Essex police visit journalist’s home over Tweets

Allison Pearson, a journalist at the Telegraph, recently found herself at the centre of a police investigation based on an allegation that one of her social media posts was “likely or intended to cause racial hatred.”

Three separate police forces and one “gold group” crime unit had been mobilised to investigate a hate speech complaint against the journalist.

On Sunday, November 10th, she was visited in her home in Essex, England by two police officers in connection with material she had posted to X in November 2023. In an interview on GB News, Ms Pearson said that the police officers would not reveal which post of hers they were investigating, or who had made the accusation against her. She was “invited” to assist in the investigation by coming to the police station for an interview at a later date.

The way Allison Pearson was targeted by the police should give pause to those who think law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear from hate speech legislation. This case raises serious questions about the state of the British legal system and more generally, the impact of hate speech laws on the liberties we in the West take for granted.

To begin with, why is there a law on England’s statute books encouraging the police to devote scarce resources to chasing after random complaints from the public about social media posts they find offensive or “hateful?” Wouldn’t police resources be better employed fighting the sorts of crimes that most ordinary people worry about, like burglary, assault, knife crimes, and delinquency?

Second, why, in this particular case, did police officers in Essex opt to make a potentially upsetting and intrusive visit to someone’s home on a Sunday, instead of notifying them by mail or telephone that they wished to arrange an interview with them at a future date? Why would a year-old, long-deleted social media post warrant a house call by two police officers on a Sunday morning?

Third, why did the police officers in question confront Ms Pearson with an anonymous allegation of unlawful or wrongful conduct, while refusing to clarify for her which social media post of hers they had received a complaint about? Surely it is contrary to natural justice to confront someone with an allegation of wrongful or criminal conduct without properly notifying the accused of the nature of the offence, so that they can prepare a proper defence?

The vague charges hanging over Ms Pearson’s head, and her vulnerability to a potential witch hunt by Essex Police, are not misapplications of hate speech legislation, but logical consequences of it. For hate speech laws, of their very nature, inevitably result in arbitrary police investigations and arbitrary prosecutions, since the concept of hate speech is very much in the eye of the beholder.

For example, publicly accusing a group of people of stirring up hatred or engaging in “hate speech” could easily stir up hatred against them – who, after all, would feel fondness in their heart toward someone alleged to stir up “hatred” in society? Yet those who accuse others of stirring up hatred are not generally investigated for stirring up hatred against those they are accusing of stirring up hatred. Similarly, publicly accusing whites or heterosexuals or Christians of being “privileged” is not investigated as a potential hate crime, yet publicly accusing a man of parading as a woman is.

Considering the fact that each of these accusations could potentially stir up hatred against this or that racial, ethnic, religious, or sexually defined group in society, the choice to investigate or prosecute one form of provocative and combative speech, while turning a blind eye to another, is clearly based on an arbitrary, politically biased construal of the concept of “incitement to hatred.”

“Hatred” and other negative emotions are frequently stirred up in the ordinary course of democratic debate about controversial and divisive issues. But which forms of divisive speech end up getting investigated or prosecuted depends fundamentally upon the political sensibilities of prosecutors and police departments. In short, there is no transparent, politically impartial way of establishing the legal meaning of a “hate crime.”

Sadly, England is becoming a flagship of the hate speech movement. It is in England, the birthplace of the common law, Magna Carta, trial by jury, and habeas corpus, that citizens can no longer be confident about when and where they may be investigated by the police for their speech. In England, one complaint from an overly sensitive or vindictive reader or neighbour, and you can have the police showing up on your doorstep to “invite” you to an interview at the police station.

We need to shame the Essex Police into devoting its resources to real crimes, rather than to political squabbles over controversial tweets. We need to shame the British government for having on its statute books laws that facilitate arbitrary police harassment of journalists and citizens whose views happen to be categorised by public officials as “potentially” hate-inciting.

Allison Pearson deserves a lot better than this. So do the rest of us.