Beware the crime of muttering to yourself
The Free Speech Union (FSU) has fought more than 7,000 cases since 2020 and, frankly, I thought I’d seen it all when it comes to the police overreacting to an “offensive” remark. Surely, the Metropolitan Police dispatching five armed officers to arrest Graham Linehan when he got off a flight from America for a tweet is the absolute nadir? But no. We were in court last week defending a man who was being prosecuted for saying something verboten while driving his car. The only person who heard it was his four-year-old son, yet he was charged with “threatening or abusive behavior” with a racial aggravator.
