By GB News (World News) | Created at 2024-11-14 08:26:18 | Updated at 2024-11-22 14:25:41
1 week ago
Essex Police's investigation into Journalist Allison Pearson has been branded "dangerous", after she was visited by two police officers at her home on Remembrance Sunday.
The officers informed her that she was "under investigation" for a social media post shared in 2023.
In her first sit down interview since the incident, Pearson told GB News how a "shocking" police probe into a so-called "non-crime" X post shows that "thought control" is attempting to "shape morality".
Speaking to Nigel Farage, Pearson claimed: "It was upsetting because I'm a law abiding person and I respect the police. To me, this seemed to be a completely mad overreaction.
Fraser Myers hit out at the 'dangerous' investigation by police into Allison Pearson
GB News
"I'm not in the habit of writing anything horrible and inflammatory. If I wrote something that was unwise, I appear to have deleted that tweet. I have no memory of what it was but I still don't think that's a proportionate response."
Reacting to the investigation, Deputy Editor of Spiked Fraser Myers claimed that the incident "ticks both boxes" of "Orwellian and Kafkaesque".
Myers told GB News: "The police are investigating her for a tweet that is over a year old, but they refuse to say what it is.
"So none of us can make a call as to whether it might have been racist or sexist or any of these other hateful things."
Myers defended Pearson, stating that as a journalist, she knows that using "actual hate speech would be illegal".
He explained: "We have no idea what Allison Pearson said, but it's highly unlikely that she would have gone on some sort of tirade.
"People in our line of work do know what the law is in terms of hate, and that actual hate speech would be illegal."
Hitting out at the police for their decision to knock on Pearson's door on Remembrance Sunday, Myers claimed that investigations into social media posts are just a "policing tool where can accuse you of something hateful".
Myers told GB News that Britain is becoming an 'authoritarian society'
GB News
Myers concluded: "They don't even have to challenge the accusation, and it will be logged against your name. It will go against your employment records, and it can completely mess up your life.
"It will have a chilling effect on what people can say, because you're going to be thinking, when you're tweeting, you should be tweeting freely.
"You're going to be thinking of the police looking over your shoulder, and you would think that the police would have a bit of nous to not come after journalists, but clearly they feel that they are in charge, that it's their job now, presumably to edit the news. This is something out of an authoritarian society."
In a statement, Essex Police said: "The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.
"As part of that investigation, officers attended an address on Sunday, November the 10th to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter."
