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

[Whywhywhyyyy]

This is completely bizarre. The news is thin on the ground so to see it I would have to link the mail or other obscure sites; but they are talking about this on Sky News abroad so assume it’s legit.

Apparently woman was arrested by 10 officers and dragged naked from a bath tub because she called a person who hospitalised her from assault a faggot in a message ranting to a supposed friend who reported her for using that word.

What is going on in this country?!

Yes sure that’s unpleasant. But is that really illegal? And if she has been hospitalised by this person then do I really care if someone uses bad words - even if they are hateful.

YABU - that’s a perfectly appropriate use of the law
YANBU - WTF is going on in this country!

That's not what I said at all. Try again

Someone feeling 'fear' your criterion is subjective. You may receive a number of messages that make you fear that someone may assault you. If they haven't, why should your 'fear' be valid.

Maybe you want to go back to the good old days when women called the police to deal with abusive exes to be told to "call back when he actually lifts a finger against you"

You "try again". Its not my fault that you aren't making your point sufficiently clearly.

Nope.

Whatever I say you'll just twist or deliberately misunderstand.

You're not worth the effort

I just think we have gone down the road of criminalising people simply because someone was offended. Even if a reasonable person would not have been offended. And I think that's a dangerous path. Particularly as you may get a government which doesn't like people of a particular political persuasion and decides that anyone supporting that side of an argument is upsetting or offensive to some people and therfore that person should be criminalised. Its a slippery slope.

I hope I haven't upset or offended you. You sound hurt by my words.

You think Piers Morgan is extremely right wing? Examples? Unless the meaning of the word changed recently?

Bored, not hurt.

Why are you pretending that we’ve never been able to understand what a threat is?

Back to that 6th form common room with you then, my dear old chap!

”but has he actually threatened you?”

https://library.college.police.uk/docs/college-of-policing/Risk-led-policing-2-2016.pdf

Have you heard of a DASH risk assessment checklist?

To be honest, I’m pretty appalled at you comparing the domestic abuse of women to mean tweets. Two women a week are killed by men in the UK.

Well thank goodness it’s not classed as free speech then.

10 years ago, 5 even. Would have probably thought the same as you. Now I am not so sure what’s happening as we seem to have a drip drip of injustice when it comes to speech stuff.

You’re right it’s a hell of a messy example. Sounds a vile situation on all fronts. But yes I am asking the question should what sounds like a big messy argument be a criminal offence?!

And I don’t know what I am supposed to have made up but if I have said something wrong please correct it so we are discussing the correct thing.

So have the details been verified to be true away from the daily mail that is

But not appalled at people trying to justify sending abuse to other people hey? Many women are subjected to abusive messages. The law currently allows room for them to report them as malicious communications if they feel, among other things, distress I’m not sure why you want to take that protection away from women.

For the record, the example of 90s policing was from my personal experience as was the ‘has he actually threatened you’ comment. So save the implication that you’re the only person who either knows or cares about DV

Personally I’d differentiate between a case like this, where the messages have remained private and I suspect there is quite the backstory and other cases where something is posted publicly and we can all see what was said. I think there’s been some overreach in the latter.

No it doesn't, and it never has. Not sure why the simple fact that freedom of expression has always been limited by law in the UK is so hard for some people to grasp.

After a quick google:

"A report by the Times in April 2025, based on data from freedom of information requests and Ministry of Justice records, indicated that the number of convictions for offences under Section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 had decreased over the past decade, despite a significant increase in arrests. The report noted that arrests under these sections had risen by nearly 58% since before the pandemic, with over 12,000 arrests annually, equating to more than 30 per day. While specific conviction numbers are not available, the data suggests a growing number of arrests but a declining trend in convictions."

Funny how none of these Patriots seemed outraged about ""what was happening to the country" 10 years ago when more people were actually being convicted when the Tories were in charge.

The law in question was brought in by Thatcher.

Yeah I agree with that. That is a fair point.

But I don’t want to just stick my head in the sand and dismiss private cases either. To me the fact they sent 10 men around to arrest here indicates a ridiculous abuse of power. And the f* hate crime part is confusing here as not direct and not public.

Working with women who have been murdered, almost murdered, had their dogs stabbed, their children removed, put in prison, forced into prostitution because of the very real THREAT of male violence.

Nah, you’re right. I don’t give a shit about rude words.

I know you’re not going to back down or stop using these women as a means to make your own, very separate point (ironically against a woman who was actually ASSAULTED by the person she called a bad word) so I’m going to bow out of this.

I hope you get the validation you need out of your whatabouting on this thread.

I am not sure if you’re calling me a patriot?

But yes 10 years ago we had a lot more men in women’s prisons and what I am learning is it takes a little while for people to clock on.

I've always thought people being smug on MN and suggesting they are cleverer than everyone else does people no credit.

There's no law against offending people. Or there shouldn't be. Which is what the OPs story regarding the texts seems to be about.

The whole issue at the moment in this country is speech being criminalised. Or the attempt to criminalise speech (luckily often rejected by juries).

Fucking hell, that is terrifying. So the man who beat her up doesn't get arrested, but they sent ten!!! officers to a woman's house to arrest her for ranting to her mate.

The police in this country are an absolute joke. Rape, assault, robbery - no chance the police will do a thing. Call someone a nasty name and you'll have ten officers kicking your door down.

Nothing can justify this. Utterly terrifying for the woman. She looks small and slight and certainly not such a threat that it needs ten officers to arrest her.

It's honestly sickening.

Where have you seen that she reported the assault to the police.

And the 10 police is only based on her claim on piers Morgan so I'll take it with a pinch of salt