Man behind police probe into "transphobic tweets" calls case “utterly ludicrous”

14 February 2020, 16:22 | Updated: 14 February 2020, 17:45

A man has told LBC that the police’s probe into his “transphobic tweets” was “utterly ludicrous”.

Police officers unlawfully interfered with a man’s right to freedom of expression by turning up at his place of work to speak to him about allegedly “transphobic” tweets, the high court has ruled today.

Harry Miller, a former police officer, said the actions of Humberside police had a “substantial chilling effect” on his right to free speech.

The 54-year-old, who founded the campaign group Fair Cop, claims an officer told him he had not committed a crime, but that his tweeting was being recorded as a “hate incident”.

Speaking to LBC today, Miller told Shelagh Fogarty, that the Stephen Lawrence case was brought up when the police approached him over the tweets.

He said: “These things were deemed by homicide police as being evidence of hateful transphobia that might well end up leading me down the criminal pathway similar to that, that ended up with Stephen Lawrence the murdered at the bus stop.”

He added: “Homicide police said that. They said they needed to intervene to prevent escalation but then cited the Stephen Lawrence case.

“And I said this is absolutely utterly ludicrous. Absolutely ridiculous. You cannot do that.

“You cannot take the murder of a poor black lad in London, at the hands of despicable racists and use that to try and silence me in a debate that the government has called for. That is wrong.”

During the phone interview, Shelagh asked: “Do you look back on any of your tweets and think you could have conducted the discourse more sensitively? But by the way, that does not mean the policeman knocked on your door!”

Miller replied: “Not at all, because I did not go after any individual at all.

“I simply debated. I use sarcasm. I used I use existential wit.

“I made a commentary. That was it. Now you know If we can't do that, what kind of society are we in? We do it all the time. That's what comedy is. And satire is all about. We're allowed to do that.”