West Mercia Police wrong to log ‘transphobia’ row retweet as hate incident, minister says
A Government minister has claimed West Mercia Police was wrong to record an allegation of transphobia made against a Conservative MP as a “non-crime hate incident”.
Redditch MP Rachel Maclean is challenging the decision made by West Mercia Police after an investigation into her retweet of a post on X, formerly Twitter, which described transgender woman Melissa Poulton as “a man who wears a wig”.
Speaking on Times Radio on Tuesday, housing minister Lee Rowley said he believed police had been wrong to log the post as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI).
Mr Rowley said: “Rachel’s a personal friend. And what Rachel was saying was that there is a biological sex and it’s absolutely the case and it’s appropriate to be able to talk about that.
“We have to be able to have these conversations. Rachel wrote she knew what a woman was. These conversations don’t just go away because people try to shush them.”
Mrs McLean, the Tories’ deputy chair for women, has said it “seems wrong and ridiculous” for the police to use NCHI legislation to “record that a woman said a man cannot be a woman or a lesbian”.
Ms Poulton, a Green Party campaigner and election candidate in Bromsgrove, has previously accused Mrs Maclean of attacking her “for being who I am and standing in a neighbouring constituency”.
West Mercia Police said it had acted in accordance with the law governing NCHIs.
The force said in a statement: “The incident was logged as a non-crime hate incident (NCHI) as the content of the post was perceived by the person who reported it to be hostile towards the transgender community.
“This caused the person who reported it concern. This is in accordance with the legislation.”
