Just how do you like to spend your Sundays? These days, it is a question worth asking. Most Sunday mornings, things move slowly in the Perrins household. There may be some lounging about in pyjamas that I think I objected to in a previous article for this publication. And that’s just me. I like to outsource the pancake making to the children while I make my way through the Sunday papers. That can take hours. I’d like to think that I’m in my Sunday best by 10 am, but I couldn’t promise you.
So, I did feel sorry for very well-known UK Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson who had her Sunday interrupted when the Old Bill came knocking on her door over a tweet she sent out over a year ago. Two police officers arrived at her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to inform her that she was being investigated over a post on X, formerly Twitter, published a year ago.
Pearson’s colleague Allister Heath, informs us, “Still in her dressing gown, she was stunned. The officers refused to tell Pearson which of her many posts their visit related to. They wouldn’t remind her what she had written. They weren’t allowed to tell her who complained, so much for open justice.”
What can we take from this? If you are a well known conservative journalist, best to get dressed by 9am every Sunday. If like me, you spend a little too much time on Twitter questioning The Message, The Narrative, or whatever rubbish they have trotted out on official channels, it is also advisable to lawyer up especially if once, just once, you may have Tweeted in anger.
Since this has been reported, all hell has broken loose in the media circles in the UK. Disgracefully there are far too many journalists on the left willing to go along with what is plain old police harassment of journalists who go against the establishment line.
And it is not just conservative commentators who are on the receiving end of police harassment. Feminist Julie Bindel ‘sent police packing’ when they visited her home to investigate one of her tweets as a ‘hate crime’. She was told by two Metropolitan Police officers that a ‘transgender man’ from Holland had reported one of her social media posts.
Recalling the visit on a Sunday in 2019 in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Bindel said: ‘I was able to send the two officers packing, without their visit even spoiling my lunch. The officers left looking a little bewildered. I did have a sense that they understood what a ridiculous mission they have been sent on. I advised that they could better use their time investigating rape and domestic violence.’ Best not to mess with Ms Bindel.
So it is on a Sunday that the coppers like to rock up to your family home and flex some muscle. Are they just after some brunch? Is that the real motivation here because it could not possibly be the case that they really believe, in their hearts of hearts, that a criminal offence has been committed. But then as Mark Steyn says, in Britain, that once great nation, everything is policed but crime. Truly, it’s hard to watch.
Samantha Smith who was a child rape victim of the Muslim grooming gangs, also recounted her police visit on Twitter, saying, “I went on GBNews to challenge the lie that Pakistani-Muslim grooming gangs were a “thing of the past”. The next day, the police came to my door and tried to intimidate me into silence. Criticise the establishment, and they will do everything in their power to stop you.”
Some journalists on the left are trying to say this is all fine. They imply that police officers knocking on the doors of journalists, feminists and child rape victims who say something uncomfortable against the establishment either on twitter or TV, somehow deserve this harassment.
But what did Pearson actually do? Pearson has said she was not told which social media post was being investigated, nor details of the complainant. The Guardian revealed the tweet allegedly was a reposting of an image of two people of colour holding the flag of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a Pakistani political party founded by Imran Khan, alongside police officers from Greater Manchester police. Pearson allegedly wrote a post targeting the Metropolitan police, which read: “How dare they. Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.” Pearson allegedly confused the flag with that of Hamas, and the identity of the police force. The original complainant told the Guardian that Pearson’s post was “racist and inflammatory” – which she denies. The Telegraph reported the post complained of had been deleted shortly after it was posted after the error was pointed out by users.
The Guardian then sets out a police flip-flop. Pearson has said officers told her they were planning to record a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) against her, an incident that does not meet the threshold for a crime. Essex police say the alleged offence was being treated as a criminal matter namely a possible offence of stirring up racial hatred under the Public Order Act 1986 and not a not an NCHI which are governed by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.
Now it is important to keep this simple and not get bogged down, as a lawyer might want to do, arguing over whether the 1986 Act really applies to social media posts, or whether the non-crime, pre-crime, thought crime, nonsense crime provisions of the 2022 Act should even exist (they shouldn’t.) Let’s not get bamboozled here dear reader. You don’t need a law degree from Cambridge to understand this one, and even if you did, I have one so it’s fine.
In a democracy, especially in a democracy as old as Great Britain, citizens or subjects whatever you fancy, should be able to tweet and comment and discuss things without having their Sunday brunch being interrupted by a knock on the door from two police officers to tell you may or may not have committed a tweet crime, and yes please I’ll have some maple syrup on those pancakes they look delicious. If this is what is going on in His Majesty’s Constabulary, then you are trashing your democracy, plain and simple.
Freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental rights a citizen has in a liberal democracy, and it includes the right to criticise the government or the police and offend people. Sure, it’s not unlimited, don’t bother telling me I can’t cry fire in a crowded theatre, I know that already, but the police in Britain are still bound by the Human Rights Act which makes it very clear they must act proportionately when balancing out rights. And it is clear, in this case, on any reading, that this tweet, comes nowhere near either an actual offence, or one of their stupid and outrageous non-crime thought crime incidents.
But I will say this; this is what police officers do. When I was at the bar in London a million years ago, I spent a fair bit of time crossing- examining police officers who really liked picking people up for petty public order offences, especially ones that included abusing a police officer (Lord save us from those trials). Often their evidence quickly fell apart on the stand, I admit I made it look easy. Because officers are often petty people looking for petty wrongs to solve as these are a lot easier than say investigating all the rapes and burglaries out there. With Twitter why all their Christmas’ have come at once. It is just one massive delivery of Krispy Kreme doughnuts to the station day after day after day.
Whether all this could jump the Irish sea I couldn’t say. We have managed to hold off the latest Hate Speech Bill, but if that did ever go through things could only get worse. I for one do not intend on changing my lazy Sunday morning routine any time soon, and the Guards should know that I don’t open the door to anyone before 10am.