Editor, Solicitors Journal

FREE SPEECH

2 Jan 2020News

The police's treatment of a former officer who posted allegedly transphobic tweets disproportionately interfered with his right of freedom of expression, the High Court held (Miller v Humberside Police [2020] EWHC 225). Following a complaint about his tweets, Humberside Police visited the officer at work and told him the tweets would be recorded as a non-crime hate incident. A document called a 'crime report print' was also created describing the officer as the 'suspect'. The court concluded that the police's actions led him reasonably to believe he was being warned not to exercise his right to freedom of expression about transgender issues on pain of potential criminal prosecution. It said strong justification is needed to justify a restriction on such speech. There was no such justification here. 14 February

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