Carolyn Farrow taken to police station

Indeed, as awful as this incident is though the more this happens and the more light is shone on it the better though imo and the faster all this madness will stop

So what. She expresses an opinion, and tries to persuade other people to adopt or maintain that opinion as well. If you don’t agree with that opinion, you can argue against it . That’s civilised debate, a feature of western democracy. ( or used to be)

It’s very dangerous to say that because you personally disagree with her opinions, it is correct that the State should suppress them, and harass her. Dangerous to your right to express your opinions freely and without fear.

Threatening to section her too.
Who threatened to section her? Sounds trumped up to me.

Ah, women. If they're not mad, they're liars.

Utterly terrifying.

And Ms Farrow, if you’re reading here, you have an army of women who will help you grow a massive garden, should you wish to take action against the police or the vexatious complaint/s.

I would probably disagree with most of your beliefs but what was done to you is really scary. It reads like the start of a police state.

And brought to mind Margaret Atwood’s comment that everything in The Handmaid’s Tale has actually happened.

Yep. Just seen this thread - twitter.com/VictoriaPeckham/status/1576891793760813058?s=20&t=_fJTc-_2zT3aeHL8ezRhCA

I wonder whether the Police will investigate these actual threats against women.

This is very sinister. Caroline is targeted because her beliefs on abortion and same sex parents won't garner sympathy from the public by the TRA Stasi. This is a warning shot, the public and the media is waking up to the reality of TWAW. The danger and discomfort it puts women and children in. They want to rule by fear, that one point of their finger and a problematic woman will be punished.

I wouldn't call CF gender critical. Not that it matters.

I expect there are many issues she and I disagree on.

However, like the majority of people, Caroline knows the earth is round and that humans are sexually dimorphic mammals who cannot change sex.

I think Caroline has been treated disgustingly. So often I read smug little posts on twitter, from women who clearly have been lucky enough not to have experienced trauma from male violence. They deride other women for being anonymous online, or accuse us all of being sock accounts. This, when the ideology they support is busy using the police to harass and intimidate women who are not anonymous.

She seems much more Gender Traditionalist to me

Thanks, @donquixotedelamancha , I'd started writing something about that, feeling the need to preserve the meaning of terms, while wanting to stress that I wasn't in any way meaning to have any reservations about supporting her in this.

You did it better.

Thanks @Sonnex I always get Surrey and Sussex (and Suffolk) mixed up in my head, and, for some reason, Steve and Pete! It all seems a bit 'sus' to me.

I keep thinking, about all of this, that there must, there has to be, more to it than this! But no, there never is.

There are always going to be arses trying to use the police for their own ends. It's the police's responsibility not to be used by the highest bidder or the loudest voice or the most irritating complainant - we live in the UK not some tinpot dictatorship where the police can be used to pursue individual agendas rather than following the law.

Exactly. And FWIW I hold a very low opinion of the individual making the complaint but I'd still be extremely fucked off if they were subjected to this kind of treatment simply for stating their views. Its intolerable.

Appalling behaviour by the police. And on a day when the paedophile scandal erupted at the Mermaids charity, the police are spending their time harassing Caroline.
See the later posts in this thread if you don't know what I'm talking about:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4644323-mermaids-being-investigated-by-the-charity-commission

’I'd like to think the police officers concerned would lose their jobs for this.’

The police officers who strip searched a child at school with no appropriate adult present still have jobs. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

This isn't just about Caroline. It's about trying to shut down posters on MN and KW. It's about trying to make everyone here 'afraid' that the police will come to their door because it seems that certain police forces will - with no evidence - force entry; seize all electronics; put in cells and threaten with sectioning - anyone who even might have posted something that someone else didn't like.

The police have always had to deal with vexatious and malicious complaints especially against women. When the calls or emails or complaints come, they need to shut them down. The police need to step up about all this bullshit.

There are always going to be arses trying to use the police for their own ends. It's the police's responsibility not to be used by the highest bidder or the loudest voice or the most irritating complainant - we live in the UK not some tinpot dictatorship where the police can be used to pursue individual agendas rather than following the law.

Well, quite. I'd like to think the police officers concerned would lose their jobs for this. They have to be above reproach and abusing their positions isn't good enough.

Chilling is perhaps an overused word on MN but this is exactly what this is. Poor Caroline.

Police entering a home and removing items without a warrant is ultimately a bad thing for everyone, regardless of whether one happens to agree with that person's views or not.

With the glaring omission of sex, so hate crimes towards women are apparently allowed.

The police have entirely lost my trust as a direct result of their behaviour towards women. This is just one aspect of their deeply ingrained institutional misogyny

Indeed this.

There was a thread on AIBU recently, started by a police officer, tellung us that only 17% of reports to police are NOT mental health issues.

The intention was to show us that the police are far too busy having to respond to such things to deal with 'real' crime but I'm sick to death of reading these stories of police immediately deploying against women accused of "hate crimes" which are either no such bloody thing OR - in CF's case - just malicious accusations by the usual suspects designed to bully and harass her.

The police are quite limited in when they can legally arrest someone. Great summary by lawyers here: hnksolicitors.com/advice/necessity-to-arrest-explained/

I’d be interested to know if the arrest of Ms Farrow was legal and on what grounds the police felt the arrest was “necessary”.

Caroline is a gender-critical campaigner.

I haven't read that much from her because she seems a bit nuts but I'm pretty certain that isn't true. She seems much more Gender Traditionalist to me, i.e. she thinks gender sterotypes are real (like a Genderist would) but sees them as a natural and good thing.

A Gender Critical Feminist is someone who thinks gender stereotypes are damaging and used to oppress women.

Of course none of that means I have any less sympathy for her (or concern about police behaviour) being relentlessly harassed by a creep who spends their life attacking women (in every sense).

It's doubly important we defend people's right to free speech when they are unpopular or even unreasonable because by the time popular and reasonable speakers are stopped it's far too late.

I loathe her views on same sex marriage and believe abortion should be available as early as possible and as late as necessary. That doesn’t mean that anyone should be able to use the police as a weapon to harass someone when they haven’t broken any law.

Knocking on the door out of the blue, seizing devices, arresting the person and taking them straight to the police station? That seems wildly disproportionate.

And if they were, it wouldn't be illegal, would it?

Absolutely not. You don’t have to agree with all of someone’s views to support some of them.

I just wouldn’t necessarily call her a GC campaigner. More someone that’s being targeted for being forthright in expressing (all) their views.