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Britain’s speech laws are absurdly censorious. After this week’s viral ‘lesbian nana’ video, the whole world is talking about the state of policing in the UK.

The streets of Leeds are now safer thanks to seven brave UK police officers.

Before dawn last Monday, the police squad dragged a 16-year-old autistic girl kicking and screaming from her home, after she told one of the cops, “you look like my lesbian nana”.

No, this isn’t satire.

It is rainbow totalitarianism in full flower: the tolerance police and the actual police merging into one, backed by the full authority of the State.

West Yorkshire Police have released a statement confirming the girl was arrested on suspicion of making a homophobic remark. The teen’s alleged “hate crime” was captured on police body cam earlier that night, according to the statement.

The department said the girl had been “reportedly intoxicated” in downtown Leeds and that officers had driven her home. “Upon returning her to the address, comments were made which resulted in the girl being arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence,” the police department said.

Footage of the arrest has gone viral online after the girl’s mother uploaded it to TikTok.

How the ‘lesbian nana’ incident unfolded

The footage shows two officers in the hallway of the girl’s home, as she hides in a corner under a stairwell. The female officer who was the subject of the alleged ‘lesbian nana’ insult can be heard saying, “she is going to be arrested”. In turn, the girl’s mother explains that her daughter is autistic, to which the same officer responds, “I don’t care”.

At this point, the girl is clearly in a state of agitation. Her mother pleads with the officers, explaining that her daughter is punching herself in distress. She attempts to provide some context behind the alleged incident: “You’re going to remove her for what, she said the word lesbian? Her nana is a lesbian, she’s married to a woman. She’s not homophobic.”

Realising her fate was already sealed, the teenage girl gives herself up and begins walking away with the officers. However, on becoming upset again, she drops to the ground screaming, at which point police attempt to lift her up by the arms to take her away.

In the video’s caption, the mother explains she had told the officers her daughter suffered from severe scoliosis, or abnormal curvature of the spine, which causes her extreme shoulder pain.

Embarrassment for West Yorkshire Police

West Yorkshire Police later announced they had interviewed the girl and released her on bail “pending further enquiries and advice from the Crown Prosecution Service”.

However, it wasn’t long before viral video of the incident had provoked a groundswell of public outrage, causing West Yorkshire Police to backpedal.

They released a follow-up statement explaining, “In relation to an incident in Leeds on Monday, where a 16-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence, West Yorkshire Police has now reviewed the evidence and made the decision to take no further action.”

They acknowledged the “significant level of public concern” the arrest had caused and said their department would “take on any lessons to be learned from this incident”.

Users on X, formerly Twitter, who evidently felt the statement had been too weak in describing the original incident, added a Community note to the West Yorkshire Police post, which read:

The police in question dragged a 16 year old autistic girl from her home on suspicion of a homophobic speech hate crime, because the autistic girl said that one of the officers looked like her “lesbian nana”.

Notably, West Yorkshire Police turned off the reply function, preventing X users from providing further comment on the scandal.

Mother set to take legal action

The Daily Mail has since reported that the girl’s mother plans to take legal action against the police department:

The 39-year-old mother-of-six has already made an official complaint about the way the officers treated her daughter, whom she denies is homophobic, but she is now set to take it further. 

‘I am going to seek legal advice,’ she told MailOnline…

The mother also raised concerns that the police are not properly trained to deal with autism sufferers and they do not understand how the condition affects people in different ways.

She says her daughter suffered severe pain as she was manhandled by seven officers, having recently been diagnosed with the spinal disability scoliosis.

Particularly puzzling about the entire saga is how the girl could have committed a “public order” offence when the alleged exchange took place at her own private residence. Also unclear is how simply stating that a policewoman looks like a lesbian could even constitute an arrestable offence.

Britain’s censorious speech laws

In a column for Spiked, editor Tom Slater provides helpful context about the incident, explaining just how censorious Britain’s speech laws have become in recent years.

“We’ve seen veterans have their collars felt for posting anti-woke memes on social media, and gender-critical feminists dragged through the courts because trans activists took wilful offence to their posts,” he writes. Slater continues:

Autistic people seem particularly vulnerable to plod’s apparent crusade to stop people – including their own officers – having their feelings hurt. In 2020, a Welsh 19-year-old, who suffers with Asperger’s, anxiety and depression, was convicted of a hate crime for shouting ‘Is it a boy or is it a girl?’ at a transgender community-support officer. He was given a 12-week curfew and ordered to pay £590. West Yorkshire Police were also hauled over the coals earlier this year for recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’ against an autistic schoolboy from Wakefield, who brought a Koran to school and dropped it on the floor, scuffing it slightly. Even though the boy was sent death threats, after news of the ‘desecration’ got out on social media, he was the one who ended up being formally investigated by the police.

All these examples and more point to something deeply sinister. The police have become the armed wing of offence culture. So desperate are they to find some new moral mission, to cleanse themselves of past sins and contemporary bad PR, that they’ve become obsessed with punishing wrongthinkers – even vulnerable young people whose only ‘crime’ is to offend the delicate sensibilities of a cop.

If the online response is anything to go by, it seems British police might have taken it a step too far this time.