Police interview Nicola Murray

The founder of a charity supporting women who have suffered domestic violence has been interviewed by police after she was reported for hate crime after stressing its female-only services.

The police do not interview people unless there is an ongoing investigation. There was no investigation. The story later claims the police said it was an insanity that they had been asked to speak to her which also implies an investigation, rather than a couple of coppers acting off their own backs. She also claims they had screen shots of the tweets which they said had been brought to police attention - implying a complaint. There was no complaint. The entire story appears to be largely a fabrication.

(ignore the second 'after' in my rejig!)

barley

It seems like your issue is with the words 'interviewed' and 'reported'.

If the first sentence in the story read "The founder of a charity supporting women who have suffered domestic violence has been asked some questions by police after tweets after stressing its female-only services were brought to their attention" would that then make the story 'true'?

If they are now rewritten as above, do you still believe the story not to be true purely because the Times has confirmed that no "complaint" happened, and confirmed Nicola's statement that there was 'no investigation'?
Or do you think the Times have also said that the substance of the story is in some way untrue?

Fuck me, does barley actually understand what he posts? Or is it just the first thing that pops into his head?

Sorry, your post is unclear. Please can you post the wording the Times have used, that you believe says "the story wasn't true"?

Unlike you, if I have made an error, I will fess up and if I have that pointed out I don't double down or leave the thread.

You have made an error. In fact you told a lie. You quite specifically claimed Wadwa made the report to the police and said you could point to a tweet which proved it. Not for the first time you have claimed that something that might be true, is true.

THIS is a type of 'quiet word' that you have been rather supportative about in the past.

No I haven't, not when it comes to the police. I don't think you even know what the truth is anymore.

Now barley are you still standing by your claim that "The Times are now saying this story wasn't true?"

barley?
Oh, they've gone.

I do understand. Statements about whether things are true or not are really difficult, aren't they, when words can have any meaning you like!

Do you stand by this claim?

I think I addressed this quite well in other posts barley.

Unlike you, if I have made an error, I will fess up and if I have that pointed out I don't double down or leave the thread.

However, I would like to point out that if the police have done this on their own initiative or have had an 'informal 'complaint that has not be registered or whatever ... THIS is a type of 'quiet word' that you have been rather supportative about in the past.

As I said up thread, no paper trail, no following protocols... just a 'quiet word'.

But yes, if a person with the twitter and social media savvy and so much support of legal minds as MW has not posted an answer to a clear lie about them, then I do question whether it may well be true. I also suggested that I might have missed it and that they may have done this and asked for anyone to post a link. No doubt it will become clear soon. These issues generally do.

Luckily there are still versions of the story available. Here's a link to a sight that has the entire article:
panoramicgutterviews.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-times-police-interview-charity.html
From the article:
Police Scotland did not confirm details of the interview at Murray’s house, but she has a photograph of the two officers entering her house.

So it seems there is evidence that there was a visit. Of course it might have been barleybadminton and Wadhwa pretending to be male police officers in order to freak her out ...

(also that's not what 'begs the question' means)

Thank you for confirming that she did not in fact state that it was her who made the report about Murray

Yes, it’s just a coincidence that MW posted that Tweet at the same time as word got out about the cops showed up at Nicola Murray’s door asking about a blog post that specifically concerned MW.

You must think we’re all as stupid as you are.

We can all see what Helle wrote when summarising what the screenshotted tweet was, so no need to try and re-word it

Now barley are you still standing by your claim that "The Times are now saying this story wasn't true?"

The 'corrections' text agrees with what was said in the story. No complaint, no investigation. Which is newsworthy, isn't it?

[quote MidsomerMurmurs]**@barleybadminton* I very much doubt The Times would have erased all references to this story and issued a correction if they had doubts the police were telling the truth*

But the “errors and omissions” piece does not address the points in the article that was withdrawn. It doesn’t say that no police officers went to Nicola Murray’s house.

That’s the story. If the whole thing is not true - no police officers visited Nicola - then why doesn’t the Times correction say that?

If police officers are going round to peoples houses and “checking their thinking” when there hasn’t been a complaint and there isn’t an investigation then that’s a bigger story. Huge.[/quote]
You are right, that would be a much bigger story which begs the question why didn't The Times go with that instead of taking the very rare step of removing all references to the original story?

Either Nicola is lying or the police. That I have no faith that it is the police telling the truth, as opposed to a woman I hadn’t heard of until a few days ago, is very distressing.

@Helleofabore

I read MW’s tweet while it was active and Nicola Williams’ tweet and I don’t recall seeing MW state that they didn’t report it. I might have missed it as I have been busy. So, please link the tweet where MW denied they reported it.

Is that how it works now? You accuse someone of something and if they don't immediately publicy deny it you claim they are guilty of it?

Just to jog your memory here's what you said a couple of days ago.

They tweeted that they reported it a week or so ago. I will see if I can find a link

Do you stand by this claim?

I suppose there is another option that there is an investigation but she is a witness not a suspect? They might not want to reveal that?

But then who might they be investigating… oh!!!! Well, that would be one hell of a plot twist.

I think my speculations might get deleted if I shared them! Anyway, while it’s entertaining to think about, I don’t think plot twists like that happen in real life.

The story originally said
"The first thing they said was, ‘Some of your tweets have been brought to our attention.’ When they brought out the screengrabs of the statement, I said, ‘Really?

“They said, ‘Yeah, we just have to speak to you. You’ve not said anything hateful, there isn’t a crime here.’

“I said: ‘So why are you here?’ They said, ‘Because we need to speak to you to ascertain what your thinking was behind making your statement.’"

It carefully said 'brought to our attention' not 'complained about'.
And clearly not subject of an investigation.
So nothing that contradicts the story at all, but I wonder why it was removed - perhaps the officer who didn't want to be quoted has threatened something? (Just speculating??)

Is it possible it’s her charity and not Nicola herself that was the subject of the complaint? Or does “complaint” have a specific meaning in police land that doesn’t include every instance of a member of the public calling up to complain about something?

I think it might do. The police are under a lot of scrutiny with regard to this non-crime hate incident stuff. The police used the word "report" in a previous statement. I think they're trying to emphasise the non-crime bit and make it sound innocuous.

But as you say, that doesn't answer any questions.

Is it possible it’s her charity and not Nicola herself that was the subject of the complaint? Or does “complaint” have a specific meaning in police land that doesn’t include every instance of a member of the public calling up to complain about something?

I think some kind of weasel wording like that is actually the most innocuous explanation. But it definitely doesn’t explain the articles being taken down.

I wonder if an FOI would be useful.

Intrigued to see what has actually happened here - as PP have said, it suggests that the police visit was perhaps not legitimately carried out?

Police Scotland needs to clarify the matter further.

The correction says "The police have now confirmed she was not the subject of a complaint or investigation", which is what Nicola alluded to in the article - she said the police officer said she wasn't being interviewed as a suspect or anything - that WAS the story.

Intrigued to see what has actually happened here - as PP have said, it suggests that the police visit was perhaps not legitimately carried out?