Holding Police to Account

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]A high court judge has ruled that statements made by Essex police said to be about the Daily Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson could be defamatory.

[00:00:09]This is an interesting and rather explosive development and one which is not likely to stay confined to Allison's case. It is likely to have much wider implications and may even be relevant in my proono case that I've talked about a couple of times which I will link below.

[00:00:23]Do subscribe to the channel to support my endeavors in those proono cases. That really does help the channel grow. Thank you so much. And so now with the high court ruling that public statements made by the police about a journalist being capable of being defamatory is no small deal. Now she hasn't won the case outright as yet. This was a preliminary meanings hearing where the court will determine the natural ordinary meaning of the words complained of and whether they can amount to defamation. And here the judge has ruled that the words used were serious enough or damaging enough within the meaning of the defamation act for the claim to proceed. The BBC here reports that the judge held that these statements were capable of meaning that she'd been accused of stirring up racial hatred and that the police had considered the material before deciding to investigate. That is a significant point because police forces, in my view, have got far too comfortable publishing statements that leave the public with a very damaging impression of an individual about somebody for whom the matter may not proceed and only for the matter later to be no further action, nothing to see here, and it all goes away. And sometimes they quietly delete the press articles, which is why it links in with my proono case because that's exactly what makes this interesting for me personally individually, but also for my proono case because there is a parallel here because there were complaints about that uh publication by West Midland's police in my proono case because I would argue that they shouldn't have published that at all even though they will say that it was to correct some uh false impressions and so on, But arguably in that case the police have published a statement about my client and that matter was later no further action and since then the statement has been deleted and most that I am aware of most news outlets have also deleted their articles about this incident. So now the official explanation appears to be by West Midland's police that it was simply to remove it because it's no longer current. Well, that may be true, but that doesn't really stand up to even the most basic scrutiny because there are other police items, news items that are still on the same website that far predate this one, far older than this one, and they are still around. So, the idea to me that this one particular item was removed merely because it was out of date, is at the very least highly convenient to the police, if not a little suspicious. That naturally raises a question. Did somebody more senior look at this news article for our proono case and decided particularly in light of ongoing cases such as the Allison Pearson case which has now received a ruling and start to think that they might have a problem in the statement that they made. Now I'm not asserting that as any kind of fact. I'm not asserting any facts here. But it's an obvious possibility that one might consider. They might have got slightly jumpy about what they put in that statement and decided to withdraw it.

[00:03:24]Because once a police force publishes wording that lowers somebody in the estimation of ordinary right-thinking people and the case goes nowhere and then the statement quietly disappears, the issue of defamation starts to become a very real one indeed. And that is why in my view this Allison Pearson case matters so much and I've been reading about it this morning. Not simply because of her, although it does matter very much to Allison Pearson, but because she's fought this case for the same reasons, because this may mark the beginning of a proper legal reckoning for police, press statements, and website publications that potentially go too far. Transparency is one thing.

[00:04:04]Correcting an impression is another. But publishing material that leaves a deeply damaging impression about somebody that who has never been charged, never prosecuted, and then later on faces no further action and then in particularly my case quietly delete that news item is quite another thing entirely. All of this began in October 2023 when Allison Pearson is said to have attended a static counter demonstration at a pro Palestinian march in London. She wrote articles and posted an ex criticizing what she perceived to be an inconsistent approach on the part of the police. In November, she then quote posted another post with a video containing two male supporters of the political party Pakistan Tariq Ainsf flanked by police officers and included the caption, "The police have certainly picked a side disgraceful." She then posted another post and deleted that one. But then nearly a year later, she was visited at home by officers from Essex Police who told her that they were investigating a complaint about social media that she'd made. Um and then she published an article in the Daily Telegraph and then from November onwards it was widely reported by newspapers, magazines, broadcasters etc. You probably remember it at the time where it was broadcast quite widely so everyone could see what Essex police were doing. But then we come to the words complained of that is the publications by Essex police. And so some argue now that they really shouldn't have done this. So in November 24, they published on their website an item headed update relating to ongoing investigation and read as follows.

[00:05:40]Officers attended an address in Essex and invited a woman to come for a voluntary interview. They said it related to an investigation into an alleged offense of inciting racial hatred linked to a post on social media.

[00:05:50]We police without fear or favor and that's why we respond to alleged offenses which are reported by to us by members of the public. for clarity. A complaint of a possible criminal offense was made to the police and that is why we called to arrange an interview.

[00:06:02]Everyone was polite and professional throughout the brief conversation etc. and the police statement goes on. There were also several updates to the fairly lengthy police statement and in its conclusion there were three areas where the court said that these statements by the police could be defamatory. Firstly, under a the press statements by Essex police stated 13th and 16th of November meant that there were grounds to investigate a woman at an address in Essex for an alleged offense of inciting racial hatred linked to a post on social media. At common law, these statements were defamatory of the woman referred to at chase level three. These are levels of seriousness. In D, the words spoken by Mr. Hurst in his interview with LBC, the police and crime commissioner on the 17th of November meant that in light of the complaint and the post itself, there were reasonable grounds to investigate Miss Pearson for the offense of inciting racial hatred. At common law, this was defamatory of Miss Pearson at chase level three. And finally, under E, Mr. Hurst's article in Conservative Home on the 18th of November meant that there were grounds to investigate whether Miss Pearson had committed a hate speech offense. And at common law, this was defamatory of Miss Pearson at chase level 3. And that's why the BBC's report here is quite interesting because this is not some explosive headline designed for clickbait to grab attention. This is by all accounts a measured report of what the judge found and that the police wording may well have crossed that line.

[00:07:23]So I think this is one area to watch very closely. what the police are saying to the public um and getting comfortable in making these statements and hiding behind the argument that they just updating people or correcting impressions. Obviously, there's a lot of discussion on social media, but the argument then is is it the police's job really to go too far when they claim they are correcting these impressions?

[00:07:47]Because if police forces begin to realize that a badly judged public statement can expose them to defamation claims, which might result in will likely result in hundreds of thousands of pounds of legal fees, not to mention the damages ultimately claimed. They might then become very much more careful about the way in which they publicly describe and publish these allegations, suspect investigations before any proper findings have been made. It always used to be the case that these things are not published in any great detail until someone is actually charged and that is the case in the vast majority of these cases. But just from time to time they tend to publish a little bit too much detail which can result in somebody either being directly identified or by identified by way of jigsaw identification. that is by you know someone takes one bit of information from one website and from somewhere else and from somewhere else and from something they heard in the pub or wherever and they put them together and then they can identify that this is the individual the police are talking about and in many cases quite frankly that is just going too far. So I hope you found that interesting. This is certainly one to watch. Please do subscribe to the channel and I'll see you in the next