A High Court judge ruled in February that police acted unlawfully in their investigation into so-called ‘transphobic’ tweets, and suggested there was a creeping Orwellianism at work.
Humberside constabulary visited former policeman Harry Miller’s workplace after a complaint was made about tweets he sent challenging transgenderism. Miller founded the organisation ‘Fair Cop’ to challenge the police’s actions, arguing that the recording of non-crime ‘hate incidents’ was unlawful and that the police had breached his freedom of expression.
Partial victory
In his judgment, Mr Justice Julian Knowles, making reference to George Orwell’s 1984, highlighted the importance of freedom of expression. However, the ruling maintained that the police’s practice of recording ‘hate incidents’ is lawful. Harry Miller will now appeal this point to a higher court. Miller spoke outside the Royal Courts of Justice, saying: ‘We’ve made a stand for truth … Mr Justice Knowles has supported our stand for truth, for liberty, for freedom of speech.’
Pronouns matter
Guidance for judges on transgender issues, given in 2019, came under fire from solicitors in the wake of controversial court rulings. Feminist lawyers say the guidance, in the Equal Treatment Bench Book, fails to highlight conflicts between transgender and women’s rights.
The Bench Book advises that transgender defendants should be addressed by the pronouns of their choice and that ‘self-definition is the most important criteria [sic]’. At least one victim of violence by a transgender woman [i.e. a man] was reprimanded in court for using male pronouns while describing the attack. Finding the defendant guilty, the judge refused the victim compensation, saying that when asked to refer to the defendant as ‘she’, the victim had done so with ‘bad grace’ or continued to use ‘he’.
