Why are the police wasting time arresting Twitter transphobes when they could be tackling knife crime? That was the question asked by Boris Johnson in an article for the Daily Telegraph last February, in which he lambasted officers for arresting a mum for sending some rude tweets. A year on, Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. And now that mum has a criminal record.
Today’s judgement was a hard sight to bear: a 39-year-old mother of two children, one of whom is autistic, listened as the judge at St Albans Magistrates’ Court found her guilty, under the Communications Act (2003), of using a public communications network to “cause annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety”.
The verdict means Kate Scottow is unlikely to be able to fulfil her ambition of becoming a forensic psychologist, after completing her master’s degree in the subject last year.
Her crime? To send some offensive tweets to a trans woman called Stephanie Hayden.
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