by J J Starky, The Stark Naked Brief
Woke pledges, warped priorities, and partisan enforcement.
Ben-Julian Harrington has served as Chief Constable of Essex Police since 2018, following previous roles as the force’s Deputy Chief and as a senior officer with the Metropolitan Police Service.
On the force’s website, he is described as a “champion” of diversity, equality, and inclusion, and a “firm ally for LGBTQ+ communities.”
Unsurprisingly, under his stewardship, Essex Police appears to have aligned itself closely with progressive ideals—both culturally and operationally. And its record reflects that shift in all the expected ways.
A new FOI request submitted last month by The Brief revealed that Essex Police have made 1,570 arrests under the Online Safety Act alone, since it received Royal Assent in October 2023.
That works out to well over one arrest per day—1.4, to be exact—for either knowingly sending “false” or “threatening” communications with the “intent” to cause “non-trivial psychological or physical harm”.
A false communications offence carries a maximum sentence of 51 weeks in prison, a fine, or both. More significantly, it is a summary-only offence—which means the accused loses the right to a jury trial, leaving them at the mercy of possible activist judges and magistrates.
By contrast, a threatening communications offence can result in up to five years in prison, but it does come with the right to a jury trial.
What these figures don’t include, however, is equally revealing.