TikTok prankster Mizzy banned from using social media, judge rules
26 October 2023, 17:34
A judge said the prankster’s defence lacked ‘all credibility’ and found him to have ‘deliberately flouted’ a court order at his trial on Thursday.
TikTok prankster Mizzy has been banned from using social media after he was found guilty of posting videos without consent.
The star, real name Bacari-Bronze O’Garro, was found to have “deliberately flouted” a court order prohibiting him from sharing videos of people without their consent “within hours” of it being passed.
Judge Matthew Bone, overseeing the 19-year-old’s trial at Stratford Magistrates Court on Thursday, slammed O’Garro for “lacking all credibility” after he denied four counts of breaching the order.
He ordered the father-of-one not to use social media “at all” except to send messages until he is sentenced next month and warned that he could go to prison for the offences he had committed.
It comes after O’Garro’s defence lawyer Paul Lennon revealed to the court earlier on Thursday that his client had been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.
O’Garro’s main witness in the case, who was due to give evidence at the trial, was also arrested and both were bailed on the condition that they do not contact each other.
Mr Lennon attempted to adjourn the hearing, claiming O’Garro was unable to receive a “fair trial” without his only witness, but his application was rejected by Judge Bone.
The court heard how O’Garro began sharing videos of people without their consent on the same day the criminal behaviour order was passed on May 24 this year.
It was shown footage, shared on O’Garro’s Twitter account on the night of May 24 featuring him in Westfield shopping centre, Stratford, after he appeared on Piers Morgan’s TalkTV show and mocked the British judicial system.
In the video, passersby were visible in the background as Mizzy said to the camera: “The UK law is a joke.”
Other videos shared on O’Garro’s Snapchat account, which were also in breach, showed him grabbing hold of a schoolboy by his uniform and another showing him fight a man with dwarfism, which O’Garro claimed were hoax videos made with their prior agreement.
O’Garro’s claim that one of his friends, who had access to his login details, posted the Twitter videos without his consent, was dismissed by Judge Bone as “inconceivable”.
The judge said: “I have to say I did not accept the evidence of the defendant – it lacked all credibility.
“Within hours of the criminal behaviour order he posed (in Westfield) stating the video would be shared and it was.
“The defendant was filmed trying to shake a man’s hand from whom consent was not obtained.
“He had just appeared on national television saying the British law was weak.
“I found it to be an intentional, immediate and deliberate challenge to the criminal behaviour order.
“Dealing again with charge four, two people were roughed up on camera by the defendant – I found his behaviour was again a deliberate challenge to the criminal behaviour order.”
Judge Bone found O’Garro not guilty on two further counts of the same charge, ruling that the videos in question may already have been shared before the criminal behaviour order was passed.
However, he warned O’Garro: “The defendant shouldn’t take much comfort from that.
“What I have convicted him of crosses the custody threshold.
“This is a man who has stepped over the line of the order in a deliberate way.
“You need to understand the seriousness of your situation now.
“You need to understand that you deliberately flouted this court order within hours of it being made.”
O’Garro will be sentenced on November 21 at Thames Magistrates Court.
