons might consider to be similar to the ‘S’s used in the ‘SS’ symbol.”
Dingemans did dismiss a case against article writer Newton Dunn due to Dunn "acting honestly" and being unaware of Black Sabbath's iconography. The Sun plans to appeal the ruling, saying the suit will "act as a brake on the ability of the free press to hold those in power to account and to scrutinize the judgment of those who aspire to the highest offices in the land." Right.
