Journalist visited by police over X post warns ‘though control’ by authorities
Allison Pearson has said she believes the police are more interested in trying to solve thought crime than crimes such as burglaries or assaults.
Speaking on GB News Allison Pearson said: “There were two young constables by the door, and they said one said something about a non crime, hate incident, which was a year ago, with me a social media post a year ago.
“And I said, ‘What was it about the tweet? Give me an idea of what it said.’ And he said, I’m not allowed to tell you that.
“And then I said, ‘Who is my accuser? And he said, we’re not allowed to tell you that either. But it’s not the accuser, it’s the victim. So, I had a victim.
“And then it was just a very, very surreal and shocking conversation. And because it was Remembrance Sunday, I drew myself up to my full five feet, three and a half, and I said, ‘We’re here today on a special day commemorating hundreds of hundreds and thousands of young men your age, who lay down their lives for the country so it could be a free country and not live under the jack boot of tyranny.
“’And here you are on Remembrance Sunday, coming to my house in something that I consider to be against freedom and tyrannical.’
“I said, ‘And what would those young men think of you today?’
“So think the poor coppers probably thought, we’ve got a right one here.’
“I said to them, how would I defend myself if I don’t know any of the relevant details? And they looked a bit confused. I think they may have been on a sort of bacon roll run when they were told to come up.
“But I’ll tell you, it was shocking. It was upsetting. I’m a law-abiding person. I respect the police. I want to trust and respect the police. This seemed to me a completely mad overreaction.
“Whatever it was that I posted a year ago on X, I’m not in the habit of writing anything horrible and inflammatory. If I wrote something that was unwise and I appear to have deleted that tweet, I have no memory of what it was, I still don’t think that’s a proportionate response to something.
“Looking at what Essex police are doing and forces around the country, I would say they’re getting more interested in trying to solve thought crime than the kind of crime that normal people are interested in, burglaries, sexual assault, muggings, people having their phones nicked. The stats are really incontrovertible.
“When Suella Braverman was Home Secretary, she thought these non crime hate incidents were bad because they impacted on freedom of speech, because they had a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
“So she wanted to get rid of them. Apparently, Rishi wasn’t keen on taking that kind of decisive action, so they came in with a code of conduct to tell the police to exercise common sense proportionality.
“’Is this in the public interest to go around to Alison’s house and tell her that she’s done this thing?’ Is this thing that’s been done going to genuinely incite hostility? Is it going to have real life repercussions in the world, rather than just being something stupid that millions of us say on social media every day.’
“Now that was supposed to be enforced, and these non crime hate incidents, the police were supposed to stop doing them. They’re doing more of them.
“So I heard from Maya Forstater, she is a leading light in the women’s fight back against defending women’s spaces. She’s been very, very brave. And she immediately messaged me and said exactly the same thing happened to me.
“They said, We can’t tell you what the tweet said, we can’t tell you who’s accused you. She said she has been on the hook for a year waiting for the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to prosecute her.
“But the thing is, Nigel, the reason I decided to go public with it was because I felt ashamed. I don’t want to be a person who’s visited by the police. It’s embarrassing, it’s humiliating, but I can speak. It’s not shaming.
“I’m not ashamed that people come to my house with a really crazy overreaction to something that should just be let go. It’s trying to shape the morality of the population, right? It’s thought control.
“I’m allowed to say what I want. I mean, obviously there are limits to free speech in the sense of inciting terrorism or riot. But this is just within the realms of what normal people think. And I’ve heard from so many people today with lots of very upsetting examples. They’re just normal people, the copper has come around. They haven’t got my resources on my platform. They’re scared stiff. They’re embarrassed with the neighbours and the family, and they sit there thinking, God, are these people going to take away my livelihood, my reputation?
“And the hangover is if this thing is successful, they could keep my personal data online, and if I applied for a certain position in a charity or working with children, I could be deemed a dangerous person because of one tweet last year.
“This has become a bad law which started with very good intentions. So it had its roots in the Stephen Lawrence case, when people felt that racist incidents were not picked up and not joined together by the police.
“There was also the terrible, tragic case of Fiona Pilkington, a lady with a disabled daughter. They were subject to horrible abuse and Fiona ended up in a car, setting the car on fire with her and the disabled daughter. Absolute tragedy. And the findings of that case were that if some of the hate incidents had been joined together, then the authorities could have taken proper action.
“I quite understand that. What we’re talking about now is freedom of speech -precious in our democracy, and we should all be a bit more grown up.
“I’d be better off punching a policeman in the face at Manchester Airport than I would. Perhaps the policeman who came to me could go round and visit the people who hit a woman on the face?
“Well, I’m going to probably go in for an interview. The Free Speech Union, which is a brilliant organisation, is helping me, and they’re giving me a solicitor. So if I have to go into the police station and have a voluntary interview, I’ll go in. And maybe then we’ll be able to find out what I’m accused of, and then we’ll see how it progresses.
“The Telegraph has done a great campaign today, having a lot of people coming forward, and they don’t like the feeling of this. It does feel as though our society is changing in character.
“But as I said, looking at the stats for Essex police, we see hate crime, 18% they’re solving. Racially and religiously aggravated crime, whatever, 19%. Things like obsessed grievous bodily harm, they’re right down.
“So are these guys sitting in the office thinking, I’ll have a cup of tea and a digestive and I’ll have a look through Alison Pearson’s X feed to see if there’s anything.”