British Police Order Trump-Supporting Pensioner to Apologise for “Upsetting” Facebook Post or Face Investigation
British police have been accused of a “dystopian” attack on free speech after an American woman was threatened with investigation over a Facebook post and ordered to “apologise”. The Mail has the story.
Footage of the encounter has been seen more than 1.3 million [now 2.8 million] times since it was posted last night and has sparked a furious response from campaigners.
It shows a woman, named as American cancer patient and Donald Trump supporter Deborah Anderson, being confronted in her home by Thames Valley Police.
The MAGA-backing mother-of-two was accused of “upsetting” a person following an alleged “threatening” post she made on Facebook, which was reported to police.
The officer declined to say which of the alleged posts had been complained about.
In the video, “elderly” Ms Anderson then flatly refuses to apologise for her comments online before she is threatened with the potential of a formal interview at a police station.
The incident, filmed in June, prompted an intervention by the Free Speech Union (FSU), who last night claimed Thames Valley Police had since dropped the case. The force today confirmed no further action was taken over the allegations.
It comes as Britain faces fierce criticism over a recent clampdown on free speech, which has seen people being arrested, convicted or jailed over posts made online.
The issue has prompted concern from US President Donald Trump – who is in the UK on his state visit – and warned earlier this month “strange things are happening over there, they are cracking down… I’m very surprised to see what’s happening”.
The FSU described the encounter as “chilling” and said: “What was Deborah’s supposed crime? The policeman didn’t tell her. Was it her passionate support of President Trump and the MAGA movement on her Facebook and X pages?
“To make it worse, Deborah is in the midst of cancer treatment, including chemotherapy. She ought to be have been convalescing. Instead, she was harassed for her tweets.
“Thames Valley Police are responsible for guarding President Trump this week. What would he make of the fact that those same officers are visiting the homes of his supporters – including US citizens – and threatening them with arrest?”
In the two-minute clip, a male officer is seen entering Ms Anderson’s property as she says: “You can come in but you’d better have a damn good reason for being here.
“I’m a member of the Free Speech Union and I’m an American citizen… I’ll have Elon Musk on you so quickly your feet won’t touch (the floor).”
Sitting in a living room, the unidentified male officer tells the mother-of-two that something she had allegedly written on Facebook had “upset someone”.
“You’re here because somebody got upset?” Ms Anderson replies incredulously. “Is it against the law? Am I being arrested?”
The officer says she was not being arrested and goes on to explain: “My plan was, if you were admitting that it was you who wrote the comment you could just make an apology to the person.”
“I’m not apologising to anybody, I can tell you that,” Ms Anderson fires back, before the officer replies: “The alternative would be that I have to call you in for an interview.”
Seemingly growing frustrated, Ms Anderson hits out and accuses the police force of wasting their time on her.
“Are there no houses that have been burgled recently? No rapes, no murders… why aren’t you out there investigating those,” she tells the officer.
“I haven’t broken any laws so you’re going to be wasting your time when you can be instead doing things that are more important.”
She added: “I’m a cancer patient. You can see that because I’m bald… I’m a woman living on my own, who has never broken a law in her life.”
In a statement, Thames Valley Police (TVP) said no further action had been taken and insisted it had a duty to “respond to allegations of threatening language”.
It’s not clear what the allegedly threatening comment Ms Anderson is accused of making was.
In a statement, Toby said:
I hope the fact that this happened to a US citizen means President Trump will raise Britain’s free speech problem with Sir Keir Starmer later today. The Prime Minister is in denial about it and it needs someone of Trump’s stature to shake him out of his complacency. We need a complete overhaul of our free speech laws if we’re to avoid becoming the North Korea of the North Sea.
Worth reading in full.
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Surely if TVP think they ‘had a duty to “respond to allegations of threatening language”’, their first reaction would be to question whoever made the complaint to determine how ‘threatening’ the comment was, but also set that in the context of legal free speech, ie opinion not directed at any one person. Basically TVP and other forces must understand that there is no right to not be offended.
I’m afraid there is. Our cretinous politicians in collusion with our cretinous civil service have cook up a series of laws and regulations that make causing offence a crime.
Offence is taken not given surely?
Laws and rules differ in nature. Laws are universal principles, uncovered through logical reasoning, and breaking them constitutes a crime. Rules, however, are specific directives, and violating them results in a mere infraction. Laws are enforced by leaders, who are chosen by their followers, while rules are imposed by rulers, who appoint themselves.
I think the correct course of action is to find out which social worker in uniform sent the male plod round to Ms Anderson and hound them to the ends of the earth.
Whenever someone is accused of causing offence, the person being accused should demand proof of the offence.
How do I know someone who is claiming to be offended is offended? Just because they say so?
That doesn’t work with any other type of crime that’s reported. You have to show some sort of evidence. Why is this any different?
And if the police and the accuser can’t provide objective evidence of harm, then they should just f**k off.
