FSU helps ex-police officer Stephen Gray appeal conviction for joke about Muhammad

Max Thompson, Campaigns Officer

19 August 2026

If you are still unconvinced that an Islamic blasphemy law has taken root in Britain, look no further than the case of Stephen Gray.

Stephen is a sixty-five-year-old former Cleveland Police officer who gave thirty years of service to his force and, along with his wife, now fosters children. Never in his many years of public service did he expect to find police officers at his door over a post that he reshared on Facebook.

The police told him that somebody — who we now know to be his neighbour — had complained about an alleged racially aggravated Section 5 public order offence. He was then invited to attend an interview under caution at Darlington Police Station.

The case was eventually referred up to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and they initially discontinued. However, the neighbour — with whom Stephen had previously had an unrelated disagreement — lodged a Victim's Right to Review, and the CPS subsequently decided to proceed. Stephen then received notice that he faced two charges in relation to two separate social media posts.

At his trial at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court in April, District Judge Steven Hood ruled that the first post did not amount to an offence, but deemed that the second — an image of a rasher of bacon and a man in a turban, accompanied by the text: "Fun facts about bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying a nine-year-old!" — was "grossly offensive," an offence under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. Gray was fined more than one thousand pounds in fines and costs.

It is sadly now unsurprising that the post for which Stephen was convicted of sending a "grossly offensive" message was the one that referred to Islam. In a country whose Parliament abolished blasphemy laws eighteen years ago, we are seeing a concerted effort by the Government and the Crown Prosecution Service to revive them for Islam alone.

Stephen has said that he believes prosecutions such as his are an attempt to revive blasphemy laws in the UK: "I just think it's a dangerous road that the Government is going down trying to use the justice system to get us to stop criticising a religion that promotes a lot of things people might not agree with." During an interview on GB News's Free Speech Nation with Josh Howie, Stephen said that he does not believe he would have been convicted had he made a joke linking the Catholic Church to incidents of child abuse. It further highlights the two-tiered justice being deployed in Britain today.

While giving evidence, Stephen explained that the post was a reference to the marriage between the Prophet Mohammed and Aisha, which, according to Hadith accounts, was consummated when she was nine years old, after he married her at six.

Stephen said the post was intended to be satirical but that he also hoped it would spark a serious debate: did that marriage, as recorded in the Hadiths, contribute to the acceptability of child marriage in Muslim countries?

The District Judge dismissed Stephen's argument that the post was making a serious political point about the acceptability of child marriage. He found that the post was designed to be offensive and could not be making a serious point because it was light-hearted in nature. He concluded that a conviction would not amount to a disproportionate interference with Stephen's right to freedom of expression.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Gray said: "I made a joke, an ironic joke, about Islam. That is all it was at the end of the day. A joke. I certainly never, not for one second, thought it would be deemed abusive."

His initial concern was for the young girl whom he and his wife foster. However, when he informed social services of his conviction, they rightly said that it was "utter rubbish."

We are seeing an alarming re-emergence of blasphemy law in the UK for Islam alone, via the back door. This has been accelerated by the Government's official definition of Islamophobia, repackaged as "anti-Muslim hostility."

Earlier this year, the Free Speech Union paid for the defence of Hamit Coskun, who burnt a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. He was initially convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence, but with the help of the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, he managed to get that conviction overturned on appeal. When the Crown Prosecution Service then tried to appeal the acquittal, the Free Speech Union took them on and won again.

More recently, the Free Speech Union threatened South Wales Police with legal action after it adopted a draconian version of the Government's definition of anti-Muslim hostility, which instructed officers to record any comment that went beyond "legitimate" discussion of Islam as an "anti-social behaviour incident" — the successor to the Orwellian "non-crime hate incident" regime. Once again, the Free Speech Union won, and the force withdrew the guidance.

In March, the Government published its official definition of Islamophobia, now repackaged as "anti-Muslim hostility," which has already had a chilling effect on free speech.

The Government tasked a Working Group with drafting the definition, yet the Free Speech Union revealed that all five members of that group had preconceived sympathetic views on the need for the definition, along with troubling links to Islamist organisations. This includes the Muslim Council of Britain and MEND, with which successive governments since 2009 have adopted a policy of non-engagement. Concerningly, it has now emerged through a Freedom of Information request that the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government have deleted all responses to the Working Group's consultation.

Since the definition came into force, we have seen it weaponised time and again to silence legitimate criticism, debate, challenge, and mockery of Islam.

Stephen's case gives us another opportunity to reaffirm the principle that there is nothing illegal about criticising any religion, including Islam. It should not be a criminal offence to repost jokes about Islam that some Muslims find offensive.

The Free Speech Union is helping Stephen appeal his conviction and has instructed a top criminal silk, John Beggs KC, to act for him.

With your support, we hope to be able to pay for Stephen's legal defence in the Crown Court and meet the costs of any further appeals. Please donate to Stephen's fundraiser below.

Read more in The Telegraph.

Donate to the fundraiser.