ESSEX Police have taken the exceptional decision to publish quotes from officers after “a large amount of false reporting” centred on a deleted tweet from a Telegraph columnist.
It comes after the right-wing newspaper spent a week claiming that Allison Pearson had been visited by police and recorded as involved in a “non-crime hate incident” due to a post on social media.
The allegations led to outrage among Conservative politicians, with Kemi Badenoch claiming the police’s actions had been “absolutely wrong”.
However, evidence published by Essex Police, and handed to the media watchdog Ipso, shows that Pearson was told she was being investigated for the “offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online”.
The Guardian reported that, in a deleted post on Twitter/X, Pearson had labelled two smiling men standing next to police officers and holding the flag of a Pakistani political party “Jew haters”. The Telegraph columnist had reportedly confused the men for members of Hamas.
The Times reported that Pearson claimed she may have misheard police when they told her she was being probed under suspicion of inciting racial hatred.
She further claimed: “My tweet was definitely not racist. I was criticising the police not a protected characteristic group. It is perfectly legal to criticise the police.”
Essex Police said in its statement: “Officers attended an address in Essex and invited a woman to come to a voluntary interview.
“They said it related to an investigation into an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred, linked to a post on social media.
“We police without fear or favour and that’s why we respond to alleged offences which are reported to us by members of the public.
“For clarity: a complaint of a possible criminal offence was made to the police and this is why we called; to arrange an interview.”
The force added: “Essex Police complained to Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) on a matter of factual accuracy.
“The force has been asked to provide further factual information. This morning, the following verbatim lines were passed to Ipso.
“These lines are as spoken by an officer who attended an address in Essex on Sunday 10 November and were clearly captured on Body Worn Video.
“Officer: ‘It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.’
“Officer: ‘Because of what’s been alleged and the evidence that we’ve got, I need to just ask you some questions.’
“Officer: ‘It’s what’s been alleged and if there’s an offence we need to ask questions about then we need to do that.’
“Essex Police supports free speech. It does not support inaccuracy. If an alleged crime is reported it is investigated. There is no public interest in falsehood.”
