The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has admitted that his force regularly wastes time on investigations into people being offended by things, against the public’s wishes.
Chief Constable Stephen Watson conceded that, as he put it, Greater Manchester Police had “become too assiduous at interpreting some of the rules to mean that if anybody at any time for whatever reason is offended, there somehow needs to be a police record.”
“We’ve got ourselves involved in stuff which is just not a policing matter, we’ve wasted our time as a result and we’ve caused people to question whether, frankly, we know what we’re doing,” the senior officer continued in comments quoted by The Telegraph.
It is possible Chief Constable Watson chose to speak out on the subject at this time due to the furore surrounding another British police force, Hampshire Constabulary, having arrested a British Army veteran for sharing a satirical Progress Pride flag meme originally uploaded by actor-turned-Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox on social media.
“[S]ome has been caused, obviously, anxiety based upon your social media post, and that’s the reason why you’ve been arrested,” hectored one of the unnecessarily large number of arresting officers in a moment caught on camera by Fox.
Hampshire Constabulary also arrested Harry Miller, who previously won a court case against the police for visiting him at home, telling him to “check his thinking”, and logging him as responsible for a “non-crime hate incident” after he offended a trans person on Twitter, because he — the force claims — obstructed the veteran’s arrest.
WATCH: Army Veteran Arrested by 'Politicised Police' for Posting LGBT Pride Flag Meme on Facebook https://t.co/wdplAJCRfB
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 30, 2022
“In certain circumstances, there are actually first-class examples of where we’ve just completely got this wrong,” said Chief Constable Watson — although he carefully avoided citing any incident in particular.
“It is, I think, the function of leadership to give our people the confidence that it is still okay, from time to time to say to people: it’s just not a police matter, that is nonsense,” he continued.
“That’s called being a grown-up in a democracy where we sometimes have vigorous discourse, and you just need to get with the programme or stop using social media. We need to encourage our people to have the confidence to do that.”
The chief constable appearing to suggest that police are reluctant to launch such investigations may be misleading, however, giving the zeal with which many officers throw themselves into enforcing woke speech codes.
Indeed, Hampshire Constabulary arrested Harry Miller and his compatriot despite the College of Policing having just updated its guidance to advise officers very specifically that they should “not get involved in debates on Twitter,” and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary having warned forces that, contrary to the claims of some police chiefs, “just thinking something is not a crime and should never be a crime.”
‘Being Offensive Is an Offence’ — UK Police Mocked for ‘Hate Crime Awareness’ Event https://t.co/l54qjZhuHx
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 22, 2021
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