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!

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.

Why can’t they give their side? I do think court records for criminal should be completely open and transparent.

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!

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?!

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.

Well I think she pled guilty.

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.

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".

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.

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

This.

Yeah that is interesting. Apparently it was 5 minutes of messaging so whilst 5 minutes could amount to quite a barrage of ‘communications’ I don’t see how this could possibly warrant this response/ outcome but continued direct harassment be ignored (which it so often is in cases of stalking / ex partner abuse).

I have my tin foil hat on now and wondering whether the ‘victim’ has police connections. Can you get arrested for wondering about that and writing it online 🫣

It’s hugely offensive and wouldn’t be tolerated in schools. I reported such language in my gay son’s school as it was having a massive psychological impact. The perpetrators were quite rightly excluded.

That's true. I have a gay friend who actually calls himself a big p*fe

I was saying to DH the other day the recent change to the lyrics of Fairytale of New York kind of sums up attitudes towards sexism/misogyny vs other hate. The F word has been replaced with haggard but slut remains and no one is bothered.

I don't know how the woman's 'friend' can sleep at night, she disclosed abuse to them and all they are concerned about is hurty words in private text correspondence. As for the police not dealing with the assault, that's pretty standard for the police, they are misogynistic through and through.

I wouldn’t use that word because it’s not in my vocabulary. It’s hate speech. If that word is conjured up in her brain I’m willing to bet it’s not the only slur she has in her arsenal.

I think malicious communications legislation hasn't caught up with how technology is used. If this woman had ranted and said 'faggot' to her friend's face, it wouldn't (quite rightly) be considered a criminal offence. Because it's done via text it's treated differently. The law doesn't reflect the fact that people use text messaging as a form of conversation and as an alternative to face to face communication.

I just don't think it's in our interests as a society to treat these things as crimes. If someone says something grossly offensive to you on WhatsApp or Twitter, you can just block them. You don't need the long arm of the law to start interfering unless it becomes harassment. It's oppressive and also a terrible use of police resources. I suspect the police pursue these things because they are 'easy wins' for their crime stats. Much easier than investigating a burglary or indecent exposure or sexual assault.

Homophobia is common within the police too.

It's such a shame the man who assaulted her hasn't been dealt with as swiftly, or at all in fact. It's almost as if hurty words are more important thy actual physical assault, who knew 🤷‍♀️

She pleaded guilty so there was no need for a trial.

Im more bothered that it took 10 officers to arrest 1 person. We're forever hearing about a Police shortage, well no wonder.

Never thought I'd lower myself to look at items in the Sun and watch clips of Piers Morgan. But having done so I'm finding difficulty finding any sympathy for this woman who, judging by the photos, looks as though she is making the most of her notoriety.

She admits she harassed the guy by bombarding him with texts, she used a homophobic slur. And goodness knows what other details we aren't getting.

I was Just coming on to say that faggot doesnt just mean gay in some places. In the same way calling someone a "cunt" is acceptable in some places and does not indicate hate, it just means the person they are referring to is a twat or even a term of endearment......

Sounds like a social media rumour.

Certainly.