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!

I think you should be able to call someone a faggot without being arrested for it,
I don’t like the word particularly, but if we arrest people for saying faggot, where does it end? When I call Keir Starmer a vanilla wanker? When I call Farage a white cunt?

Hate speech is such a road to hell

Agreed.

The MSM won't report stuff like this. For obvious reasons I wont enlarge on that, I don't want a jail sentence.
There may be more to it but I wijld suggest that dragging a naked female out of a bath by 10 officers is massive overkill unless she is armed and has dangerous weapons jn the house

I think she meant convicted.

But this is clearly a click/rage bate thread based on very few facts.

There is 100% no way that this woman was dragged naked from the bath and arrested over the use of one word in one text message. And anyone who believes that’s what happened is frankly an idiot.

But then what do you expect from people whose preferred news sources are Peers Morgan and the daily mail.

She was convicted under the communications act. The slur was an aggravating factor.

I agree the proposed restriction of juries is problematic, but I don't agree that people should be allowed to go about being homophobic, sexist or anything similar under the name of 'free speech'.

A woman in posession of a mouth and using words in the dictionary IS the dangerous weapon...is it not why the Taliban have stopped girls from attending school? Don't want them females getting ideas above their station and using words they don't like.

It probably didn’t happen.

I give it 24 hours until social media catches up with her and the real facts about her are revealed.

She contradicts herself, it wasn't a slur it meant something else where she lives and then saying it was down to her brain injuries. Think there will be more to it than has made the media.

If it's only in one news source the other mainstream media attempted to get corroboration and either found it wasn't true, or found that the actual cause of the arrest was that as well as using the naughty word she also made a credible death threat against him 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.

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.

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.

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?

Just watched Piers Morgan.

This clearly did happen. Apparently it was 11 officers, 10 men one woman and they didn’t give her any dignity out the bath. Men watching her naked getting changed.

They also arrested the people in question about the assault. Fractured skull and brain injury. But no one followed up on attack to prosecute or even update her.

She’s saying faggot in her area means weak rather than homophobic slur. But regardless I don’t think that’s the major point here. Even if it was homophobic, even if it was meant to be hateful. Is this appropriate force of the law. I don’t think it is in this context.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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)

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?

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.

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

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.