Bernadette “Bernie” Spofforth, was caught up in Great Britian Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s crackdown on online speech.
The Gateway Pundit reported that British authorities have warned that “keyboard warriors” will be arrested.
Met Police Commissioner Mark Rowley recently told reporters, “We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you.”
“You can be guilty of offenses of incitement, of stirring up racial hatred, there are numerous terrorist offensives regarding the publishing of material.”
As an attack on children attending a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England was unfolding, Spofforth weighed in on social media.
Spofforth’s post on X, which she has since taken down, read, “Ali Al-Shakati was the suspect. He was an asylum seeker who came to the UK by boat last year and was on an MI6 watch list.”
“If this is true, then all hell is about to break loose.”
Spofforth’s came under police investigation and then accused of sharing misinformation and misidentifying the assailant.
The mother of three was ultimately arrested for her post.
She was accused of allegedly “inciting racial hatred and spreading false news through written means” and detained for 36 hours.
During the investigation, and while she was out on bail, she was unable to respond to messages or questions regarding the incident.
In an update post on X, she shares that police have now decided to take “no further action.”
She also shared that once she discovered the information was incorrect, she deleted the post, something Starmer claimed just a few years ago should end the matter.
Spofforth said on X:
My name is Bernadette Spofforth. Most of you just know me as Bernie. Firstly, thank you for all of your messages, and I’m so sorry I haven’t responded or replied to any of you, but I couldn’t. I would have been locked up in a cell again for breaching bail conditions if I had.
But I want to let you know, though, that on the fifth of September, the police issued what’s called an NFA, and that means no further action and no charges because I hadn’t done anything illegal.
My supposed crime, according to many journalists and social media activists, was a post on X that they incorrectly claimed I had made up, and which they decided was the cause of the riots in South Port and all across the country.
In reality, though, I had just copied and pasted a name and a sentence from another post on X. And unusually for me, I didn’t check the source, but I added the line, If this is true, there will be hell to pay. And what followed from that deleted post was a concerted effort on social media to try and have me arrested and sent to prison by those who don’t agree with me.
Now, what I’ve experienced over the last few weeks that I’d like to tell you about is nothing in comparison to the suffering of those families in Southport, and I am not comparing the two.
But I am just an ordinary person, and I think you should know how ordinary people have been treated.
So on the eighth of August, the police turned up mob-handed, five of them, three police cars and a prison van. And instead of a simple voluntary interview, they searched me, arrested me, and held me for 36 hours in a concrete cell with a concrete bed like a terrorist.
They held me even though I told them that the evidence they needed had already been found by data experts. I explained my post was political, as almost all of my posts are, and my post was aimed at the government and its failing policies. I had not and would not make something up. But perhaps the authorities and the activists didn’t actually care about the truth. They just wanted me punished as an example to you. Finally, I was released on bail. There really was nothing to take to magistrates and nothing to charge me with, but it didn’t end there.
Because my bail conditions included that I couldn’t engage on social media, they didn’t want me to speak to you about anything at all. Which meant I couldn’t tell you of the damage done to me by those reporters and activists, and that it had been so complete I couldn’t leave my house, that reporters were lying in wait for me in my garden, and that every day I had hate mail. I have nothing to gain from making something like that up, but others did gain. Journalists gained their clicks, my detractors gained my silence, and the authorities gained the silencing of you because so many of you were afraid to speak. I had expressed my own views on the state of the country and its failure to protect innocent citizens, and that is still legal.
But it’s very clear that a vocal part of our society wants the opinions of ordinary people like you and like me, suppressed. They say they support free speech, but they mean only the speech they agree with. They say they support dialog, but only the dialog that agrees with their worldview. And they say they want equality, but they don’t mean for people who think differently to them.
Now, I deleted that post because I found out it was incorrect. Keir Starmer said just a few years ago that if people make social media posts in error and then delete them, that should be the end of the matter. But it seems that’s no longer the case.
It seems like it’s been decided it’s better to stop questioning.
It’s easier to ban dissent, and that way, you can stop the public spreading unapproved news amongst ourselves.
And many people still believe that if they allow the government to micromanage their lives and be their single source of truth, then things will be okay. Until one day they don’t agree with their government, and they find it isn’t okay because they can’t speak of it.
Without free speech, there is no democracy. And without democracy, there really is only tyranny. And to be treated as a criminal when you know you are innocent by the authorities, journalists, an activist is terrifying and reputationally devastating. The process is the punishment, and it will silence millions. And when we are silent, that is the end of our free speech. So to those who celebrated my arrest, don’t enjoy it too much because it could easily happen to you.
And the difference between us is that I would fight for you. And for all those who stood up for me and did fight for me, thank you. You held my line even as I couldn’t. Thank you.
Watch:
”IF THIS IS TRUE” – I am Bernadette Spofforth… you know me as Bernie.
And this is the story of how the State silenced an ordinary citizen, through arrest and bail conditions, to ensure only State truth was heard.
With special thanks to @sdavieslaw @speechUnion pic.twitter.com/p7ouXnl6qR
— Bernie (@Artemisfornow) September 18, 2024
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