As a criminologist, one of my main interests and concerns is with what is known as over-criminalisation – the overuse of laws and policing in modern society. One dimension of this over-criminalisation that often goes under the radar is the practices of the police themselves.
Read article: Stuart Waiton: Is 1984 now a police manual?
Harry Miller – known by many as “Harry the Owl” on Twitter @HarryTheOwl – has been through a lot. If you’re not up to speed on Harry and the limerick you can learn about Harry’s adventures with the “thought police” here. Country Squire Magazine decided it was time for an update and so one of the Squires interviewed Harry last week.
Read article: The Harry Miller Fair Cop Interview
In January, Harry Miller was investigated by the police for retweeting a limerick on Twitter. The police said the limerick – and 30 other tweets – constituted transphobic hate speech.
Miller is one of the thousands of ordinary people who have found themselves on the sharp end of the law in recent years simply for expressing their views. Social-media posts, usually intended as jokes or political arguments, are increasingly being criminalised if they convey the ‘wrong’ opinions about certain topics. Posts on trans issues are considered particularly toxic and are zealously investigated by police. Miller, alongside barristers, police officers
by Sarah Phillimore
I have been a family law barrister since 1999 and the site administrator of the Child Protection Resource www.childprotectionresource.online since 2014.
My motto is that of Carl Rogers:
The facts are always friendly. Every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true. And being closer to the truth can never be a harmful or dangerous or unsatisfying thing.
I have spent a probably unhealthy amount of time arguing with people online since at least 2014. My concerns were primarily about
Police guidance on “hate incidents” is to be challenged in the High Court by a former officer who tweeted an allegedly transphobic limerick.
The case will be heard in November after the man was given approval yesterday to make his challenge.
Harry Miller, who was a constable in the 1990s, says that guidance to forces in England and Wales from the College of Policing results in a “chilling of free speech”. He claims that officers from his old force, Humberside police, warned him that a reference in a tweet to Jenni Murray, the Woman’s Hour presenter, could be transphobic.
A man interviewed by police over alleged transphobic tweets is challenging police guidance on hate incidents against transgender people.
Harry Miller, from Caistor in Lincolnshire, was contacted by Humberside Police over a limerick he re-tweeted.
He is now seeking a judicial review of the College of Policing (CoP) guidelines at the High Court.
Read article: Lincolnshire man challenges police transphobia guidelines
Review follows Fair Cop campaign to defend freedom of expression enshrined in the ECHR
London, 6 August 2019 – The High Court has granted permission for a businessman and former police officer to challenge the National College of Policing’s guidance on ‘hate incidents’ against transgender people.
Harry Miller, founder of the Fair Cop campaign, brought judicial review proceedings against the National College and the Humberside Police after he was contacted by the police at work for retweeting a limerick that was critical of transgenderism.
Although Humberside Police acknowledged that no crime had been committed, the force recorded Miller’s retweet
Guest blog by Jonathan Best
A small group of lesbians went into a Caffè Nero in Bradford yesterday. They were attending Bradford Pride and had a banner with them which read ‘lesbians don’t have penises’. Two policemen arrived. There’d been a report of a hate incident at Bradford Pride and they were investigating.
According to one of the women present, the police asked whether this was ‘a hate group’. The women reassured the police that they didn’t hate anyone, but that they were ‘pro-lesbian’. The police continued to question the group, checking that the women were not in any
The only way to win a nuclear war is not to fight it. And the only way for transactivists to win the gender debate is to prevent it from ever taking place.
Sooner or later, anyone who dives into the Great Gender War will stumble upon one of transactivists’ favourite catchphrases — #NoDebate. According to activists, it is so patently obvious that transwomen are women that even the idea of questioning it is bigotry and — another pet phrase — “literal violence”.
I was thinking about this on the long train ride back from Brighton, where Fair Cop provided
A businessman investigated by police over a poem about transgenderism is launching a landmark High Court case to overhaul the official rules on hate crimes.
Harry Miller is to seek a ‘judicial review’ of the hate crime guidelines followed by police forces across Britain, claiming they are ‘unlawful’ because they ‘inhibit freedom of expression’.
Read article: Businessman, 54, investigated by police over Twitter poem about transgender people launches a landmark High Court battle to overhaul official rules on hate crimes
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