The Press Gazette reports:
Essex Police loses accuracy complaint versus Telegraph over Allison Pearson questioning
Essex Police has had a complaint against The Telegraph rejected by IPSO following a visit to columnist Allison Pearson by two uniformed officers on Remembrance Sunday.
Pearson was visited by police in November 2024, apparently to discuss a potentially inflammatory post on X by the comment writer.
(The tweet in question criticised two-tier policing of Pro-Palestine marches.)
Pearson said she was accused of a “non-crime hate incident” by police. The Telegraph also reported that she was questioned over an “alleged hate crime”.
Essex Police said Pearson was wrong to claim officers described the matter as a “non-crime hate incident” and provided a transcript of video taken filmed by officers at the time. IPSO rejected the complaints, saying the Telegraph had taken sufficient care to establish the facts ahead of publication.
Why does it matter whether it was or was not a “non-crime hate incident”? Because Essex Police tried to claim that because Pearson was – ludicrously – being investigated for an actual crime (someone had complained that the tweet had incited racial hatred), that meant that the Telegraph could not report on their own columnist having the rozzers turn up unannounced at her door on Remembrance Sunday.
Rejecting the complaint, IPSO said: “While the complainant had said that it had not been given sufficient time to respond to this email, it had responded within four hours, with both a for-publication comment and a not-for-publication note. Neither the comment nor the background note responded to the claim that the writer had been told that she had been ‘told she had been reported for a non crime hate incident’. While both pieces of correspondence made clear that the police were investigating the matter as a potential criminal offence, the position regarding what the writer had been told during the visit had not been disputed or corrected.”
IPSO added: ” The complainant had said that the articles should not have been published, as the publication was not aware of the full circumstances of the case, and had attempted to dissuade the newspaper from publishing the articles under complaint. The committee noted that, on occasion, the press will report on ongoing investigations, and the code does not forbid it from doing so. It further noted the role that the press plays in reporting on the criminal justice system, and that – provided that the code is not breached – there is no bar on the media reporting on ongoing and developing cases, and doing so can serve the public interest, for example by holding institutions to account, or by reporting on matters of ongoing public debate.”
Am I understanding this correctly? Is it illegal to report on ongoing criminal investigations? If the George Floyd death had occurred in the UK, no one could report on it once the investigation had opened?
Or does there need to be a court order shutting down such reporting before there is a prohibition?
The training police forces are getting and the policy guidance – is all very disturbing.
Also British pragmatism, like American Pragmatism (the philosophical school – hence “big P”) is dangerous – it is dangerous because it denies objective truth, and undermines clear principles such as Freedom of Speech.
Unlike the United States, where there is some resistance to the totalitarian doctrines (“Critical Theory” and so on) pushed by the education system and the media, here in the United Kingdom there is no real fight-back.
Nor can there be at the political level – as the House of Commons (described, only a year ago, by the historian David Starkey as the last institution NOT to be “Woke”) now has the largest leftist majority in history.
There will be no General Election till 2029 – and, by then, there may, sadly, not be a nation worth saving.
Bobby b, no, there is no general ban on reporting ongoing criminal investigations, as the last paragraph of the statement by IPSO (the Independent Press Standards Organisation) makes clear. It was police overreach. I think there are some limited circumstances where you are not meant to report things that would potentially jeopardise a fair trial, or would tip off criminals that they were being investigated – something like that, anyway. Perhaps someone who knows more about the issue can say more.
I am not a lawyer but I know that there are also quite a lot of circumstances where reporting on an ongoing court case can be contempt of court, but that doesn’t apply to investigations, only to actual trials.
In that case there will be a civil war in 2029. But I doubt that is how this will go, but we will know soon enough.
Yeah, but the civil war won’t involve the the indigenous population, who get mercilessly attacked by the sheepdog-turned-wolf police the moment they stick their noses over the parapet, it will be between the long term immigrants who are happy with the status quo and the newcomers who want to destroy everything.
I continue to be utterly flabbergasted that a “non crime hate incident” is even a thing. It sounds like something made up for The Onion. But as I have often said, the problem with reductio ad absurdum is that there are people who think that absurdum is a jolly good idea.
Just for laughs I read the Yorkshire plod‘s web page on it. I mean how can anyone read that and not feel a weird mix of wanting to fall over laughing, before trembling in a closet in fear of its totalitarianism?
A hate crime is any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice…”
I mean seriously? That’s a joke, right? Aren’t people up in arms about such a preposterous idea which seems to be utterly pervasive in the UK?
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
In that case there will be a civil war in 2029. But I doubt that is how this will go, but we will know soon enough.
No there won’t be a civil war. Especially in Britain. I mean if the Brits put up with some of the insane crap that has been thrown at them the past few years with barely a peep of complaint then they will be far too anesthetized to do a damn thing. I mean covid? “Stay inside sir, yes sir, of course sir” as he pulls his forelock in obsequence.
Plus you all turned in your guns and, as far as I can tell, your kitchen knives a while ago. I mean if you cross the left’s ideological red line for sure you can expect riots. But not from conservatives or liberals. Plus, in Britain, you aren’t allowed to say anything against the party line without risking some jail time, so how are they going to organized this imagined civil war? You’ll be damned as libertarian terrorists (or more likely far right terrorists since the British education system is so compromised nobody knows what a libertarian is.)
Sorry, but Britain is totally screwed. To misquote a patriot: “If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each of us lies fat and happy and protected from anyone saying anything we might find offensive.”
If I lived in Britain I’d be doing everything I could to get the hell out to a safer less totalitarian place. I mean, isn’t that what you did?
I can hardly fathom the thought processes making someone think that makes violence less likely rather than more likely 😀
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
I can hardly fathom the thought processes making someone think that makes violence less likely rather than more likely
In theory I’d agree, but, well, it hasn’t, has it? Or did I miss the “we want our free speech back” riots in the news?
Plus you didn’t say violence. You said civil war. And that is a lot difference than simple “violence”.
Lets have this chat again in a few years after the ethnic pressure cooker & power cuts causes the steam to build up a bit more.