By GB News (World News) | Created at 2024-11-19 08:09:58 | Updated at 2024-11-24 04:05:46
4 days ago
The policing chief at the heart of the Allison Pearson row has come under fire after defending Essex Police's decision to investigate the journalist.
Roger Hirst, the Police & Crime Commissioner for Essex, was labelled "out of touch in every way" after he claimed officers would not ignore alleged crimes "just because it's politically sensitive".
Pearson was subjected to a visit from officers on Remembrance Sunday over "an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online".
She is now being investigated under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986 over a deleted social media post allegedly "likely or intended to cause racial hatred".
Roger Hirst/Allison Pearson
GETTY/ESSEX PFCC
Pearson is now being investigated under section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986
GB NEWS
But his comments have been met with condemnation.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "He is out of touch in every way. People in Essex speak their mind and believe others have the right to do so... Their real worry is the rise in serious crime."
Meanwhile, the populist party's deputy leader Richard Tice warned: "Roger is the kind of wet woke Tory that we at Reform UK look forward to removing at the next PCC election!"
Free Speech Union chief Toby Young also said it "may shock" residents to learn that Hirst was a Conservative.
He added: "You would have thought the fact that NCHIs [non-crime hate incidents] have been recorded against so many senior Conservative politicians, including an ex-Home Secretary, a former vice-chairman of the party and the deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives, would be a wake-up call.
"But apparently not. I guess we'll have to wait until Roger Hirst has an NCHI recorded against him for the penny to finally drop."
'Kemi Badenoch has good instincts and is brave. But she needs to wake the party from its coma fast or it will rightly face extinction,' Zac Goldsmith said
PA
Meanwhile ex-Tory minister Zac Goldsmith said: "The people of Essex elected a Conservative police commissioner in good faith to sort out crime in their area.
"Most of them would have simply ticked the blue box assuming it meant a focus on actual crime.
"They ended up with someone in charge who thinks it was right for officers to police the (non-criminal) thoughts of journalists.
"It shows that even on the most obvious issues of judgment, the Conservative Party - my party - is just guaranteed to let people down.
"Kemi Badenoch has good instincts and is brave. But she needs to wake the party from its coma fast or it will rightly face extinction."
