"We have freedom of speech in this country"

More over reach on the part of the constabulary.

Some weeks ago Keir Stalin (err) Starmer sat with the president of the US and announced in full view of the world that the subjects of His Majesty in this country have the right I mention in the title of this piece. Almost every day that goes by, we see evidence that his statement is a lie.

Julian Foulkes is a retired police special constable. He is seventy one years old and in November 2023 he was arrested, handcuffed in his own house, placed into a police van, detained for approximately nine hours at a police custody suite, interviewed and then cautioned. Whilst under arrest, his house was searched minutely for an hour.

Why was this? What was it that drove the Kent police service to travel to the house of an Englishman and commit an act of violent force on him and then essentially to burgle his house?

Mr Foulkes was informed that he was being arrested for an offence contrary to the malicious communications act. As seems usual in such cases these days, he was not given any more information than that until many, many hours later when he was presented with his tweet:

The ten words you see above were the reason for his arrest and were sent in response to another member of the public who was threatening to sue a politician should that individual call him an antisemite. It is interesting that this individual (the self named Mr Ethical) did not complain about the response he received from Mr Foulkes. In fact no one did. Let me repeat that- as far as I am aware, no one made a complaint to a police service regarding the tweet made by Mr Foulkes. In fact, when the plod went wading in, only 26 people had even looked at the response. Now, there is some background to this exchange and if you are minded, the following article contains some more details:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/10/retired-police-officer-arrested-over-thought-crime-tweet/

So, what were the police doing invading a person’s house? Perhaps a brief précis of the facts might be useful.

It would seem that, in the first place, the metropolitan police intelligence command, (police intelligence- a contradiction in terms in this case it seems), viewed the tweet and referred it to Kent constabulary suggesting that there were, “concerns around online content.” This prompting from “the met” seems to have spurred the top brass at Kent police to spring into action and to send around their best home invasion squad to kidnap and terrorise the author of the (so called) “offending” tweet. Six constables attended Mr Foulkes’ house and he was placed into handcuffs immediately on his arrest, it would appear without any justification whatsoever, (I will examine this later). It is quite likely that he would have remained in cuffs but for the intervention of one of the home invasion team who mentioned that this was a former constable and there might not be any need to clap him in irons- doing so represents an assault by the way.

For the avoidance of doubt here, arrested subjects who are handcuffed, (which appears to be a very large percentage of them even if they are peaceful), tend to remain shackled until they reach the custody suite of the police station even though that might be more than an hour and that they also might be contained within a secure cage in a police van.

Following his arrest and presumably under the auspices of either section 17 or section 32 of PACE, police searched Mr Foulkes’ home, looking at books, newspapers and shopping lists as well as poring through the newspaper cuttings detailing his daughter’s death in a foreign country in a road accident. Mr Foulkes had retained these for personal reasons which one can readily understand. One might also appreciate the incursion into an intensely personal and harrowing experience by armed police. The body worn camera footage is enlightening on the methods used and the comments made when examining chattels found in Mr Foulkes home. “A bit brexity,” was a term heard to have been uttered by one of the team at one stage- what could that possibly mean I wonder? The conclusion that can be drawn from the comments of the home invasion squad can only lead the belief that they are crude, unlettered bumpkins. When looking at a book written by Douglas Murray (The war on the west), one was heard to utter “what the hell is this?”

At the police station, Mr Foulkes was checked in, fingerprinted, had his DNA sampled and was then incarcerated in a cell for many hours. Finally (at 9.00 in the evening), he was interviewed. He was shown the (so called) “offending” tweet and appears to have been informed that the force considered the post to be anti Jewish hate following which he was interviewed regarding this.

Mr Foulkes seems quite rightly in my opinion to have viewed this as a bit surreal. This is certainly the impression I gain from the interviews he has given to the press. During his police interview, he stated repeatedly that his intention in posting was not antisemitic, in fact that it was quite the reverse of this. I contend that this is absolutely clear to see by anyone with two brain cells to rub together. His protestations seem to have been completely ignored. I suspect that he was in some desperation when he allowed a caution to be given to him.

I should add here that, for those that do not know, a caution is given in some circumstances to those who admit their guilt in a minor matter and is viewed as a way of clearing up a crime. A record is kept and may be referred to in the case of further suspected offences. A caution is not a minor matter as it appears on standard and enhanced DBS checks and can be used against you in court in any possible later case. It is in essence a criminal record. I understand that this is only used for those with a previously unblemished record and is only given with the agreement of the individual cautioned.

I gain the impression that the process of arrest and the (purposeful I suspect) long hours of solitude in custody together with the unworldly experience of the whole “policing process” places the police in a very strong position to psychologically manipulate arrested people into making admissions that they might not ordinarily make. Being arrested must be a depersonalising experience and it may be that it is as well to be aware of this tactic because it will almost certainly be deployed by police against anyone who is arrested in order to get what they want.

You will no doubt be aware of the publicity that surrounds this whole matter. What I propose to do now is to think about this for a little while and examine some of the matters that I think are raised by what happened. There are two particular areas I want to mention and it may take time, but I hope my thinking will be useful as I work through this. Let’s begin:

You will recall that the arresting constable mentioned that Mr Foulkes was to be arrested for Offences under the malicious communications act. This act provides for the punishment of those who send mail or other communications that are grossly offensive or intended to cause harassment or alarm. An extract from the legislation is shown here:

What does this mean? My understanding is that in order for an offence under this statute to be made out, a specific individual must be offended or consider the material to be indecent. In other words, a complaint to the police must be made. It now appears that, right from the start, no such complaint existed. Instead, the MPIC simply considered the statement in the tweet to be a matter of concern. Nothing more. When one considers this alone, there are no grounds for arrest. One might also consider it fair to suggest that Mr Foulkes’ statement fell far below any threshold for harassment or gross indecency.

