Allison Pearson has received an apology and payout from Essex's Police and Crime Commissioner

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

3 August 2026

Allison Pearson, the esteemed Telegraph columnist and friend of the Free Speech Union, has received a public apology and a reported five-figure payout from Essex's Police and Crime Commissioner, Roger Hirst.

Roger Hirst, the elected official responsible for policing in Essex, issued the apology for comments he made after two Essex Police officers visited Allison's home on Remembrance Sunday 2024, over a post on X that she had reposted and later deleted the previous year.

Hirst's apology follows a finding by the High Court judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, that his comments about Ms Pearson could be seen as defamatory. Mr Hirst has posted his public apology on his website: "I wish to apologise to Allison Pearson, the Daily Telegraph journalist, for accusations I made about her in an interview I gave to Lewis Goodall of LBC on 17 November 2024, and in an article I wrote for Conservative Home, which I later published on my own website.

"I intended to address wider issues about hate crimes and policing rather than to make accusations against her personally, but I accept, as the High Court has found, that I did accuse her personally.

"I should not have made those allegations against her. I am very sorry for the damage and hurt I have caused to her, and I have agreed to pay her substantial damages and costs in recognition of that."

The incident, which took place in November 2024, was Orwellian and an egregious example of the police having lost their way. This sorry episode sparked a national debate about the police's enforcement of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs) and alleged hate crime. The police later dropped their investigation into Allison.

Since the Free Speech Union was founded in February 2020, it has been at the forefront of the campaign calling for the abolition of NCHIs, which have had a chilling effect on free speech and diverted police time away from solving real-life crime. The Labour Government finally got the message and announced that NCHIs would be scrapped in their current form and replaced with anti-social behaviour incidents, which are set to have a higher threshold for recording.

Allison had been accused of inciting racial hatred over a repost on X of a photograph showing police officers alongside a group at a political event, which she captioned by rebuking Metropolitan Police officers for "cosying up to the Jew haters." Allison said she took the post down after learning that the officers were from Greater Manchester Police, not the Metropolitan Police, but stood by the sentiment.

Writing in The Telegraph, Allison said: "I am a conservative sort of person. I was brought up to respect and value our institutions. If you'd asked me 20 years ago for a list of implausible things I might do in my life, suing the police for libel would not have been on it. In fact, it would have been unthinkable. I am a Telegraph columnist, for goodness' sake!

"The fact that I decided to take such action against Roger Hirst, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Essex, as well as against Essex Police, says something about the times we live in and the state of an institution I once trusted and admired."

Essex Police had also previously complained to the press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), about Allison's own recording of the police officers appearing at her house. IPSO rejected the complaint, saying that The Telegraph had taken sufficient care to establish the facts before publication.

Following the public apology and compensation payout from Mr Hirst, Ms Pearson said she was "delighted" and "relieved" to have won her case. "The fact remains that this should never have happened," she added. "It is deplorable that over 12,000 of our fellow citizens were targeted each year for social media posts [before NCHIs were abolished], often on the say-so of unknown individuals who need only claim to have experienced offence or hatred. It's hard to think of anything less British.

"Although the damage was done to me on Remembrance Sunday, two-tier political policing affects anyone with a different viewpoint. My case against Essex police continues. I hope this sends a message to elected commissioners."

The Free Speech Union was proud to support Allison in her truly shocking case, and welcomes the apology and payout from Mr Hirst. However, the fact remains — as pointed out by Allison — that this should never have happened.

As the Free Speech Union has long said, it is high time that the police focus on our streets, not our tweets.

In her column for The Telegraph, Allison wrote: "Not only had I been made ill by the stress of it all, but I was angry. The UK was targeting over 12,000 people a year for social media posts before non-crime hate incidents were abolished. I had often written in defence of free speech, but there is nothing quite like having the police at your door over a social media post which no KC or judge that The Telegraph consulted thought even came close to the threshold for criminal investigation. 'What you have to understand, Allison,' said my senior contact in Essex Police, 'is they want you to be afraid of speaking out.'

"I was appalled to discover that those 12,000 people could be targeted on the say-so of unknown individuals who needed only to claim to have experienced offence or hatred. What the hell had they done to our country, the proud home of Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights?

"So, yes, I won my case against Essex's police and crime commissioner (a second, separate case against Essex Police continues). A small victory for freedom, I hope, in remembrance of those who gave their lives for it."

Read more in The Telegraph.