Is it any surprise that police forces determined to enforce neo-Marxist speech codes in the UK are using complainants effectively as informers?
Take the shocking case of Elizabeth Kinney, interviewed recently on Piers Morgan Uncensored after the Daily Mail publicised her case:
An assault victim has been convicted of a homophobic hate crime after she branded her attacker a ‘f****t’ in text messages whilst ranting about being beaten up.
Care home worker Elizabeth Kinney, 34, was said to have sent a ‘barrage’ of messages to a former friend during which she described being attacked by a male mutual acquaintance.
During the messaging the single mother-of-four even sent pictures of her injuries from the assault, which resulted in her being admitted to hospital.
The complaint from her former friend resulted in 11 police officers, ten male and one female, bursting into her home to arrest her for “malicious communications” while she was in the bath.
She described her ordeal to Piers Morgan:
“I had left my front door open. I was waiting for my Dad to come to the house. I was actually in the bath and they opened the door themselves… and then they just came up the stairs and didn’t give me any privacy or anything.”
While naked in the bath, she asked the male officers to leave the female officer with her and go downstairs. Initially the request appears to have been refused and male officers lingered to watch her get dressed. Eventually, Kinney said, the male officers departed and left the female officer with her.
The Mail reported how the horror story unfolded for Kinney, who alas does not appear to have been a member of the Free Speech Union:
At Sefton Magistrates’ Court Kinney, from Tranmere, pleaded guilty to causing to be sent by public communication network offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing messages.
She insisted her words were a “thoughtless rant” and that she was not attacking anyone’s sexuality.
But JPs said her remark was “homophobic” and gave her an “uplifted” sentence of a 12-month community order.
She was also ordered to undertake 72 hours of unpaid work and 10 rehabilitation activity days and pay £364 in costs and surcharge.
Though not stated in the story, because Kinney was arrested in Tranmere, the police force responsible for this Stasi-like behaviour must have been Merseyside Police, which is notorious for its enthusiasm for wokery. In February 2021 during lockdown it was Merseyside Police that chillingly paraded a van in the Wirral with a billboard proclaiming: “Being offensive is an offence.” There were four masked police officers standing in front of the banner.
After criticism, Merseyside Police was forced to clarify that while hate crime is an offence, “being offensive is not in itself an offence”. A spokesman nevertheless maintained that the poster was “well intentioned” by the local policing team in Wirral, despite admitting it was “incorrect”.
In Kinney’s case, do not the facts confirm that Merseyside Police is still totally committed to the woke censoriousness displayed on that sign? Does not the fact that 11 police officers were deployed to arrest one woman indicate how strong their commitment to that dogma is? And does not the fact that they pursued with such alacrity the complaint about remarks in what common sense would see as a private conversation clearly demonstrate that they were using the complainant as effectively an informant, notifying them of non-woke language for them to set their sights on? After all, there is no actual gay male victim of the supposed “homophobia” in this offence, the anti-gay slur having been sent to a woman and being about a straight man.
Lockdown sceptics may recall being shocked to hear the then (Conservative!) Health Secretary Matt Hancock boasting back in September 2020 that he would report his neighbours to the police for breaking Covid rules. Now it seems people being dobbed in to the authorities for violating ridiculous laws is becoming a regular affair. For those who want to exercise traditional British freedom under the rule of the law, the guillotine is already in place. Police informers are playing the central role as the blade descends.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
This piece was first published in The Daily Sceptic, and is reproduced by kind permission.
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(Photograph: Ian S / Police with Pride)
