Police have dropped a “terrifying” investigation into a gender critical activist over a tweet she posted about a transgender doctor, reports The Telegraph.
Maya Forstater, the executive director of Sex Matters, which campaigns for clarity about sex in law and policy, was told on Thursday evening that the Met Police would be taking no further action over the post on X ( formerly Twitter), in which she said Dr Kamilla Kamaruddin “enjoys intimately examining female patients without their consent”.
It came after Dr Kamaruddin, who transitioned from male to female in 2015 and now works at a gender services clinic, wrote an article for the British Journal of General Practice, titled: “What it’s like to be a transgender patient and a GP”. In the article, the transgender GP said: “A lot of my patients were quite conservative – many female patients wore long clothes, or the hijab – but they allowed me to examine them despite my change.”
Dr Kamaruddin added: “Every single one of them refused my offer of a chaperone even when they knew that I am transgender.”
(NHS policy is that patients can choose to see a male or female GP, and the General Medical Council advises that chaperones should also be routinely offered to patients of any sex).
Separately, Dr Kamaruddin had written: “I had a fear that my patients would treat me differently [i.e., post transition] as they might not agree with my new identity due to prejudice and ignorance.”
Responding to these claims in a blog piece from 2020, Forstater questioned whether Dr Kamaruddin’s patients were “really empowered” to say ‘no’ to being intimately examined, if this view was seen as “prejudiced and ignorant”. She also asked if the patients could say ‘no’ to a chaperone, if declining the option was celebrated as a sign of positive affirmation, and pointed out that Dr Kamaruddin was listed as “female” on the GP practice’s website.
Three years later, in June 2023, Forstater posted to X about a magazine featuring the doctor, and included a link to her 2020 blog piece. In the accompanying post, she said: “And the magazine front cover features Dr Kamaruddin, who enjoys intimately examining female patients without their consent.”
Ms Forstater was investigated for 15 months by Scotland Yard after a complaint that this post constituted a malicious communication under the Malicious Communications Act 1998 – an Act of Parliament which makes it a criminal offence to send any communication – electronic or written – that is deemed to be indecent, obscene or menacing, where the purpose of sending that message is to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient.
She claimed the Met Police appeared to have “sat” for two months on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decision that there was no crime committed before informing her on Thursday evening, just a day after The Telegraph published a story about her plight.
The article continues:
She had said that her experience had been “Kafkaesque” in that, likeTelegraph journalist Allison Pearson, she had not been told anything about what tweet she was being investigated for or who had made the complaint until she agreed to turn up to a voluntary interview with officers.
Pearson, an award-winning writer, is being investigated by Essex Police for allegedly stirring up racial hatred in a post on X last November.
In a press statement, the Met Police said: “An allegation of malicious communication, relating to a post on social media, was reported to police in June 2023.
“A number of enquiries were carried out by officers, including liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service. We can confirm our investigation has concluded, with no further action to be taken.”
Ms Forstater posted the statement on X, which said: “15 months after calling me in for questioning about a tweet, and having sat on the CPS decision that there was no crime for 2 months, the Met bothered to call me up at 7pm this evening to tell me, and then put out this press statement.”
Police contacted her two months after the post on X in June 2023 to say she was being invited to a voluntary interview to give her side of the events.
Despite asking a series of questions about the details of the allegation, she was told only that it related to a post “targeted” at a member of the transgender community. The officer said they could not divulge any more because the “victim” was susceptible to further comments.
She was warned that if she failed to attend the police interview voluntarily, she would be marked as “wanted” on the Met Police’s system for which she would eventually be arrested.
Ms Forstater subsequently attended the interview with her lawyer where she discovered it related to a transgender GP who she had claimed “enjoys intimately examining female patients without their consent”.
She claimed she was asked whether she intended to target a member of the transgender community, whether she understood that it could be perceived as transphobic and whether she had any evidence to support her claims.
Ms Forstater said she did have evidence, and defended her right to speak freely. “When I express my views publicly, I do not do so with the intention of causing distress or anxiety to those who disagree with me,” she said.
“I express my views because they are important to me, and I consider them to be a legitimate contribution to an ongoing political debate.”
“It may well be that persons who have seen my tweets are offended or upset, or would prefer that I did not utter them. There is no right not to be offended in a democratic society, nor to use the powers of the state to destroy other people’s rights in pursuit of your own political goals.
“Nothing that I have tweeted comes anywhere close to meeting the criteria of being so obviously indecent, grossly offensive, threatening or factually false that it called for an investigation into my intentions in writing it.”
Police sent a file to the CPS who decided there was insufficient evidence to support a prosecution for malicious communication which carries a penalty of up to two years in jail.
Worth reading in full.
