A whole new level of insanity

l.

Mr Miller had been the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment by Lynsay Watson, a transgender constable with the Leicestershire force who was the complainant behind the arrest last week of Graham Linehan, the comedy writer.

Watson was sacked for gross misconduct in October 2023 after being found guilty of sending more than 1,200 messages to Mr Miller over an 18-month period, branding him a “Nazi”, a “bigot” and “wife beater”.

Yet the police, for reasons still to be explained, always do his bidding.

Mr Miller was also accused of misgendering Watson in an article he had written about his stalking ordeal for The Critic magazine.

He was informed he was being questioned on suspicion of a breach of the Online Safety Act, which makes it a criminal offence to send a message knowing it to be false and intending it cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm without a reasonable excuse.

The Online Safety Act gained Royal Assent on Oct 26, 2023, the day before Mr Miller posted the tweet, but did not become law until Jan 31 last year, so could not have been applied in this case.

Mr Miller was subsequently released with no further action.

However, earlier this year, he submitted a formal request to Lincolnshire Police to establish how the force had recorded the incident.

He said he was alarmed to discover it had been officially recorded as a stalking offence and a hate crime, which could show up on any enhanced DBS check.

The letter he received stated: “The occurrence … in which you were interviewed in relation to on 20 November 2024 has been recorded as a hate crime. The crime (stalking involving serious alarm or distress) has prejudice flags attached.”

Mr Miller said that the whole sequence of events was extremely sinister and that he had now instructed lawyers to begin legal action to have the record expunged.

He told the Telegraph: “This incident has revealed a whole new level of insanity. I was coerced into attending an interview under caution by Lincolnshire CID under threat of arrest, and questioned about breaking a law that did not exist.

“Additionally, without charge, caution, referral to the CPS, or bothering to tell me, the police then gave me a criminal record for the imprisonable offence of stalking, adding for good measure the additional element of hate. Imagine that coming up in an enhanced DBS check.

“Lincolnshire Police are criminally negligent. Every officer involved in this case needs bringing before a disciplinary tribunal, and the Chief Constable must personally apologise. It won’t stop me suing them, but it will be a start.”