It has emerged that a chief constable has been forced to apologise for liking a tweet that blamed rioting in Bristol on police and the Government. Rachel Swann who leads Derbyshire Police, has been accused of endorsing the tweet as she ‘liked’ the message, which said the violence was inevitable after government officials had ‘criminalised peaceful protest’.
The author of the controversial tweet was Owen Jones, and he was was referring to the Metropolitan Police’s actions at a vigil for Sarah Everard on Saturday the 13th of March, as well as the Government’s Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Owen Jones wrote: ‘If the Government attempts to criminalise peaceful protest, and police are set on women at a vigil, the scenes tonight in Bristol become an inevitability. ‘No justice, no peace’ isn’t best understood as a threat, but as a statement of the glaringly obvious’.
Miss Swann ‘liked’ the tweet late on Sunday night but later deleted the endorsement before taking to Twitter herself to condemn the violence. Miss Swann became Derbyshire Police’s first female chief constable in August. She has said that she ‘accidentally liked a tweet which did not reflect my view of the situation’. When I realised this morning I immediately corrected it’. Miss Swann has previously spoken about how she was temporarily driven off Twitter after ‘sexist and homophobic’ abuse over her appearance.
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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