First time posting on this board (long time lurker).
In the interests of full transparency, I am a former police officer. I'm also gender critical. I think the police need to be very careful indeed about straying into ideological territory when part of their remit is to be apolitical. I think what started out as a well-intentioned attempt to reach out to the trans community and make them feel included and protected in the same way as attempts have been made with the gay and ethnic minority communities (successful or otherwise) should have had brakes applied when it became obvious that there was a conflict most people hadn't anticipated. That's another thread though.
My opinion is obviously just that - an opinion that others can take or leave.
As a former officer, reading some of these comments is difficult, although not unwarranted. The police have a huge problem with confidence among women at the moment. However, I also think Felix is getting a bit of an unfair bashing. The things he's saying about police procedures are true - and perhaps that's part of the problem.
The police and criminal evidence (PACE) act was written in 1984. It has been amended with other pieces of legislation since but remains the police 'bible'. It is the main piece of legislation governing police powers such as arrest and powers to search and seize.
There are also very stringent laws on interrogating people's online messages, both public and (especially) private.
At the same time it's increasingly difficult to link real-life identities to a social media account due to the increase in non-registered, non landline-based devices. For most online crimes the simplest and easiest way to link the account to the person is to seize the device suspected of being used to post that data. If you have a named suspect, the easiest way to do that is to arrest them and then search for and seize that device. The only other way you can search for and seize that device is by search warrant. That would require visiting a court to lay your grounds before a magistrate, which takes time. If you think your suspect is potentially aware they are being investigated/may try to cover their tracks or if there is any kind of threat/harm/risk associated, time is of the essence so most cops will go for the arrest route, given that the need to obtain evidence and prevent its destruction is an arrest necessity under PACE.
Now you could ask for the device voluntarily and avoid all of this, but I'm sure you could imagine the criticism if evidence is destroyed as a result and someone got harmed. Plus questions are always asked about how voluntary any consent is when not providing it could result in arrest...
All prosecutions require evidence beyond all reasonable doubt to be successful. This means that the police have to have hard evidence. For malicious communications etc this means the police must have those messages and link them to the sender (e.g. by showing they were sent by on that person's phone and that no one else used that device). Therefore this engineers exactly the sort of scenario we've seen before with CF where someone is arrested so police can seize devices.
Which leads to the next question - is it proportionate. Even if the arrest necessity is met, it may not be. But who decides? In some cases it's obvious, but add in a sensitivity issue (e.g. race, trans) and most cops will play safe and follow the policy guidance laid down by their chief officers. This is where dominant political discourse comes in.
When arrests are made as part of a pre-planned approach, an arrest strategy will be formulated. This should justify why it's necessary, what alternatives have been considered, discounted any why, and how it will be achieved, e.g. if flight or violence is a risk, how many officers will be needed to mitigate it? How many are required to transport (normally a minimum of 2) What contingency is in place if the door isn't answered voluntarily. I have to admit to being surprised, given the history, that CF wasn't subject to senior oversight pre-arrest (perhaps she was or has been post arrest). We'll never know. Sub justice rules mean the police find it nearly impossible to release information which would explain their actions in advance of a trial. By the time they can, usually they've been judged already and no one cares to read the explanation and consider if it changes their mind.
As a class, women suffer more than men. That's undeniable. That does not mean we can conclude all women are victims or that all police are corrupt any more than we can conclude that all trans people are innocent victims. Every case has to be treated on its own merits or it's a knee-jerk reaction that becomes the very thing it's trying to fight against.
Based on what I know about CF in the past, do I think this could be a vexatious complaint? Yes. Does that mean I don't think she should be investigated? No, that would depend on what exactly the allegation was, how credible it was and the evidence required to prove it. Not investigating CF because she has been vexatiously targeted before and therefore must be innocent is as biased as assuming she's guilty because she's a Christian. That's a very slippery slope and one women will bear the brunt of no matter who it initially favours. What should happen instead is that vexatious complainants should be dealt with robustly so that it does not keep happening. However, the matter of beyond all reasonable doubt will again rear its head and let many of them get away with it (especially if they claim no malicious intent but genuine grievance). For me, this is where the double standards for women really keep showing themselves. Not making misogyny a hate crime was hugely disappointing in my view. The explanation given by the law commission that it is already being dealt with through the VAWG strategy so to make it a hate crime would accidentally make it have enhanced status over other protected characteristics is laughable when you consider that's exactly what's been done with the race action plan.
The law is not really fit for purpose for this issue of our times. It's made worse by a police force that is NOT made up of a load of racists and misogynists (in my experience) but DOES have the effect of being misogynistic due to the legacy of legislation and a society that is.