The UK authorities have officially registered an official “hate incident” in connection with Rachel Maclean, the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, due to a social media post in which she referred to a transgender woman as a “man in a wig.”
This incident came to light following a complaint lodged by Melissa Poulton, a would-be Green Party candidate, prompting West Mercia Police to include Maclean’s remarks in their archives.
The controversial and Orwellian “Non Crime Hate Incident” was declared because Maclean, being a figure with a significant enough online following, was deemed to have potentially reached a significant number of people with her comments.
According to The Telegraph, convinced of her innocence, Maclean endeavors to overturn this decision and erase her name from the police records.
Notwithstanding that people with NCHIs tagged against their names aren’t criminalized, it is alarming that their personal information might just end up preserved on police databases and could possibly be unveiled during background checks for highly sensitive jobs.
The Conservative Party’s deputy chairman for women, Rachel Maclean has rebutted, “Our local police are exceptionally good. However, they have recorded a non-crime hate incident against me which I am challenging.” Maclean, who was once a Home Office minister, advocates for regulation reforms promoting rationality.
The incident in question sparked off when Mrs Maclean, MP for Redditch, echoed a post on a certain platform that depicted the Bromsgrove candidate, Poulton, as a “man who wears a wig and calls himself a ‘proud lesbian.’” Maclean spread this post to her followers with the remark, “While the Greens don’t know what a woman is, my Worcestershire neighbors the people of Bromsgrove certainly do.”
Accused of transphobia, Maclean was reported to her local police. Initial police statements revealed no plans for a criminal inquiry. However, Maclean was later notified that an NCHI had been filed against her. This move flies in the face of recent Home Office guidelines, which discourages classifying incidents as NCHIs simply because someone perceives them with “hostility or prejudice.”
