Essex Police sent two cops to the Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson’s house over a tweet which is about a year old.
Essex Police officers went to her door on Remembrance Sunday saying she is under investigation over a tweet made in 2023 for a so called “noon-crime hat incident.”
Essex Police are clearly rattled as they have yet again had another go at Pearson and accused her of “false reporting” and have filed a complaint with Ipso.
The Telegraph journalist said, “I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently.”
Today she tweeted, “I have had texts and emails from Essex residents who say they had cars stolen and the police declined to come out.
“Gave a crime number down the phone. Maybe if they posted an irate tweet the police would show up?”
Robert Jenrick furiously reacted to Downing Street’s backing the police over their ridiculous intervention over the so-called “non-crime hate incidents.”
The shadow justice secretary said these “incidents” is a “chilling attack on free speech” and ripped into Keir Starmer of “wasting police time” on Thursday.
Jenrick rightly wrote, “Starmer shouldn’t be wasting a second of our police officers’ time on so-called ‘non-crime hate incidents’.
“They’re a chilling attack on free speech. Police the streets, not tweets.”
Reform UK’s deputy leader called Essex Police a “disgrace” over their treatment of the Telegraph journalist.
Tice wrote on social media, “More disgrace by leaders of Essex Police, over the Allison Pearson farce.
“Now they’re whining to Ipso about press criticism because they want to suppress complaints.
Boris Johnson, the former prime minister tweeted that it was “appalling.” He said: “How can 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.”
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary and former policing minister, said, “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.”
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, said: “This is Orwellian in the extreme. 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’.”
Liz Truss, the former prime minister, claimed the incident was “yet another affront to free speech”, adding: “We must speak out and fight back against this appalling bullying of Allison Pearson.”
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, said: “The police should be focussing on tackling the crime wave on our streets, not digging up years-old tweets.”
