PC Rick Prior: Punished for speaking out – help us fight back

Instead of addressing the issue, the Federation moved to silence him.

The following day, the Police Federation suspended Rick on the grounds of alleged discrimination. It has appointed top (and expensive) London solicitors Lewis Silkin to investigate him. PC Prior’s life has now been turned upside down.

This is one of the most important cases we have ever taken on. If police officers hesitate to enforce the law for fear of being called racist, we have a serious problem. And if the very person elected to represent frontline officers can be gagged simply for doing his job, it sets a chilling precedent – one that will deter others from speaking out.

PC Prior needs your support. Please chip in to our legal fundraiser so we can mount a proper legal defence before it’s too late.

Why we need your support

The FSU defends employees from censorship every month. But this isn’t a standard employment case. PC Prior is an elected representative, which means he can’t take his case to an Employment Tribunal. Instead, we must launch an urgent judicial review – a far more costly and complex legal challenge – to overturn this politically motivated suspension.

But this case is about more than one man. If even the Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation can be gagged for discussing the challenges frontline officers face, what does that mean for ordinary police officers?

Your donation will help fund Rick’s legal fight and send a clear message: we won’t let bureaucrats silence those who speak the truth, however inconvenient.

Why PC Prior Was Right to Speak Out

PC Prior’s concerns aren’t hypothetical – they reflect a growing problem within the force. In recent years, Metropolitan Police officers have faced serious misconduct charges which were subsequently dismissed:

• Maida Vale Stop-and-Search (2020): a stop-and-search incident in Maida Vale involving two black athletes led to five Met officers being charged. Two were found guilty of “gross misconduct”. With the support of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which PC Prior chairs, the two officers appealed, won and were reinstated. The appeal tribunal described the gross misconduct findings as “irrational”.
• Croydon Bus Incident (2023): a Met officer was charged with aggravated assault and false imprisonment after arresting and handcuffing a black woman on a bus in Croydon. She had refused to show her ticket to a Revenue Protection Officer during a pre-planned Transport for London operation, and was then aggressive and uncooperative. PC Prior, as a representative of front-line officers, publicly stood-by the Met officer. The officer was initially convicted but, with PC Prior’s help, he appealed and the conviction was quashed.

These cases illustrate exactly what PC Prior was warning about: officers are afraid to do their jobs because they know they can be dragged through politically charged misconduct investigations, even when they’ve done nothing wrong.

The real reason PC Prior has been suspended

Police officers can’t form a union or go on strike, so they rely on the Federation to advocate on their behalf. As Chair of the Metropolitan Police branch of the Federation, PC Prior’s job is to be the voice of London’s rank-and-file officers – and that’s exactly what he was doing.

But this suspension didn’t come out of nowhere. The Federation has long faced accusations of getting bogged down in internal power struggles instead of defending its members. That’s why we suspect something deeper is at play.

If PC Prior’s suspension isn’t lifted, he’ll be barred from standing for re-election – just months before the vote. It’s hard not to see this as an attempt to remove him from his post by force rather than letting frontline officers decide his future democratically.

We can’t let this go unchallenged.

Donate now to defend free speech in policing

The money you give will help challenge PC Prior’s politically motivated suspension. Your donation will fund the legal fight to overturn this injustice and defend the right of police officers to speak out.

Any unused funds that don’t go towards PC Prior’s case will be reallocated to help other FSU members in need of legal assistance.

Stand with Rick. Defend free speech. Donate today.

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of our members and supporters, we reached our initial target within 24 hours so we’ve increased it to £150,000 to cover any additional legal costs PC Prior might incur.

UPDATE, 29 April 2025: With your help, Rick was able to issue a claim in the High Court challenging his suspension. To help meet his fundraising target, Rick gave an interview to the Telegraph newspaper, and also spoke on GB News.

At this point, proceedings took a turn to the surreal. The Police Federation brought new charges against Rick alleging that publicly discussing his case was a further disciplinary offence.

The writing was on the wall. It was clear that the Police Federation wanted Rick out of the picture before he could stand for a further three-year term in the forthcoming Federation elections. Rick did the only thing he could realistically do – funded by your generous donations, he applied for an urgent injunction to block the proceedings.

The High Court, obliged to adjudicate quickly and without a full review of the papers, ruled that Rick would first have to try his luck in front of the Police Federation disciplinary panel before he could take legal action.

The disciplinary panel went ahead and Rick’s fears were wholly vindicated. The panel removed Rick from his roles as Metropolitan Police Federation Chairman and Federation representative, and barred him from standing for election to any Federation position. In an extraordinarily vindictive move, both sanctions were imposed on a permanent basis.

All this because Rick had gone public about proceedings that anyway would be heard in open court.

If Rick is to raise money to exercise his fundamental right of access to justice, how can he be expected not to talk about the case?

Rick is now barred from standing for re-election – just weeks before the vote. If the Federation’s decision stands, his career will effectively be at an end. The Federation will have won. They will have succeeded in removing Rick from his post by force rather than letting frontline officers decide his future democratically.

Rick will not let the Federation win without a fight, and the Free Speech Union will stand by him. If you agree that the Police Federation should not get away with its shamefully unfair treatment of Rick, please make a donation so he can afford proper legal representation.