The Free Speech Union’s (FSU’s) General Secretary, Toby Young, joined Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg on GB News to discuss the troubling case of award-winning Telegraph journalist and FSU member Allison Pearson, who is facing a police investigation over an X post from last year.
Needless to say, the FSU is providing Allison with in-house support via our case and legal teams, as well as paying for her to have a solicitor if she’s required to attend a voluntary interview at a police station.
According to Allison, two police officers turned up at her home at 9:40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was being investigated over a potential ‘non-crime hate incident’ (NCHI).
Essex Police responded to this allegation by complaining to the press regulator, IPSO, on a matter of factual accuracy in the reporting of the interaction that took place, claiming “at no stage did the Force say she was having an NCHI” – although given that public bodies can’t sue in defamation, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights gives particularly strong protection to speech on matters of public concern, it’s unclear what purpose this complaint serves other than to provide the Force with some much-needed defensive PR.
The Force then released a selective part of the transcript of the conversation, presumably on the basis that it would support their claim. As per the transcript, one of the officers told Allison: “It’s gone down as an incident, or offence, of potentially inciting racial hatred online.” Oops. The use of this confusing either/or formulation – i.e., it might be an incident (NCHI) and not an offence – appears to support rather than refute Allison’s claim that she was “accused of a non-crime hate incident”.
Click the link to find out more about her case.
