Well-known British feminist writer Julie Bindel is among those who had the police knock on their door for what turned out to be one of the anonymous “hate crime” complaints denouncing social media posts.
But in these cases, the supposed offender is not even informed which post is in question.
All that Bindel was able to learn from the police officers who showed up at her home on a Sunday afternoon was that “a transgender man from the Netherlands” was the one behind the complaint.
Given such circumstances, it’s not surprising the author chose to reveal her experience in an article scathingly, and succinctly titled, “My Orwellian ordeal at the hands of time-wasting police.”
The testimony comes amid another controversy involving the UK police investigating similar “offenses” – namely, Allison Pearson for one of her posts on X. The Telegraph reporter said she was told it was a suspected “non-hate crime incident.”
The behavior of the law enforcement in this case has been slammed as anti-free speech, particularly conspicuous since it affected a journalist.
Now Bindel describes how the police who made the “house call” would not divulge what kind of hate crime she was suspected of committing, nor how the issue of legal jurisdiction works here – given that the complaint arrived from another country.
Which court would deal with the case, Bindel was left wondering. Just as with Pearson, she was told she could voluntarily go to the police station to make a statement.
“I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Why should I do that, when I have no idea what I was being accused of? I had better things to do,” Bindel recounts the interaction, adding that she advised the “bewildered-looking” Scotland Yard officers to instead spend their time investigating violent crimes.
The following day, she was informed over the phone that the police would not pursue the investigation.
“I was disappointed,” Bindel writes – noting that had the case proceeded all the way to trial, it would have made for a teachable moment – her friends and colleagues protesting in front of the court would have been a way to “educate the public about this Orwellian state of affairs.”
Bindel makes a point of the fact she was able to handle the situation calmly because she knew that the police “had no chance” of getting the prosecution to actually charge her for what she assumes is “transphobia.”
But, she continues – “I thought about the women who have lost jobs, been hounded out of college courses, friendship groups, and university societies, as well as those who would have found it distressing to be threatened with a hate crime conviction for no good reason.”
“Police coming after those of us who do nothing more than speak the truth about gender madness and refuse to bend the knee to the crazy cultists, are doing a massive public disservice,” Bindel concludes.