I agree with English Patriot Rupert Lowe, and historian David Starkey, who suggest that all laws should be swept away, to start with a clean slate of just a few laws.
Who needs hundreds of thousands of laws, to which more and more are added every year, just so that judges & lawyers can trouser the cash?
No society needs more than a few basic laws, as demonstrated by our ancestors, who managed to survive and thrive and build great nations without hundreds of thousands of laws interfering in every corner of our lives.
100%
I’ll see your 100% and raise you 200%!
That’s the point of common law I think.
One of the glories of the English diaspora.
Hear hear
Sorry guv, data protection, we can’t tell you who complained or what they said.
And why is this not on BBC news?
Why is there no Panorama investigation?
I rather think we all know.
She is a Trump MAGA supporter, probably a Christian and White. In other words the ‘enemy’.
30 people a day arrested in the UK for soc media posts.
Use a VPN and probably stop posting. There is no free speech in the UK.
Back in the day, my dad once asked me a question. It went something like this
“Marcus my lad. Imagine you’re a policeman, and you see someone breaking a law, what should you first ask yourself before you consider arresting that person?”
Much quiet thought.
He answered for me.
“You should first ask yourself if you believe the guy you arrest would be found guilty by his peers in a court of law. If you can’t be sure about that, then leave him well alone.”
It doesn’t quite apply now, does it? There are apparently quite a few laws which criminalise normal behaviour.
In a fair and just system, normal behaviour is legal behaviour and legal behaviour is normal behaviour. But “normal” seems to be getting rather twisted of late…
The process is the punishment. And the record stops you getting a job or volunteering in the future. End of!
In time, having a record for ‘hatey stuff’ will be brushed off just as being called ‘rascist’ or Far Right are more likely to be seen as a badge of normality.
Law, or at least British law is based on exactly this; are the actions considered reasonable?
Basically as your Dad described it M A k.
If the allegation led to a court case would the accused get to see the alleged facebook post and name of the ‘offended’?
In which case why cannot those details be available at the start?
Or was it the local Police just making a visit to inspire fear?
I wonder if these complaints are made to try to make the police look stupid as well as to try to intimidate. Well done this lady – she seems to have been cool and calm and well prepared.
Cop: I have to ask you to come with me to the station.
Bod: Why?
Cop: I can’t find my way on my own.
Those books on the shelves? They’re not a bit… Brexity are they?
Total abuse of power.
What idiots.
‘In a statement, Thames Valley Police (TVP) said no further action had been taken and insisted it had a duty to “respond to allegations of threatening language”.’
NO FURTHER ACTION?? Yes there absolutely must be, which will be a massive apology from the Police and the person ‘feeling’ ‘upset’. The upset person can pay for extra cancer health care to make sure this stressful incident hasn’t caused any damage to the American lady. And THEN, Starmer can issue an apology to the lady.
I wonder if ‘no further action’ would have been taken if the person they came to intimidate had been less well prepared, and if the police hadn’t been made to look like a bunch of plonkers?
Would it be possible for the lady to complain to the police that she had been upset by the visit by the police? ISTM that she was probably more upset than the original complainant.
This online safety Act needs to go ASAP.! I can’t believe what my father and uncle fought for in WWII is being nullified by a bunch of woke thought police. If they were alive today they’d be horrified by our current Orwellian state. If that Act remains we really have condemned ourselves to bring Soviet Russia, North Korea or Nazi Germany. Take your pick! Free speech died in this country the day Lucy Connelly went to prison!
Will they just STOP! How many times have Police Chiefs bought their police forces into disrepute by endlessly sending young bobbies on seriously woke fools errands? What was it Einstein said was the mark of true insanity? Repeatedly doing the same thing, over and over again expecting a different outcome? What would end this utter nonsense and stop dragging what was one of the finest police forces in the world through the mud, is naming the senior officers who ordered this nonsense. We rarely see this and not often enough, but the kind of incompetent buffoon who sends officers out on these ridiculous quests to ‘correct someone’s thinking’ should be named and shamed. All we ever see is some hapless cop stumbling, often unwilling, through some bizarre nonsense they don’t fully understand. It is such a controversial thing to do and so different from the task of any rational officer that it would only be ordered by some woke idiot at the top who has spent too much time at Bramshill Police Collage, the dreaded dream factory, called by some and worse by others. i’m willing to bet that there’s a higher statistical chance the buffoon in question is a… Read more »
Perhaps the first question in any similar ‘interaction’ should be “What is the name of your Chief Constable?”
I’m a great believer in sharing the pain so if my day has been disrupted I want to be able to name names and show who is ultimately responsible.
“My plan was ….” bollocks. Glad she made that clear to the Stasi goon sitting there.
What’s the name of the officer?. Name and shame. Himmler claimed he was only following orders
Good for her! I don’t think she’ll hear anything more.