Harry Miller

The police crackdown on social media has gone too far

(Credit: Getty images)

Last week, I spent a night in a police cell. My ‘crime’? To intervene after I witnessed an ex-soldier being arrested over a social media post.

Is what someone posts on Facebook – even if it is a distasteful image of a transgender pride flag in the shape of a swastika – really a matter for the police? I don’t think so – and in this instance, the law appears to be on my side. Yet Hampshire Police saw things differently.

‘Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested,’ a PC told the ex-army veteran as he stood outside his home in handcuffs, surrounded by officers. The backlash to the arrest has been swift: Hampshire police and crime commissioner Donna Jones has even stepped in to criticise officers.

The veteran asked what the charge might be. No answer was forthcoming

‘I am concerned about both the proportionality and necessity of the police’s response to this incident,’ she said. ‘When incidents on social media receive…two visits from police officers but burglaries and non-domestic break-ins don’t always get a police response, something is wrong’.

Hampshire Police have since said that no further action will be taken against a man who was arrested on suspicion of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter. I remain under investigation on suspicion of ‘obstructing a constable in execution of duty’.

But the truth is that, whatever happens now, incidents like this will keep occurring. The College of Policing’s latest hate crime guidance, published last month, was intended to address the most egregious examples of police overreach. It has failed: the updated guidance still runs the risk of turning sarcastic expressions of dissent into something much more dangerous.

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