Kemi Badenoch has criticised police for visiting a journalist at her home over a year-old tweet, calling the investigation a waste of time and an attack on free speech. The Conservative Party leader said such incidents are “like children reporting each other” and urged Sir Keir Starmer to review relevant laws.
Allison Pearson, a Telegraph columnist, said officers knocked on her door on Remembrance Sunday and informed her she was being investigated for alleged incitement of racial hatred over a deleted social media post. Essex Police confirmed they are investigating a report under Section 17 of the Public Order Act.
Badenoch told The Telegraph: “We need to stop this behaviour of people wasting police time on trivial incidents because they don’t like something, as if they’re in a nursery. We shouldn’t have journalists getting visited by the police for expressing opinions. That’s absolutely wrong.”
Pearson said she was unable to obtain details of the post or the accuser, describing the visit as “extraordinary overreach and state intrusion”. She speculated the post might have been related to the October 7 Hamas attack or subsequent pro-Palestine marches.
Essex Police said officers had attempted to contact Pearson before the visit and were clear the alleged offence was inciting racial hatred, not a non-crime hate incident as Pearson initially thought. They invited her for a voluntary interview.
