Under leftist Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the United Kingdom is sinking ever deeper in the censorship quagmire, signaling an authoritarian future where free-speech will be completely criminalized.
But that is not to say there has been no pushback from the British society.
Now, a retired police constable has been awarded some measure of justice in the form of compensation of £20,000 [US$ 27,000] after a wrongful arrest over one social media post in which he warned about rising anti-Semitism.
The police haven’t just been arresting citizens over memes—they’ve gone after their own former officers.
You probably didn’t hear about this case, but in November 2023, Kent Police arrested retired special constable Julian Foulkes.
His so-called crime?
Posting a warning about… pic.twitter.com/Zb8oIyJNxH
— The Stark Naked Brief. (@StarkNakedBrief) May 10, 2025
The Telegraph reported:
“Julian Foulkes, from Gillingham, Kent, was handcuffed at his home by six officers after replying to a pro-Palestinian activist on X. Kent Police officers searched his home and commented on his ‘very Brexity’ book collection. The force detained the 71-year-old for eight hours, interrogated and issued him with a caution after officers visited his home on Nov 2 2023.”
Back in May, Kent Police admitted that the caution was a mistake and deleted it from Foulkes’s record.
Kent’s chief constable Tim Smith phoned Foulkes personally and offered an apology for the ‘ordeal’.
A letter sent to Foulkes’ lawyers confirmed the Police force agrees to a settlement, after Foulkes launched a legal challenge supported by the Free Speech Union (FSU) for wrongful arrest and detention.
“The letter, sent by a lawyer for the force, read: ‘I am instructed to accept the offer of early resolution without recourse to litigation by payment of compensation in the sum of £20,000 plus your client’s reasonable legal fees in full and final settlement of all prospective claims arising from his arrest on Nov 2 2023’.”
The case of Julian Foulkes sounds like a joke, but it exposes something shocking. The UK police need to be reformed, urgently.
Weeks after October 7, Foulkes, a retired police officer, had his home searched, was handcuffed, and taken to the police station. They found nothing… pic.twitter.com/fRjL6uJI5q
— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) May 11, 2025
Foulkes is pleased that Kent Police followed their apology with compensation.
“’However, this was never about money’, he said. ‘For me, it was a simple matter of right and wrong and I now need to see that the full investigation I have been promised takes place and necessary actions are taken to prevent any recurrence’.”
On Friday (May 30), Kent Police took the unusual step of referring itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).
“Mr. Foulkes’s X post replied to an activist threatening to sue Suella Braverman, the home secretary at the time, for calling pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London ‘hate marches’. In the post, sent two days before police visited his home, Mr Foulkes wrote: ‘One step away from storming Heathrow looking for Jewish arrivals…’”
What Foulkes’s was referring to were the news reports of ‘an anti-Semitic mob’ storming an airport in Dagestan, Russia, ‘looking for Jewish passengers’.
Bryn Harris, chief legal counsel for the FSU:
“’The [FSU] is pleased to see that Kent Police has done the right thing and apologized to Julian, with due compensation. This is, however, merely the end of the beginning – we now need to see a full and credible investigation into the outrageous violations of Julian’s basic freedoms’.”
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