A barrister has hit out after journalist Allison Pearson was visited by police officers to investigate a social media post from over a year ago and encouraged Labour to “get ride” of the law.
Speaking to GB News, Barrister Steven Barrett said: “I mean, this is utter tosh. It’s complete subjectivity.
“A man called Harry Miller took took the College of Policing to court over this, and won quite extensively because judges don’t like this.
“Because, like me, they just they don’t like bad law, which is what all this rubbish is.
Steven Barrett blasted it as “utter tosh”
GB News
“Now Essex Police is fair to acknowledged that they’re rowing back from this. They went to Alison’s house, they accosted her, it’s pretty threatening, pretty scary.
“They ruined her day because she was going to go to Remembrance Sunday and she didn’t end up going because this sort of stuff is pretty bad.
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“If you’re a decent person, you don’t like police officers turning up at your house. It is fundamentally intimidating, but they’re rowing back from it by claiming that they’re actually pursuing an offence under the Public Order Act.”
Essex Police confirmed they had opened an investigation under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”.
A police spokesman said: “We’re investigating a report passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed.”
The officers attended Pearson’s address on Sunday “to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter,” the spokesman added.
Pearson had been visited on Remembrance Sunday by officers from Essex PoliceGETTY
The officers refused to disclose the specific content of the allegedly offending post.
The writer had been frequently commenting on the October 7 attacks on Israel and subsequent pro-Palestinian marches in London around the time of the post in question.
Essex Police indicated they are treating the matter as a potential criminal offence rather than just a non-crime incident.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage commented on the incident and called the timing particularly concerning.
Steven Barrett said that it is “pretty threatening”
GB News
He said: “On Remembrance Sunday of all days, when we remember those who fell for democracy and freedom of speech, it is outrageous that Allison Pearson had to face police officers on her doorstep.”
“We are very much in the territory of a thought crime here, where the accusers are called ‘victims’,” Farage added.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson also posted: “This is appalling. How can Starmer’s Britain lecture other countries about free speech when an innocent journalist gets a knock on the door – for a tweet?
“Our police have their hands full of burglaries and violent crime. They are being forced to behave like a woke Securitate – and it has to stop.”