Courts rule on two alleged cases of transphobia

Courts rule on two alleged cases of transphobia

Courts have found both for and against complainants in charges of alleged transphobic abuse over social media in two recent cases.

While the High Court ruled that Humberside Police had unlawfully interfered with a man’s right to freedom of expression over allegedly transphobic tweets, a judge found a woman in Hertfordshire guilty of causing annoyance, inconvenience, and anxiety through tweets aimed at a transgender woman.

In the first case, ex-police officer Harry Miller, a former constable of two years (54), from Lincolnshire, who founded the group Fair Cop, had claimed the actions of police in coming to his workplace over the tweets had a “substantial chilling effect” on his right to free speech. He denied being prejudiced against transgender people.

Miller’s barrister had told a previous hearing that his client was “deeply concerned” about proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and had turned to social media to take part in the “ongoing debate”.

The judge rejected a wider challenge to the lawfulness of the College of Police guidance, ruling that it “serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate”. The guidance defines a transgender hate incident as “any non-crime incident which is perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender”.

Helen Belcher, co-founder of Trans Media Watch, said trans people would fear “open season” on them as a result. She added: “I think it will reinforce an opinion that courts don’t understand trans lives and aren’t there to protect trans people.”

During the case Mr Justice Julian Knowles rejected a wider challenge to the lawfulness of College of Police guidance, ruling that it “serves legitimate purposes and is not disproportionate”.

Deputy chief constable Bernie O’Reilly, executive director at the College of Policing, said he was pleased the court had recognised the guidance on recording non-crime hate incidents was “both lawful and extremely important in protecting people”.

Adding “Our guidance is about protecting people because of who they are and we know this is an area where people may be reluctant to report things to us.”

The Hertfordshire case saw Kate Scottow (39), of Pirton near Hitchin, Hertfordshire, accused at St Albans Magistrates Court of using male pronouns to upset Stephanie Hayden. Scottow had created multiple accounts to harass and demean trans people repeatedly misgendering trans people and using targeted abuse calling Hayden a ‘pig in a wig’.

Scottow was found guilty of persistently making use of a public communications network to cause annoyance, inconvenience, and anxiety to Stephanie Hayden between September 2018 and last May. She was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £1,000.

Both complainants were pictured in national newspapers outside the courts along with individuals from the ‘FairCop’ campaign group which had been recently created.  Fair Cop state on their twitter profile ‘If we win the current case, the funds will go to a similar case. We have the relationship between the police and Stonewall in our sights.’  Fair Cop has started campaigning for the College of Policing to change its Hate Crime Guidance which were set up following the Stephen Lawrence Enquiry.

Standing next to Harry Miller outside the High Court is Posie Parker, otherwise known as Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull who was ejected from Women’s Place UK as her views on race and religion were considered too extreme and Parker’s defense of the Far Right too much for them to stomach.  See the WPUK statment here.

Miller is on record as supporting Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson who is a British far-right and anti-Islam activist. Groups of people from the FairCop group stood outside St Albans Court shouting ‘pig in a wig’ and demanding to be arrested.

Cara English from the group Gendered Intelligence said trans people were facing “diabolical rhetoric”. She welcomed the conviction of Scorrow which she said would “help end harassment against trans people”.

Brandwatch and Ditch the Label joined forces last year to analyze 10 million online posts over a 3½ year period to explore adn expose online transphobia.

They uncovered 1.5 million transphobic comments amid the wider conversation around trans people. See their full report here: