Police face a growing backlash after it emerged a journalist is under criminal investigation for allegedly stirring up “racial hatred” over a year-old social media post.
Allison Pearson, a columnist at The Daily Telegraph, was visited by two officers at her home in Saffron Walden, Essex on Remembrance Sunday as she was preparing to make her way to a memorial service.
They told Ms Pearson, 64, a complaint had been made to police in relation to a post on X, formerly Twitter, and she was invited to a voluntary interview.
At the time in 2023, the journalist was frequently commenting on the October 7 attacks on Israel and pro-Palestine protests in London.
Ms Pearson says the officers were not allowed to disclose the specific focus of their inquiry, but Essex Police deny this and add it is not a reflection of the conversation captured on body-worn video.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp, an ex-policing minister, told the Telegraph: “It is completely wrong that the journalist was not even told about the particulars of the allegation when she was doorstepped by the police, intruding into her Sunday morning without warning.
“I am deeply concerned this will have a chilling effect on free speech and free expression.”
It’s been quite a week. 😱
Talking to my co-Pilot Liam Halligan about the horrible experience of being questioned by police on Armistice Day about a tweet they said I posted a year ago.
Listen here: https://t.co/7q6Nvo5tjq— Allison Pearson (@AllisonPearson) November 14, 2024
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the behaviour “appalling”, adding: “How can [Keir] 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.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and now a key figure in Donald Trump’s new US administration, posted on X which he owns: “This needs to stop.”
He later added: “This is insane. Make Orwell Fiction Again!!”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called it “Orwellian in the extreme”.
He said: “I’m absolutely appalled that Allison and others like her have to live in fear for months without ever being told what has been said against them.
“People must be worried sick. We are very much in the territory of a thought crime here, where the accusers are called ‘victims’.”
Writing in the Telegraph on Wednesday, Ms Pearson said officers were unable to explain the nature of the allegedly offending post or provide the identity of the complainant.
She insists she told them: “Okay, you’re here to accuse me of causing offence but I’m not allowed to know what it is. Nor can I be told whom I’m being accused by? How am I supposed to defend myself, then?”
The writer added: “The two policemen exchanged glances. Clearly, the Kafkaesque situation made no sense to them, either.
“This is supposed to be 2024, not 1984, yet the police officers seemed to be operating according to the George Orwell operational manual.”
Ms Pearson told Mr Farage’s GB News programme on Wednesday night that she was likely to attend the interview.
She said: “The Free Speech Union, which is a brilliant organisation, is helping me, they are giving me a solicitor so if I have to go into the police station and have a voluntary interview I will go in and maybe then we will find out what I am accused of.”
Essex Police told the Standard it had made a complaint to media regulator, The Independent Press Standards Organisation, over the Telegraph’s “inaccuracies and misinterpretations”.
A spokesman said: “We police without fear or favour and when a crime is reported, we investigate.
“We’re investigating a report which was passed to us by another force.
“The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed.
“An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.
“As part of that investigation, officers attended an address in Saffron Walden on Sunday November 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter.
“At this stage, we’re awaiting confirmation of her available dates.”
