Britain’s dystopian hate crime laws were applied for perhaps the most absurd reason this week, when a 12-year old boy was arrested by West Midlands Police for sending an offensive text to a multimillionaire footballer.
The police released a statement saying that
“The 12-year-old boy arrested in connection with racist social-media messages sent to a footballer has been released under investigation while our enquiries continue. Racism has no place in society and we’re attempting to contact the footballer to obtain a statement.”
You would think we have reached the lows when Count Dankula, the YouTuber, was fined for teaching his dog a Nazi salute; when a 19-year old girl was arrested for quoting rapper Snap Dogg’s “I’m Trippin”; or when a retweet of a limerick was investigated for transphobic hate speech, a probe that was subsequently found by the courts to have unlawfully interfered with the right to freedom of expression.
But arresting a boy who has just entered his teens is the worst yet. Not only does government have no legitimate right to interfere in what we say to each other, and everyone who value their basic freedoms should be gravely concerned about the journey we have embarked on with hate crime laws. But equality disturbing, the actions of police send a clear message that teaching kids how to behave and integrate in society is the job of government. No-one is saying that the boy does not need a stern stalking to, but it should be from his parents or another figure of authority in his life, not from the police.
The law says multimillionaire Premiership footballer Wilfried Zaha was the victim of a crime when he got a hurtful text message on Saturday. But we say the oppression was directed at a young teenager whose actions perhaps went a bit too far, but who ultimately just said some offensive words.