Anyone seen woman arrested for saying f****t in a private text message?

This. The story doesn't make sense as it stands.

South park did an episode about it's evolution in meaning few years ago.

Starts out being meaning small bits - so faggots of wood - meat - cigaretteends - comes to mean homosexula slur then they have it evolving to be a much more general slur for awful people or people behaving in ways others dislike.

For years Alexa threated us for reporting for trying to put Brain's faggots on shopping list - suddenly we can now.

It sounds like she was ranting to a third party via text used this word so it's been made a hate crime impacting sentance- but third person found it intimdiating and reported. Woman would have been better off picking phone up and ranting at her former friend.

There been a few cases - parents complaning about a school on whats app who complaint were later upheld - and that Irish comdice writer arrested by armed police at airport for twitter spat - were there seems an excessive amount police used for minor arrests - could be true could be exaggerated who knows it may come out with reporting later or may not.

Interesting I receive similar messages from a mentally ill family member and no matter how many times it's reported to the police "no one can do anything".

Do you not understand what is going on here?

Women are being jailed for speech. Men who are rapists and paedophiles, no jail time whatsoever.

It isn't that hard to work it out.

Well I think she pled guilty.

Yeah, I've always been very uncomfortable with the third-party element of this legislation. All the more so as the third party only has to 'believe' you were making a slur.

I can see a point to it if, for example, somebody was telling you they wanted to hurt some people based on their protected characteristic, but feel very strongly that the law should be framed in a way that restricts its application to tinderbox situations.

Making a big deal out of 'faggot' just seems ridiculous. I'm old enough to remember it being a genuine slur - when I was small - but it was already so old, back then, as to be toothless.

How can anyone get a fair trial for a communication offence without the words being read out in court, if this is true, then it is nuts?!

There must be more to it than that. Although it's not a word I'd ever use, I had male gay friends who'd often use it to describe overly flamboyant gay men!

Not seen it, but any reports like this need to be taken with a huge dollop of salt

People go to the papers saying "all I did was..." Knowing that the police/NHS etc cannot give the real story.

It's a bit like the dreadful mil/ sil stories you get on here. You get one biased story with no reply from the other side.

Yeah but by your own admission you don't know that this is why she was arrested, pleaded guilty and was convicted.

Even the DM say reports a barrage of abusive texts which contained the homophobic slur. That doesn't mean it was the sole basis.

But you can march through London waving a Palestine flag calling for death to all Jews though, while the Met smile indulgent as you pass

My mother used to call us that word all the time when we were being naughty. It was one of her favourite words. Historically and regionally it used to have other uses. As a slur I think it's an American import
I think it's disgusting to use it as a homophobic slur. But I suspect this story has been exaggerated. If true, her behaviour was unacceptable but the response was heavy-handed. But I take it with a large dose of salt.

Tranmere, the Wirral.

Seems as if those who are outraged are the flag painters et al. Wonder if they'll be all over the story when the rest of it is publicised?

Here come the “Free Speech” warriors, who are all for it until they get something said about then.

I can’t stand in the middle of Brixton shouting the N word, and assume that I’m not committing a criminal offence, because I am protected by “Free speech”

I can’t stand outside a Mosque and shout the P word, and make claims that all Muslims are sec offenders for the same reason

I can’t stand in the middle of the Manchester Gay Village shouting Fa and equating gay people with crimes against children for the same reason.

I can’t go on Twitter and say that I think the OP is a sex offence for the same reason

We don’t have “free speech” we never have, we have a system of laws that we all have to with within, if you break those laws you face the consequences (see Joey Barton)

For them to send 11 officers I’d say there’s a marker on her address for some reason
that would be why they sent 11 officers

nothing to do with the level of crime they were arresting for

Sorry but there HAS to be more to this than the Daily Fail has printed (they obviously have a RW agenda about how 'you can't say anything any more' so I suspect some details have been elided)! I think I'll take this one with a pinch of salt until I see some better or more varied reporting.

I'm not homophobic and to use that word in a malicious context is horrible. I actually hadn't realised that you could get convicted and hauled into court for using it though, which seems crazy. Particularly given that if you use a grossly misogynistic slur word the police aren't interested as it doesn't count as a hate crime. It's an additional matter if the man who assaulted her hasn't himself faced charges (though not entirely surprising) and doesn't have a bearing on whatever she said - but I'm really surprised that the defence were able to demonstrate that a slur word caused significant offence to a third party given she didn't actually say this word to the man she was referring to.

Obviously intent is everything, but that particular word is still heard in original versions of Fairytale of New York and even in the odd cover version (I won't name them because who wants to cause a pile-on, but there's a great folky version from the last 10 years that keeps it in, and the singers are both lesbians and very much NOT up for homophobia). I'd argue that in the song, it's used as a standard US English term of abuse rather than to target someone who is gay (the context of the song doesn't indicate that anyone is gay but both parties are demographically a bit 'rough' around the edges, right?? )

So if I listen to my version in the car and someone hears it and decides to take offence, am I to expect a call at 3am by several police officers? Hope not!

She's making a point about State control over women's freedom to speak, not drawing a like-for-like comparison.

I think the point is that this is a very, very slippery slope, and it is beginning to feel like censoring someone’s right to an opinion/independent thought/free expression.

Are you seriously comparing her with women being persecuted under the Taliban?

How bad does something have to be for 10 officers to drag a naked woman from a bath?
I would say its bullshit but looking at other proven cases, for example 6 police officers in 3 vehicles handcuffing a couple and keeping them in custody for 11 hours for criticising their children's school I can quite believe it . Yet muggings, robberies and stabbings continue to rise unabated.
Am I missing something here?

Faggot's old-fashioned slang, though, isn't it, as well as being a spiced meatball. It seems like an odd term for a 30-something to use in anger.

I can't really see the cops sending a whole crew to arrest a woman in her home for a bunch of text messages, one of which contained the word 'faggot'. Either it didn't happen or there was a lot more to the messages, like a credible threat of harm to her attacker.

Firstly a simple offence like this would never warrant an arrest a long these lines. Ten police officers to arrest a lone woman is simply mind boggling. If this happened, a full investigation will be required. Particularly as every defendant has the right to dignity.

If this person is of previous good character, it is likely to be a fine anyway assuming she is guilty, even with the ‘aggravating’ feature. The word was used up to a few years and fairly indiscriminately, she would have a case as a defence to say she simply did not know it was so offensive.

Where did the offence take place? It can’t be here surely, our police forces are run off their feet at the moment, and would reserve this kind of force for dangerous criminals with weapons or similar.

Only Piers Morgan and Tucker Carlson (US) reporting on this.

Based on their extreme right-wing, bigoted world views, I'd say there is a lot more to this than they are discussing.

It'd be in the media otherwise.