‘Anti-woke' chief constable won't back down on Twitter post probes
An 'anti-woke' chief constable has refused to back down on his force's probes into social media posts.
Stephen Watson has been praised for his no-nonsense approach to policing since taking up the post of chief constable at Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in 2021.
However, earlier this year, the force faced intense backlash after a grandmother was visited by two plain-clothed officers for criticising Labour politicians on Facebook.
Although GMP acknowledged no crime had been committed, Helen Jones, 54, was left 'scared' after the ordeal, which prompted national outrage.
Now, Mr Watson has vowed to continue looking into similar matters.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, he said: 'We investigate every single report of crime in Greater Manchester.
'However, if it turns out the allegation isn't valid, we will also drop it really quickly.'
Mr Watson describes himself as 'anti-woke' having previously spoken out against officers 'virtue-signalling' with rainbow badges and taking the knee.
But his comments come amid growing concerns over controversial police responses to social media posts and other trivial matters in which no charges are brought.
As a result, several forces have been accused of becoming 'Stasi-like' in their implementation of the law.
Last month, two parents from Hertfordshire revealed they were detained by six officers in front of their young daughter for complaining about their child's primary school in a WhatsApp group.
Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine were held in a cell for eight hours, despite Hertfordshire Constabulary concluding, after a five-week investigation, that there would be no further action.
Both events followed Essex Police officers arriving at the house of Allison Pearson, The Telegraph columnist, and informing her she was being investigated on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over a post she had published and then deleted on social media 12 months earlier.
The investigation was later dropped.
Elsewhere, a mother-of-two was arrested and blocked from seeing her daughters after she confiscated their iPads.
Surrey Police held Vanessa Brown for nearly eight hours last month, before eventually concluding she had been 'entitled' to take the devices off her children.
Harry Miller, a former police officer who works with the free speech campaign group Fair Cop, said: 'The police have become agents of a state orthodoxy rather than upholders of the law.
'They repeatedly overreach and they seem to have taken it upon themselves to become social engineers.
'That is not their role.'
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