Mal comm
The Telegraph on the grotesque bullying of Maya Forstater by the police:
Ms Forstater was investigated for 15 months by Scotland Yard after a complaint that her June 2023 post about a transgender GP was allegedly a malicious communication.
I don’t believe she was actually investigated for 15 months. I think she was just made to twist in the wind for 15 months. I really don’t think Scotland Yard spent 15 months “investigating” a single tweet.
Police contacted her two months after the post on X in June 2023 to say she was being invited to a voluntary interview to give her side of the events.
Despite asking a series of questions about the details of the allegation, she was told only that it related to a post “targeted” at a member of the transgender community. The officer said they could not divulge any more because the “victim” was susceptible to further comments.
She was warned that if she failed to attend the police interview voluntarily, she would be marked as “wanted” on the Met Police’s system for which she would eventually be arrested.
So attending the police interview is not “voluntary” at all. You can’t claim the interview is voluntary and say not attending the interview will lead to being arrested.
Her experience prompted her to contact [Allison] Pearson after reading about her case. Pearson was told on Remembrance Sunday by Essex police that she was under investigation for allegedly inciting racial hatred in a tweet a year ago.
“When I read the article describing her experience as Kafkaesque, it is exactly what my experience was,” said Ms Forstater. “From the start, the officer was saying there’s a victim and I was being told I had committed a crime but was not told what the tweet was.
How is that even legal?
I wonder if attending ‘voluntarily’ allows the police to avoid providing a solicitor, if so I doubt they explain that to the victim.
WTF is going on? Is nobody telling the police to cut this shit out? is there some closeted AGP directing all this harassment? Is this some kind of desperate rearguard action before it all implodes? Are they trying to get their last kicks in before they end up on the downside of the curve? Fucking hell.
Maybe the police are stirring all this up to distract attention from their own internal problems with sexism and sexual assault. Look, over there! A squirrel…I mean, a transphobe!
Bascule, #1:
The person ‘invited’ to attend is informed that they are entitled to legal representation during the interview. I only know this because a friend of mine had to attend a ‘voluntary’ interview recently after shouting at a gang of teens who were throwing fireworks at houses on his street. The teens called the police on him.
Wtf???
@#4
The person ‘invited’ to attend is informed that they are entitled to legal representation during the interview.
That’s good, but is that your own lawyer that you have to arrange and pay for? If I’m arrested I believe I’m entitled to a duty solicitor if I don’t have my own.