A Free Speech Union (FSU) member was arrested in an early-morning raid after criticising his former employer in a private Facebook group, then placed under “Orwellian” bail conditions barring him from even revealing the arrest. Following legal intervention supported by the FSU, the extraordinary “gagging clause” has now been overturned at a special court hearing.
Robert Moss, 56, a former firefighter and Labour councillor, worked for Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service for 28 years before being dismissed in 2021, shortly after becoming the Fire Brigades Union’s county secretary.
In 2023, an employment tribunal ruled he had been unfairly dismissed on grounds of capability. Since then, he has continued to advise firefighters in a private Facebook group, occasionally posting critical remarks about the service’s management. Speaking to the Telegraph, he said his comments – which have been reviewed by the paper as well as by the FSU’s casework and legal teams – were “anodyne” and “certainly not criminal”.
Nevertheless, these remarks drew police attention. Earlier this summer, Staffordshire Police carried out a 7am raid on Moss’s home in Newcastle-under-Lyme, seizing his phones, iPad and computer, before arresting him on suspicion of an offence under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Moss said the officers were “heavy-handed” and left him feeling “like a criminal.”
When he was released on bail, he was handed six conditions. Four prevented him from contacting Staffordshire Fire’s senior officers, while two others went further, prohibiting him from posting anything about the service or the police investigation – in effect, silencing him from discussing his own arrest.
At Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates’ Court, Tom Beardsworth, a barrister instructed by the FSU, challenged the gagging conditions. In relation to the investigatory process, he told the court that, as a man of good character, Mr Moss should have been dealt with by a voluntary interview rather than a raid.
Focusing on the two conditions that prevented Mr Moss discussing his case, he told the panel of three magistrates: “These allow the police to arrest and detain someone and then when they are released prevent them from telling others what had happened with the threat of further arrest if they do not comply.
“We do not live in a police state and Mr Moss should have every right to speak about his arrest,” he said, adding: “For the police to prohibit an arrested person from speaking about their arrest is extraordinary and Orwellian and it is not hyperbole to put it in those terms. This is a deep threat to the right of free expression, and it engages real matters of high principle.”
Mr Beardsworth also quoted College of Policing guidance on “pre-charge bail”, which says conditions should only be imposed where necessary, and pointed to a police briefing that refers to “limiting” freedom of expression to “maintain order and public health”.
On this point, Staffordshire Police defended their approach, with the arresting officer, Detective Constable Isobel Holliday, insisting that Mr Moss’s posts were “malicious and reckless”, and the bail restrictions were “proportionate”.
But magistrates disagreed. Paul Tabinor, chair of the bench, ruled that Mr Moss could post messages about the fire service and scrapped the ban on him referring to the investigation.
Speaking following the case, Moss said that under Staffordshire’s joint police and fire commissioner the police and fire services were “hand in glove and the fire service had weaponised the police to silence me”. He added: “I was a critic of Staffordshire fire service and I had been gagged from saying anything about individuals there, the service itself and my arrest. That is a breach of my human rights.”
Moss’s arrest forms part of a wider pattern of police over-reaction to online posts, often at the behest of individuals who feel unfairly criticised.
Earlier this year, the FSU helped Julian Foulkes, a retired special constable whose home in Kent was raided by six officers following a spat with a pro-Palestinian activist on X. After commenting on the 71-year-old’s “Brexity” books, the officers arrested him, confiscated his electronic devices, took him to the station in handcuffs, locked him in a cell for eight hours, then interviewed him under suspicion of having committed a malicious communications offence.
With the FSU’s help, Mr Foulkes secured a pay-out of £20,000 from Kent Police for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment, as well as an apology from the Chief Constable.
The FSU is also now seeking compensation from Hertfordshire Police for the arrest of Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine, two parents whose home was raided by six officers following “disparaging” comments in a WhatsApp group about the management of their child’s school and critical emails to the headteacher. Detained in front of their young daughter before being fingerprinted, they were searched and left in a police cell for eight hours before being interviewed under suspicion of a Malicious Communications offence.
According to custody data obtained by The Times, police are arresting more than 30 people a day over “offensive” posts on social media and other platforms. Around 12,000 people a year are now detained on suspicion of just two speech offences, up from about 5,500 in 2017.
Yet only a fraction are convicted. In 2023, fewer people were convicted under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act and section 127 of the Communications Act than in 2017, when arrests were far lower. This suggests over-zealous enforcement, with data showing that only about one in 20 arrested under suspicion of these two offences ultimately receive a sentence.
For more on this story, including an op-ed from the FSU’s General Secretary, Lord Young of Acton, click here.