Given the above, everything that happened to Mr Foulkes, including his initial assault is unlawful. Quite why the senior staff at Kent police thought that arresting Mr Foulkes was the correct move is open to question. One might reasonably conclude that either the constables from the MPIC and Kent police either can’t read and understand written English or they don’t know the law. There might be other motivations at large here, but I will leave them to the imagination of the reader.

I should add here that the caution given to Mr Foulkes has now been rescinded and removed from his record. An apology was also issued. Therefore, at this point in time, Kent police agree that there was no offence committed and therefore no case to answer. I believe that this supports my assertion that everything that befell Mr Foulkes was unlawful.

There is a further point to be made here. What has now started to happen is that the police chiefs and those who are senior in the college of policing appear to consider that they are now arbiters of what people can say and think. They have no business in this area, especially when police services up and down the country appear to be so poor at arresting and incarcerating burglars and shoplifters to name but two classes of petty villain.

The next point regards the placing of handcuffs on arrested people and is a matter that has, (in my view) not attracted enough attention in the recent past. The college of policing has a number of training modules for new police constables which aim to equip them with the ability to make sound judgements regarding when to use restraints. Below is an extract from the COP website showing the intended outcomes from the training module relating to the use of handcuffs:

It strikes me that in this case the constables on site (barring one) paid no attention whatsoever to any of these points. If I was uncharitable, I would say that the only reason that the cuffs were removed from Mr Foulkes was that one member of the team recognised one of their own, so to speak. It is open to question what might have occurred if the arrested man had not spent a decade as a special constable.

I would ask you to consider what (as a police constable) you would do in similar circumstances taking particular references to the learning outcomes mentioned above- you attend the residence of a gentleman who turns out to be a pensioner. He (presumably) is with his wife who will be similarly aged. You are accompanied by five of your colleagues. You have batons, parva spray and stab vests- that is to say you are armed. The gentleman collaborates fully with your wish to enter his property and arrest him and he makes no protest at all beyond asking what all this might be about.

So- the danger to constables? None. Resistance from the subject? None. The presence of other dangers? Not one. The likelihood of the arrested man harming either himself or someone else? Remote in the extreme. I am forced to wonder what justification for the use of force was given to the custody sergeant when Mr Foulkes arrived at the Medway custody suite. Remember that handcuffs were applied and even though they were removed at an early stage, they were applied; therefore the force had been used and it had been used (it would seem) without justification of any kind.

What these two points highlight is an ever growing danger to ordinary people in this country. Police constables are being badly guided by those in charge of them who seem to think that it is their job to govern what people think. It is not and has never been their job to do that. Constabularies are being appallingly advised by the college of policing who are useless beyond measure having long since been captured by progressive, (a ridiculous term if ever I heard one), ideologues.

However, it is worse than that. The example of the routine application of handcuffs to arrested people suggests to me that middle management and rank and file constables are not taking account of the simple rules given to them. How is it possible to trust constables when they do not follow the procedures laid out for them that are so easy? Procedures like “do not handcuff peaceful people if you need to arrest them,” or “tell members of the public when you activate your body worn camera,” which by the way is a thing that constables should do, but routinely do not do. Line managers are the ones who should enforce adherence to procedures like this and the evidence is that they are not doing so.

Once again we see evidence that the rights of people of this country are being trampled on in full public view by those who (mistakenly) consider themselves to be our betters. Mr Foulkes, to whom I believe that we owe a debt of gratitude, appears to have taken the view that this sort of thing should receive as much publicity as possible in order to highlight what is happening in the police service generally.

In a previous piece, I mentioned Lord Sumption’s definition of a police state, that being one in which the police make up the laws as they go along instead of simply enforcing the law, however draconian. This matter strengthens my supposition that England is now a police state.

I wonder, whilst writing this piece if local rozzers will be knocking on my door for undertaking lawful activity any time soon. It is certain that they will not appreciate the conclusions I have drawn about the thoughtless, stupid, careless, idiotic and damaging actions of Kent police in unlawfully arresting a man whom they knew had committed no offences at all. I do not care what the college of policing think about me, nor yet do I care what the chiefs of police of any constabulary in the country might think of me either. They are free not like what I say, but all the same, their opinion is of no importance whatsoever as they are public servants and at my beck and call when I require it- a service for which I pay and a commitment upon which police services around the country are seen to conspicuously fail to deliver on for so many many ordinary blameless people.

The fact remains that what happened to Julian Foulkes can happen to anyone. One might conclude that I place myself in danger by being openly critical about the actions of a constabulary, so why do I do this? I do this because I have hitherto supposed that I am able to speak factually and freely about more or less anything I chose to speak about provided that I do not invoke violence. This is the exercise of a right that we all have and if we do not use it then it will be worn away until it is no longer there.

I am now of the opinion that the police are not your friends. I suspect that they see their job as prosecuting people and nothing more. They are clearly incentivised to act this way as the measure of their effectiveness is how many of the populace they can arrest and put through the court system. A return to the Peelian principles is called for. By the way, I mean the original Peelian principles, not the rewritten modern woke ones.

I can tell you this- if the local plod should ever come to visit me about hurty words, I will write about my experience. It will not stop me from speaking the truth come what may. What would I say to Julian Foulkes? Sue the police. Sue them until their pips squeak. This is the only way they will understand.

Oh, and join the free speech union, who will be assisting the good Julian Foulkes in holding the Kent police to account through the court system. It’s not likely to get that far because they will settle as well they should.

https://freespeechunion.org/