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!

Glinner had flown in from the US voluntarily to attend his trial so he wasn't a flight risk and the police knew they'd be able to find him at the court. There was absolutely no need to deploy five officers to arrest him at the airport for three tweets.

Can anyone who's digested the facts on this case confirm that she was charged for using the f word as it's homophobic? Or was the charge against her because of the numerous malicious texts she sent her friend? If the friend is the victim, it hardly seems likely to be the former.

I think it should only be a criminal offence if someone was in reasonable fear of imminent physical harm.

Which they presumably weren't. As it was a text and not referring to the recipient.

No that term causes huge distress and needs to be treated the same way as the n word.

Ahh right. I'd not seen the Piers Morgan interview and for the sake of my blood pressure I'm not intending to look for it....

If that's her account then obviously I accept it's what she said.

Magistrates hear relatively low level criminal cases and have limited powers to pass custodial sentences. Something north of 90% of cases are dealt with by 'Mags'.

I guess if the offence was an 'either way' one, she'd elected to go to the Crown Court and plead not guilty but was convicted then a custodial sentence was a possibility.

Juries are a feature of the Crown Court though they are occasionally used elsewhere, the Coroner may use them for example.

I'm not necessarily an advocate of HMG's floated changes to Juries but there's a lot of tosh and hyperbole from people who should know better.

I think you’ll see more and more of this as time goes by. We’ve been quite relaxed on hate speech on social media or messages and I bet they’ll start really clamping down on it

can someone confirm though….

in the article it stated that she sent tha word to a woman who original attacked her I thought it said??? Did anyone else get that? Did I misread it?

No it doesn't. Neither word should be a criminal offence to say. They should obviously be unacceptable in society. But not criminalised.

I do wish the police would concentrate their limited resources on people who commit actual violence.

In the article she says it’s used where she lived for a ‘weak person!’ Not homophbic. Don’t believe that though. I think it’s quite common knowledge that it’s homophobic slang

Can you not communicate without CAPITALS?

Free speech does not and shojld never incident hate crime. Free speech doesn’t mean you get to call someone really grotesques names.

So you don't think there should be an offence of malicious communication. Anyone should be able to send a barrage of messages of any content to anyone else?

So what's a black persons recourse if their neighbour decides to send them a text every day calling them the N word out drop a note through their door doing the same but making it clear they would never physically harm them?

They absolutely should be criminalised or they will be used. There is zero tolerance in schools
as regards the use of either and taken seriously for good reason.

Bizarre

This is truly a bizarre take.

So, because a word may cause "distress" (an entirely subjective term) that person should be arrested for saying it.

So, any word that causes someone else distress should be permission for the police to come and beat the person's door down and arrest them, should it?

We've become a nation of absolute babies.

Is the word nice? No.

It's still just a word, and it was a word not directed at him, but sent in a conversation with a "friend."

12,000 people have been arrested this year alone for social media posts. We don't have free speech in this country anymore, but a lot of you won't care until it comes for you.

Our police shouldn't be wasting time and resources on policing hurty words. It reeks of kids tattling to the teacher because another kid said something they didn't like.

I take it you’re not black or gay.

In schools.

You know-the place where children go.

Not adults. You know adults who should be able to handle matters themselves and regulate their own emotions. Unlike children, who cannot do that sufficiently.

Again, nation of babies who need their hands held when they hear a word they dislike. Are they nice words? No, but I'm not going to lose sleep over a man who attacked a woman being called the F word.

It's a bloody word.

What protection are you suggesting we give to black and gay children and adults instead?

No, I'm also not a baby.

I know lots of gay people who would not want someone arrested for saying a word they dislike.

But she’s probably a woman and there are plenty of misogynistic words that may cause her “distress” but she wouldn’t call the police about.

Wow!

So it’s babyish to feel suicidal as a young gay teen due to being subjected to such appalling words that trash your very existence when you’re trying simply get on with your day.

My son is still needing therapy for such verbal bullying and the fall out from it years later.

Wow so saying we should just tolerate hate speech now.

It's obviously terrible that your son was bullied and that he feels suicidal. I genuinely hope that he is receiving the help that he needs and makes a full recovery soon.

However, my position stands.

People shouldn't be arrested for saying words that caused someone else distress.

Distress is subjective. There was a case recently of a man being arrested by 4 officers for calling someone a "muppet" and "causing distress." Do you think that is reasonable?

What kind of society thrives when adults can't hear words they dislike without running to the police for intervention?

It's not one founded on resilience. 12,000 people have been arrested for social media posts in the UK. More than China and Russia.

This isn't reasonable or normal. Surely, our police, such as they are, have better things to be doing than policing hurty words?

The f and n words are hate speech and very different to muppet