A docker from Humberside has been investigated by police over a limerick he posted on Twitter after an officer claimed it constitutes a ‘hate incident’ against transgender people.
Harry Miller, 53, from Lincoln was contacted on Wednesday by a community cohesion officer following a complaint that had been made about the plant and machinery dealer’s social media posts.
Citing 30 potentially offensive tweets, the PC singled out a limerick Mr Miller had retweeted which questioned whether transgender women are biological women. It included the lines: “Your breasts are made of silicone, your vagina goes nowhere.”
Even though no crime was committed, sharing the limerick online was recorded as a ‘hate incident’.
PC Mansoor Gul told Mr Miller: “I’ve been on a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is.”
4. I said, I didn’t write that. He said, ‘Ah. But you Liked it and promoted it.’
I asked why he was wasting his time on a non crime. He said, ‘It’s not a crime, but it will be recorded as a hate incident.’— Harry The Owl – Limerick Criminal (@HarryTheOwl) January 23, 2019
After Mr Miller questioned why the complainant was being described as a “victim” if no crime had been committed, the officer told him: “We need to check your thinking”.
“I can’t believe what is happening in the UK in the name of transgenderism and, worse still, we’re not even allowed to think never mind talk about it,” Mr Miller said.
The married father of four was alerted to the investigation by his company directors after they were approached by officers trying to make contact with Mr Miller.
The complainant had managed to identify Mr Miller’s place of work, despite there being no reference to his business or his full identity on his Twitter account. As part of the complaint to police it was alleged the firm was an ‘unsafe environment’ for transgender employees because of Mr Miller’s comments on social media.
7. This is where it gets incredibly sinister. The cop told me that he needed to speak with me because, even though I’d committed no crime whatsoever, he needed (and I quote) ‘to check my THINKING!’ Seriously. Honestly.
— Harry The Owl – Limerick Criminal (@HarryTheOwl) January 23, 2019
The investigation comes as crime in Humberside has gone up by 13 per cent in the year ending September 2018, above the 8 per cent national average. Violent offences are up 24 per cent, sexual offences are up 19 per cent and robberies are up 17 per cent. The number of officers on the beat has increased by nearly 200 in the past 12 months.
Mr Miller told the Telegraph: “I’m just a hairy a***ed docker who swears, drinks and watches football. But I have a wife, a mother and daughters and when it comes to their rights and safety and those of women everywhere, men need to speak up.” He said he is now in talks with the woman who wrote the limerick he retweeted, who goes under the Twitter name Restless Ellie, to go on a ‘limerick tour’ of police headquarters.
Since describing the incident on Twitter, Mr Miller says he has been inundated with messages from people he said are “terrified” of speaking out on transgender issues in case of police action. “The only way to protect freedom of speech is to keep bloody speaking,” he added.
Confirming that he had spoken to Mr Miller for 20 minutes, PC Gul told the Telegraph he made the remark about the foetus because he had “learned it on a training course ran by a transgender person last summer”.
He added: “Although none of the tweets were criminal, I said to Mr Miller that the limerick is the kind of thing that upsets the transgender community. I warned him that if it escalates we will have to take further action. If someone comes forward and says: ‘I’m the victim of a hate incident and it’s really upsetting me’, then we have to investigate”.
Cleethorpes MP Martin Vickers said: “What on earth are the police doing investigating if no crime has been committed? Have they not got better things to do than acting as thought police?”
A spokesperson for Humberside Police said: “We take all reports of hate incidents seriously and will always investigate and take proportionate action.”
The move comes after feminist campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, better known as Posie Parker, was questioned under caution for the second time over comments made on social media about the founder of controversial charity Mermaids that campaigns on behalf of transgender children.
A mother of two was arrested last month after a complaint was made by a transgender woman who also went to police about comments posted on Twitter by Father Ted creator Graham Linehan. A popular transsexual blogger who believes men can’t become women is due to appear in court in March following allegations over a conversation on Twitter made by another Mermaids campaigner.
Source: The Telegraph
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