I think that it's a just and fair sentence.  It is not an issue of free speech, and it has nothing to do with being mislead or deceived.  Holocaust denial is a deliberate effort to rewrite history.  In David Irving's case and as the court case in 2000 showed, he obviously faked it for the purpose of rejuvenating Hitler and National Socialism hence the judge's decision that he was an ideologue.  During his summation in the early 2000 trial, he called Judge Gray "Mein Furhrer" which stunned the court into silence before laughter broke out all around.  He showed himself for what he was at that instant.  (Deborah Lipstadt, "History on Trial," Ecco, New York, 2005, p 263)He is the kind of personality who will maintain a position and say anything which suits his purpose to promote himself and his deliberately distorted position.  He's as slippery as possible. Everything he says or writes must be examined very carefully.  He is, in short, a con artist.  The problem here is that Holocaust denial is quite dangerous in this world of ours.  This is what Austria recognises and prosecutes on average some 25 cases like these a year.  For very good reason he's been sent to prison for an incitement which carries with it a foundation of criminal results that ultimately can be devastating. If left free, he would ignore what he told the court and the media today and carry on with his incitement of extreme right wing ideologue extremists.  He would have gone to Iran for its Holocaust conference and generally contributed to Islamic extremism with its incitement of terrorism.  He would have taken on the role of Lord Hee Haw.  I think that the court saw through his so-called "change" and recognised his arrogance for what it was as he displayed today on BBC News24 broadcasts by belittling the law that the Austrians took very seriously.  He will not be a martyr but a criminal for what he has done under Austrian law.  This will send a very clear message that no one can fabricate and distort in the manner that he has done about something as devastating as the Holocaust which contravenes an enormous body of evidence.  One person interviewed on BBC News24 said that what David Irving says should be open to discussion and debate. Issues of the Holocaust can and should be discussed and debated but not the Holocaust itself.  The Holocaust is a fact of history.  It's like denying D-Day or something like that. The Holocaust is a fact of history, and it's a crime to deny it in Austria.  Jews were singled out in Germany from March 1933 onwards and denied any status in German society including work leading up to WWII and ultimately life during it.  Jews were targeted as objects to be eradicated completely. They were transported by the millions to the extermination camps in Poland, and six million Jews were murdered for the simple fact of being Jewish.  This was the Final Solution the likes of which history has never seen.  It cannot be denied, and anyone doing so has an ulterior motive.  The High Court case in 2000 here did not address this issue.  It addressed Deborah Lipstadt's alleged libel against David Irving in her book "Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," Plume, New York, 1994. David Irving objected to her characterisation of him as a historian.  Richard Evans produced a long report concluding that he was "no historian."  It's interesting to note yesterday that Irving claimed to be an historian and was holding a book in front of him which he held out for the cameras to photograph. He has been totally discredited as such by the High Court judgement following a lengthy trial and the extraordinary research carried out by Richard Evans and two assistants over an 18 month period among other superb expert witnesses.  His  free speech claim as a historian is just a ruse to suck people into his trap and a means to find something to stand upon to defend his actions since he was called to criminal accountability in Austria.  Words that Richard Evans used were "distortions, suppressions and manipulations" along with "depth of duplicity" in all that he did with respect to history claiming that "this dishonesty permeated his entire written and spoken output."  (Ibid., "History on Trial," p 67)Richard Evans wrote: "If we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian . . . Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history . . . in order to further his own political purposes."  . . . "not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject.  All of them are completely worthless as history."  (Ibid., pps 67-8)Judge Gray echoed this in his decision by nothing that David Irving's "falsification of the historical record was deliberate and . . . motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence." (Ibid., p 271)Please separate the fact of the Holocaust from the free speech issue and try to clarify what this slippery manipulator of language is talking about.  And, remember David Irving launched his libel action against Deborah Lipstadt in order to destroy her freedom of speech to accurately characterise him as a pseudo historian.  If he had succeeded, her right to express what she realised was the truth about him would have been denied to her.  She was the one who was sued by David Irving and then had to defend herself by proving the validity of her statements as is the case under the libel laws in this country.  (Ibid., p 31)However, she was absolutely correct in what she said, proved it in court and got a stunning judgement from Judge Gray to that effect.  That was free speech on trial which David Irving was trying to squash because he did not like the truth about himself freely expressed.  He preferred to be duplicitous.  It is the likes of the David Irvings of this world that they seek to deny free speech to others, but when they are legitimately prosecuted under the law as has occurred in Austria, they are the first to start screaming about being denied free speech.  David Irving knew exactly what he was doing each step of the way.  Why did he go to Austria when he knew he was subject to arrest?  Once they had him, they were not going to let him out of prison until he was tried.  He should have realised that the Austrians were quite serious about their law and what he did.  I fully support both the law and the sentence and feel that such a law would serve the interests of democracy in this country.