Saw this story that originated in the UK Daily Telegraph as a comment on Harry’s Place. West Midlands Police arrested a 15 year old Reform Party supporter under one of Britain’s oppressive ‘hate speech’ laws because the boy said that a Tory councillor ‘looked like a Rent Boy’.

Whilst directing most of my ire at West Midlands Police, I have to direct some at the Tory councillor himself. The councillor should have ignored the comment, it wasn’t a nice comment, it wasn’t one that I would have used in the context of slagging off a Tory, but politics is a philosophical contact sport where those who take part need to have much thicker skins than this Tory councillor seems to have.

The Telegraph said:

Teenager believes West Midlands Police targeted him because of his political allegiances
Fraser, a 15-year-old schoolboy, was asleep in bed when four police officers knocked on the door of the family home, a modest two-up-two-down on an impoverished housing estate on the fringes of Walsall in the West Midlands…

FreeSpeechUnion X post = But a handful of Facebook posts appear to have upset a Tory councillor on Wolverhampton City Council, who complained to the police.

In one post, Fraser criticised the councillor for wearing shorts and a T-shirt to a meeting. In another, after the councillor had worn a suit, Fraser remarked that he was thankfully not dressed like a “rent boy”.

West Midlands Police’s response was to send two police cars and four officers to the child’s home.

The police have revealed very little about why Fraser was arrested. In an email to his lawyer on 8 September, West Midlands Police wrote: “It is alleged that your client’s comments could be considered a hate crime offence…”

Officers searched Fraser in full view of his neighbours before placing him in a police car and taking him to the local station. There, he was searched a second time, put in a cell, and had his fingerprints, DNA and mugshot taken. His shoes were removed, and he was left alone in a “freezing cold cell” without his mother while he waited for a duty solicitor. Meanwhile, two officers searched his bedroom at home.

Celia Hibbert, Reform’s leader in Wolverhampton, contacted the Free Speech Union (FSU), which has taken up Fraser’s case and found him a lawyer. Fraser is considering suing West Midlands Police for wrongful arrest.

FSU Legal Officer Zahira Patel said:

“Four police officers arriving to arrest a 15-year-old boy over a political Facebook post is a shocking overreach. This is not an isolated overreaction. It fits a pattern we see again and again: politicians reporting online criticism to the police rather than answering it.

“For a child to be arrested at home, interrogated, stripped of his devices, left waiting weeks to learn his fate and investigated for a ‘hate crime’ is not proportionate policing of a minor. This investigation needs to end immediately.”

This is not the proper use of a police force. Neither the police nor the law should have a place in this. I agree with those who say that this arrest by police on the instigation of a thin skinned Tory councillor does deserve the description of ‘Orwellian’. However this sort of policing is what many of us have come to expect of West Midlands Police. After they have a terrible record for pandering to certain communal groups, have allegedly had a long period where the force failed to get a grip on grooming gangs in their area and who used tainted and in some cases manufactured ‘evidence’ to stop Israeli fans from attending a football match in Birmingham.

I hope this young man sues the absolute arse off of West Midlands police as they are clearly not policing their patch with any sort of impartiality.

Links

Harry’s Place where I saw the story

https://hurryupharry.net/2026/09/30/october-hangout-2/

West Midlands Police Maccabi incident

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/west-midlands-police-misconduct-probe-maccabi-tel-aviv-5HjdgXk_2/

West Midlands Police failed grooming gang survivor

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/black-country/police-failed-walsall-grooming-gang-19777364