A retired British police officer was arrested for “thought crime” comments criticising the spread of antisemitism in the country.
Former special constable Julian Foulkes, 71, was arrested and received a police caution, a formal warning given by police to someone who admits guilt to a minor offence, over comments he made on social media, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.
The arrest took place in November 2023. It came after Foulkes commented on X over the storming of an airport in Dagestan in which an antisemitic mob attempted to hunt down Jewish passengers. In response to a pro-Palestinian activist’s posts threatening to sue then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman for branding anti-Israel protests as “hate marches”, the retired police officer commented: “One step away from storming Heathrow looking for Jewish arrivals.”
The post was reportedly sent to Kent Police by the Metropolitan Police Intelligence Command over “concerns around online content” despite not having been reported by the public or widely seen. According to The Telegraph, the post had only been viewed 26 times at the time it was flagged by the counter-terror police unit.
Nevertheless, this prompted Kent Police to arrive at the door of their former officer, search his home, and detain him for eight hours. During the search, police were heard criticising Foulkes’ collection of books, including Douglas Murray’s War on the West and issues of The Spectator magazine, as being “very Brexity things.”
“Kent Police decided to interpret my post as anti-Jewish,” he told the broadsheet. “But it was the exact opposite. If they’d looked at the full thread, they’d have understood. It would have taken two minutes. I told them there was more to it, but they didn’t pause the interview to check.”
For fear of facing a conviction, Mr Foulkes accepted a police caution. He was concerned that if prosecuted, he may not be able to visit his daughter in Australia.
Mr Foulkes warned that “free speech is clearly under attack” in the United Kingdom and that “nobody is really safe”.
“I saw [Prime Minister Starmer in the White House telling Trump we’ve had it in the UK for a very long time, and I thought, ‘Yeah, right.’ We can see what’s really going on.
“I never saw anything like this when I was in the force. But this woke mind virus infecting everything has definitely infected the police.”
The Free Speech Union (FSU) announced on Sunday that it would help the retired special constable to sue Kent Police over arresting him for a “thought crime” tweet. The FSU said that Foulkes plans to sue over wrongful arrest and “unlawful interference in his right to liberty”.
Free Speech Union founder Toby Young told the Daily Mail: “The police have allowed themselves to become the paramilitary wing of the BBC.
“If you’re a progressive liberal activist, particularly if you work in the public sector, the way to silence a pesky gadfly on social media is to report them to the police for ‘harassment’ or ‘causing offence’ or ‘hate speech’.”
“The boys in blue will be down on them like a ton of bricks and after they discover that no crime has been committed – because challenging Left-wing groupthink isn’t actually against the law, at least not yet – they will dutifully record the episode as a ‘non-crime hate incident’. Meanwhile, shoplifters and mobile phone thieves run riot.”
Kent Police said that it has since apologised to Foulkes after a review found that “the caution was not appropriate in the circumstances.”
“Kent Police apologise to Mr Foulkes for the distress caused and how the report was investigated,” the force said. “We have expunged the caution from his record and are pleased to facilitate this correction.”
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