UK authorities summon citizen for ‘grossly offensive’ social media post
UK Metropolitan Police summoned James Goddard last month to a meeting due to an offending social media post, according to a letter shared Saturday by British freedom activist Laurence Fox.
In the letter, Metro Police cite Goddard’s Twitter handle and describe the post.
“On the 4th of August 2022 you posted a tweet on your Twitter account @Goddard2066. This tweet contains a video of Wembley Way and commentary from you regarding the rainbow ‘pride’ flags which represent the LGBTQ community.
“These comments are targeting specifically the LGBTQ community would be considered ‘grossly offensive’ thus being in contravention 127 of the Malicious Communication Act 2003.”
The officer who penned the letter, identified as PC Gordon of the MO6 Public Order Crime Team, demands a “voluntary interview".
“I therefore require you to contact me to arrange a voluntary interview so this matter can be further investigated. This interview can be conducted near to your home address and I would suggest a mutually convenient date in early January 2023.
“If I do not hear from you within 10 days from the date of this letter an evidential case file may be submitted for consideration of prosecution.”
The letter provides Goddard with a crime reference number.
Goddard, whose Twitter account has been suspended, could not be reached for comment.
“It would seem that the non job, opinion policing, diversity commissars are at it again. Fragile little crybully authoritarians,” wrote Fox on Twitter.
“They had a really bad time when they tried this last time and they are going to have a really bad time if they try it this time.”
Laurence Fox is also known for his coverage of a similar incident last year in which three police officers arrested a war veteran at his home over a social media post. The offending post showed a swastika made of rainbow flags, a commentary on the state-sponsored intimidation of citizens to embrace same-sex attraction and gender disorientation.
A video shared by Fox showed the 51-year-old being handcuffed by police, who told him he was being arrested “[b]ecause someone has been caused, obviously, anxiety, based on your social media post. That is why you’ve been arrested.” One policeman referred to the war veteran as “homophobic".
The United Kingdom has recently been ramping up its attacks on unapproved speech in its pursuit of a totalitarian utopia.
In September, British protestors who demonstrated against lockdowns in 2021 were sentenced for insulting a BBC journalist.
In October, Leicestershire Police urged citizens to report others for misnaming people who claim to have changed their gender by referring to them by their “previous” name.
In a since-deleted tweet, the police included a photo of a 57-year-old person named “Jane” from Hinckley, who appears to be a man.
“I get called by my previous name on purpose,” reads the quote, “but that’s not who I am. It can be really hurtful, especially when it’s just seen as a joke.”
“You can report #HateCrime via Stamp It Out,” the police wrote in a caption above the image.
Last month, a Birmingham woman was arrested for allegedly silently praying outside an abortion center after police received complaints from an onlooker. Her thought crime falls under the Birmingham Council’s Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) for the area, which prohibits “protesting, namely engaging in any act of approval or disapproval or attempted act of approval or disapproval, with respect to issues related to abortion services, by any means. This includes but is not limited to graphic, verbal or written means, prayer or counselling.”
