A woman who had a hate incident recorded against her by Norfolk police for her social media posts on the trans debate has successfully fought to overturn it.
Cathy Kirby, 58, was visited twice at her Norwich home by police officers after trans activists lodged a series of complaints claiming her posts on Twitter were transphobic.
Although no further criminal action was taken against her, the teacher later discovered that the ‘non-crime hate incident’ had been placed on her records.
They were only amended to remove the reference after a long battle involving legal experts and a cybercrime charity.
The case raises further questions about the extent to which police are getting involved in controversial online debates.
This week, home secretary Suella Braverman unveiled draft guidelines for forces requiring them to prioritise freedom of speech over people taking offence and to stop recording online arguments as non-crime hate incidents.
She said she was acting over concerns police were "wrongly getting involved in lawful debate".
It also comes weeks after Giles Orpen-Smellie, the Norfolk police and crime commissioner, pledged he wanted officers to focus on investigating crimes like burglary and domestic violence and resist being drawn into policing arguments on social media.
He said he didn’t want Norfolk officers spending their time "sitting on Facebook looking for people being rude”.
Ms Kirby is a 'gender critical' campaigner, concerned about the impact on women's rights of 'gender identity' ideology - the idea that individuals have their own innate sense of their gender which can be different to their birth sex.
She regularly posts on the topic.
Officers went to her home address on two occasions after receiving complaints about her tweets.
She claims she was never told which of her tweets were considered 'transphobic', but believes one related to a post about changes to the rainbow Pride flag, which saw extra colours added, to represent trans people.
“I made a comment on Twitter calling out the new Pride flag, saying that I didn’t particularly like the trans colours being added because I felt the original was fine as it already represented trans people,” she said.
She was not arrested, but was given words of advice by officers. She later requested information from Norfolk Constabulary about the case and discovered the 'non-crime hate incident' had been placed on her record.
A non-crime hate incident is defined by the College of Policing’s current guidance as “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice”.
“These people tried to destroy not only my income and my career but my reputation. Norfolk police went along with it,” she said.
“It’s really frightening and quite sinister. Basically this small group has been targeting me for my beliefs and I feel police sending around PCs to tell me off for something I’ve tweeted is harassing me by proxy.
“There are lots of real crimes they could be investigating, not calling on the doorstep of a 58-year-old woman about people being offended by a tweet.”
She said her gender critical views had seen her targeted by a “very outspoken small group”.
“Over the last five years they have used upwards of 20 anonymous Twitter accounts to slur and smear me,” she said.
She had received death threats against her, including one calling for her crucifixion, which had been reported to police, she added.
She was told UK residents had been visited by officers but that a man in the US was outside the jurisdiction of British police.
A Norfolk police spokeswoman said: “Over the last five years we’ve investigated numerous allegations and counter allegations of online harassment concerning four people.
"Following enquiries, no further action has been taken in any investigation and all parties involved have been offered words of advice.
"If a member of the public reports harassing behaviour, we have a duty to investigate and will respond in a proportionate manner.”
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