Retired special constable Julian Foulkes is one of the latest targets of police officers who seem more eager to crack down on free speech than fight crime. The 71-year-old Spectator reader was detained for eight hours in November 2023 before being interrogated and given a caution after he referenced an anti-Semitic mob storming a Russian airport, in a reply to an activist threatening to sue then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman for labelling the pro-Palestine protests ‘hate marches’. While Foulkes’s tweet was first flagged to the Metropolitan Police Intelligence Command before being raised with Kent Police, it appears the discovery of a number of copies of The Spectator magazine at the ex-constable’s home persuaded officers to double down on his detention. The magazine the establishment don’t want you to read…
Of particular interest to officers were Douglas Murray books and editions of The Spectator magazine
In some rather bizarre video footage, police can be seen ransacking Foulkes’s home and making comments about the literature he possessed. Of particular interest to the Kent force were Douglas Murray books and editions of The Spectator magazine, including ‘Harry’s crusade’ and ‘Identity crisis’. ‘Very Brexity things,’ one perturbed officer whispered to her colleague. Spotting a Eurosceptic tome on Britain’s entry to the common market, another remarked: ‘That’s a little odd.’ Heaven forbid their man happened to be one of the 52 per cent of Brits who backed Britain’s exit from Brussels, eh?
On Tuesday, Kent Police eventually admitted that the caution issued to Foulkes was a mistake – confessing it was ‘not appropriate in the circumstances and should not have been issued’ before the chief constable of Kent Police personally phoned the retiree on Sunday to offer a ‘personal apology for the ordeal’. But this isn’t the end of the matter, with the Free Speech Union helping Foulkes take legal action against the force for wrongful arrest and detention. Rather ironically, the latest edition of The Spectator hones in on the British police’s inability to ensure the rule of law is actually observed on our streets. Perhaps if officers spent more time reading our magazine than chasing up old tweets they’d have a better idea of where they were going wrong…
Watch the clip here:
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