BNP leader Nick Griffin and party activist Mark Collett have been cleared of inciting racial hatred after a retrial at Leeds Crown Court.
Mr Griffin, 46, from Powys, Wales, had denied two charges of using words or behaviour intended to stir up racial hatred in a speech in Keighley.

Mr Collett, 26, of Leicestershire, was cleared of four similar charges.

Chancellor Gordon Brown has told the BBC race laws may have to be revised in light of the acquittal.

Mr Griffin and Mr Collett were charged in April 2005 after the BBC showed a secretly-filmed documentary The Secret Agent in 2004.

The party leader smiled and nodded as the foreman of the jury read out the unanimous not guilty verdict.

'They can take our taxes but they cannot take our hearts, they cannot take our tongues and they cannot take our freedom ' said Griffin

Outside court, Mr Griffin and Mr Collett were greeted with chants of "freedom" by about 200 supporters, some of whom waved the union flag.

A small number of anti-Nazi protesters shouted as Mr Griffin addressed the crowd on a megaphone.

He said: "What has just happened shows Tony Blair and the government toadies at the BBC that they can take our taxes but they cannot take our hearts, they cannot take our tongues and they cannot take our freedom."

Mr Griffin said his co-defendant had worked "incredibly hard" for the BNP but had been living under the threat of a prison sentence since the age of 23.


Mr Collett, the party's head of the publicity, said: "This is the BNP - two, BBC - nil."

He branded the BBC "cockroaches" and added: "The BBC have abused their position.


"They are a politically correct, politically biased organisation which has wasted licence-fee payers' money to bring two people in a legal, democratic, peaceful party to court over speaking nothing more than the truth."

continued..........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6135060.stm

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Living under the tyranny of a Labour government.