While it is good he was released, the police never should have been there in the first place. There was no reason to question a person over a tweet like that.
Its an offense under the Mal Comms laws (which are daft).
If there's a report, they have a duty to go interview the person, and usually its closed as NFA.
In this case, he arranged for a voluntary interview (which would have leas to NFA), then reneged, which creates the conditions under PACE that necessitate an arrest so interview can be done quickly.
All of which would have been explained to him.
He wanted to get arrested, or had a room temperature IQ. Or both.
Are you suggesting that the police have an obligation to interview every person accused of hate speech? If that is the case can I report a person of hate speech every day they speak or make a post and the police would be required to interview them every time?
As for him wanting to be arrested. So what? He was trying to prove a point that the trans ideology is authoritarian and the police obliged.
The fact that he was arrested over a ham sandwich is even worse.
It's funny because on one side the UK is the birthplace of most of how democracies work today, and the oldest continuously running democratic parliament. So it has fairly good credentials.
But on the other hand this system is so dangerous, there is only really one chamber (the other one has no power), no counterpower, no constitution (the precendents thing is a joke, given that they are free to make up their own precedents on the fly), it is free to basically vote whatever it wants with a 50% and 1 vote majority, and that includes wiping out any civil liberty they feel like.
Again hard to call "unstable" a system that has shown to be so stable for so long, but it feels that it is not stable by design.
Canada's legal system is heavily inspired by the British one (at least outside of Quebec) and even they wouldn't touch this sort of thing with a ten-foot pole.
This sort of policing of offensive content on social media among democracies is basically just the UK + the middle east.
I can't think of any other non-despotic countries dumb enough to do this?
A more accurate comparison would be a man being visited by the police for possessing ham that may have been illegally imported, or was stolen, or that he was prohibited by law from possessing for one reason or another. The police were there to investigate a potential violation of the law. The fact that some people find the behavior the law prohibits to be morally questionable doesn't seem relevant.
That's not accurate at all because stealing is a physical action. The police were there to investigate feelings. It's literally in the title: 'causing anxiety'.
So they wanted him for an interview (which would end up being NFA'd).
They went over by arrangement with him for a voluntary interview, the guy decided to be an arse about it, which created the conditions under PACE (Policing and Crime Act) that necessitate arrest.
Arrest occurs, mans fucking shocked.
Play stupid games...
Now I will say, the Mal Comms laws are a disaster. But Jesus Christ the Mirror misrepresents this by a mile.
>They went over by arrangement with him for a voluntary interview, the guy decided to be an arse about it,
Voluntary interview doesn't seem so voluntary if you can't refuse it (or, rescind the voluntary acceptance of interview) without the refusal becoming a condition for a non-voluntary interview.
Voluntary interview in the UK is basically an interview under caution where they aren't arresting you first.
They could arrest you to interview, but its agreed they won't.
If you decide to not bother doing the voluntary interview, arrest becomes necessary, and you get arrested.
Arrests can show up on enhanced DBS checks, and are a real pain in the hole to explain to employers down the line. Hence there being a non arrest option.
There are some cases where you can be invited for a voluntary interview where they haven't established enough for arrest if you refuse.
Its a somewhat confusing term, but that's what they call it.
Usually its made clear to you at the time which of those cases its going to be.
"Look, you can come in for an interview at a time that suits both of us, or we will have to go and get you at a time that suits us. Either way, you will be interviewed."
I'm pretty confident that nibbleshifter meant/was implying "potentially committed an offense", which under the law necessitated the investigation, and thus means that the correct procedure was followed (separate from whether or not the law or procedure is just).
Surely they could have looked at the tweet instead of interviewing him? Once they viewed the tweet they would have discovered that it is not grossly offensive or indecent and they could have avoided this whole thing.
If interviewing is required then what is to stop somebody from reporting somebody everyday and requiring the police to go out consistently?
For me this is just as ridiculous as everything else being discussed.. why can anyone ever find out about an arrest that leads nowhere? Why all this dancing around? Because not even the police databases are secure! No one has trustworthy computers or communication technology and it is causing waaay too much drama.
I think that overall process is reasonable from a policing standpoint, but calling it "voluntary"... well, I don't think that word means what the police thinks it means. If you are required to do something, or else you will get arrested, that thing is not voluntary.
shouldn't it be called involuntary interview to reflect the truth of the matter? Government sure does have a way of naming things like it's opposite day everyday.
I don't know if "misrepresentation" is the word, when the whole scenario was engineered by a pro-hate-speech activist specifically to be reported on by outlets like The Mirror.
Laws on controversial topics often have awkward corner cases, and one strategy to fight them is to force those corner cases to the surface in a way that wouldn't have happened naturally, so that they can be highlighted for discussion in sympathetic media circles.
Edit: Tangentially related, from Lawrence v Texas with another somewhat manufactured situation:
"The gay rights advocates from Lambda Legal litigating the case convinced Lawrence and Garner not to contest the charges and to plead no contest instead.[29] On November 20, Lawrence and Garner pleaded no contest to the charges and waived their right to a trial. Justice of the Peace Mike Parrott found them guilty and imposed a $100 fine and court costs of $41.25 on each defendant. When the defense attorneys realized that the fine was below the minimum required to permit them to appeal the convictions, they asked the judge to impose a higher penalty. Parrott, well aware that the attorneys intended to use the case to raise a constitutional challenge, increased it to $125 with the agreement of the prosecutor.[30]"
> Hampshire Constabulary said, after initially visiting the property, officers agreed to return on Thursday.
> When they returned they were prevented from entering so arrested the 51-year-old suspect so they could interview him about the alleged offence.
> He has since been released and will face no further action.
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