STATEMENT

The West Yorkshire Police force do not know their law.

Malicious Communications Act 1988 has no provision whatsoever for “insulting or abusive” messages.

Individuals can be prosecuted for sending messages that are “grossly offensive” or for messages that the sender knows to be false but sends anyway for the purpose of causing annoyance.

“This police force needs to develop a sense of humour and pursue actual crime rather than trying to use the law to cover their own embarrassment. These comments by the West Yorkshire Police again show how problematic this section of law is in dealing with social media and it is time to see the ‘grossly offensive’ element scrapped,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of Index on Censorship, said.