Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner Donna Jones has waded in to condemn her own officers over their arrest of an army veteran who shared an image tweeted by Laurence Fox. The three officers, who whacked the anonymous serviceman in handcuffs for “malicious communications” – which in this case means “causing anxiety” by sharing a picture of a swastika made out of pride flags – were confronted on Thursday by Fox and Reclaim Party chairman Harry Miller as they prepared to make the arrest. Fox and Miller showed up with a camera crew as part of their new Bad Law Project to “challenge and depoliticise” woke policing. Rather than acknowledging it’s a bit over-the-top to handcuff a man over a tweet, the officers simply arrested Miller as well…

Now Jones has released a statement:

“When incidents on social media receive not one but two visits from police officers, but burglaries and non-domestic break-ins don’t always get a police response, something is wrong… As Police Commissioner, I am committed to ensuring Hampshire Constabulary serves the public as the majority of people would expect. It appears on this occasion this has not happened… In order to support this I will be writing to the College of Policing to make them aware of this incident and encourage greater clarification on the guidance in order to ensure that police forces can respond more appropriately in the future.”

Miller has now been released pending an investigation. Arresting people for causing offence or anxiety, all while Hampshire recorded 8,000 burglaries in the last year, probably isn’t the best use of police time…