Merseyside Police has apologised after its officers used an advertising van to tell residents in the Wirral area “being offensive is an offence”, prompting criticism from free speech advocates.
Neighbourhood police officers deployed the van to display a message of support for LGBT+ people while setting out a zero-tolerance policy on hate crime.
However critics have hit out at the messaging as undermining free speech, which advocates say includes the right to offend. Columnist Paul Embery described an image of officers posing with the van as “staggering” while Paul Whittle, a right-wing London Assembly member, described the officers as “thought police”.
“Being offensive is an offence”, the digital billboard read. “Merseyside Police stand with and support the LGBTQ+ community, we will not tolerate Hate Crime on any level.”
Superintendent Martin Earl issued an apology on Monday. In a statement posted on Facebook, he said the forced wanted to “clarify” that being offensive was “not in itself an offence”.
UK news in picturesShow all 50
UK news in pictures 22 February 2021 Crocuses bloom outside Trinity College in Cambridge
PA
UK news in pictures 20 February 2021 Parts of Callander in Stirlingshire flooded after the River Teith burst its banks
PA
UK news in pictures 19 February 2021 The sun rises over St Mary’s Lighthouse, Northumberland
PA
UK news in pictures 18 February 2021 Cars drive along the A1101 in Welney, Norfolk, which is passable again after two months submerged by floodwater
PA
UK news in pictures 17 February 2021 Professor Green announces Tideway’s new 25km Super Sewer is ‘Heading East’, marking a major stage in the construction of the tunnel, as two giant Tunnel Boring Machines link up to break through into Bermondsey and commence tunnelling towards East London. Once completed, the sewer system will prevent millions of tonnes of raw sewage entering the Thames
PA
UK news in pictures 16 February 2021 man holds up signs reading “I LOST MY JOB!!” and “BORIS, WHO IS GOING TO PAY THIS BILL? I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY TO PAY MY CREDIT CARD” at the window of his hotel room at the Radisson Blu hotel in London
Getty
UK news in pictures 15 February 2021 Passengers arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 are escorted by security personal to buses. From today, people arriving from 33 “red list” countries, including South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, must isolate in hotels rooms for 10 days at their own expense. The policy was announced late last month in response to the emergence of new variants of the novel coronavirus that are more resistant to existing vaccines.
Getty
UK news in pictures 14 February 2021 People play ice hockey on frozen flooded fields near Ely in Cambridgeshire
PA
UK news in pictures 13 February 2021 Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a face mask, accompanied by Sarah Rose (left), MD of the Northumbria healthcare PPE manufacturing hub in Seaton Delaval
PA
UK news in pictures 12 February 2021 Lanterns hang across the street to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year which marks the Year of the Ox, in Chinatown, central London, during England’s third national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus.
PA
UK news in pictures 11 February 2021 European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic at London’s St Pancras Station after arriving in the UK ahead of talks with Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove on the Northern Ireland protocol.
PA
UK news in pictures 10 February 2021 A frozen road sign and hedgerow are covered in icicles, as Storm Darcy affects large parts of the country, in Shenley, Hertfordshire
Reuters
UK news in pictures 9 Februrary 2021 People walk up Gardner street in Glasgow as snow blankets the city
AFP/Getty
UK news in pictures 8 February 2021 Drifting snow covers a car in Harwood, County Durham
PA
UK news in pictures 7 February 2021 People walk through the snow in Knole Park in Sevenoaks
Getty
UK news in pictures 6 February 2021 A boy sledges at Moulin Moor near Pitlochry, as storm Darcy approaches, in Scotland
Reuters
UK news in pictures 5 February 2021 Research centre assistant Layla Hillsden with a rare copy of the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher folio, an anthology of plays by John Fletcher and William Beaumont, from the personal library of King Charles II that has recently been acquired by Special Collections at the University of Leeds
PA
UK news in pictures 4 February 2021 Al Goodridge, from Newtonmore, uses an axe to create a channel in the ice for his wife Alice to swim in in Loch Insh, in the Cairngorms National Park
PA
UK news in pictures 3 February 2021 A mural of Captain Sir Tom Moore, by artist Robert Newbiggin, adorns a wall in Southport. The WWII veteran raised nearly £33 million for NHS charities ahead of his 100th birthday last year by walking laps of his garden in Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire. He was admitted to Bedford Hospital this weekend after testing positive for Covid-19 and died yesterday with his family present
Getty
UK news in pictures 2 February 2021 Police officers remove an environmental activist protesting against the HS2 high speed rail line, from the roof of the HS2 office in central London on February 2, 2021. – Designed to run to the former industrial powerhouse Birmingham and then Manchester and Leeds, HS2 was supposed to follow on from London’s southern Eurostar connection with Paris
AFP via Getty Images
UK news in pictures 1 February 2021 Christine Barry lifts her son Oran, two, up to kiss a statue of St Brigid as they visit St Brigid’s holy well in Co Kildare to mark St Brigid’s Day which is seen by many in Ireland as the first day of Spring
PA
UK news in pictures 31 January 2021 People walk a dog in Pugneys Country Park in Wakefield, West Yorkshire
PA
UK news in pictures 30 January 2021 Firefighters inspect the charred remains of a block at Napier Barracks after police have said a fire was started deliberately in Folkestone, England. Napier Barracks, part of the disused Somerset House Sir John Moore Army Barracks, has been used since last summer to house Asylum Seekers arriving from France to the South Coast. It has been reported that 120 of the 400 people being housed there have caught Coronavirus and a visiting doctor had described the living conditions as “inhumane”
Getty
UK news in pictures 29 January 2021 Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community take part in Friday prayers at the Baitus Subhan Mosque in Croydon, England. For nearly the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic, and its resulting limits on public gatherings, have forced religious communities to find new ways to observe prayers, with many events being marked at home. Mosques as well as other places of religious worship remain open, though numbers have been limited to help maintain social distancing
Getty
UK news in pictures 28 January 2021 Artwork depicting animals, created by Raymond and Leonard is displayed in the window of a house in Acton, London, to launch The Great Big Art Exhibition, the nation’s largest ever exhibition, an initiative by Firstsite
PA
UK news in pictures 27 January 2021 Fishing boats, some abandoned, lie in the waters of the River Wyre at Fleetwood in Lancashire
PA
UK news in pictures 26 January 2021 A group of friends use a sheet to sledge in the snow-covered Lickey Hills Country Park, Birmingham
PA
UK news in pictures 25 January 2021 A cyclist watches the sun rise from Primrose Hill
PA
UK news in pictures 24 Janaury 2021 People go sledging in the snow on Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath
Getty
UK news in pictures 23 January 2021 Denise Munday (left) and Ruth Richards (right) check on Ruth’s rescued ex-battery hens, in flood water at her home near Naburn Lock in York following heavy rain during Storm Christoph
PA
UK news in pictures 22 January 2021 The clean up as floodwater begins to recede from the town of Northwich, Cheshire, in the aftermath of Storm Christoph
Getty
UK news in pictures 21 January 2021 Members of the Emergency services work to evacuate Care Home residents after they became stranded by flood water, in Northwich, northwest England as Storm Christoph brings heavy rains and flooding across England
AFP via Getty
UK news in pictures 20 January 2021 Flooding underneath the A46 at Six Hills Lane in Leicestershire, as Storm Christoph is set to bring widespread flooding, gales and snow to parts of the UK
PA
UK news in pictures 19 January 2021 A surfer rides a wave in the sea off of Boscombe beach in Dorset
PA
UK news in pictures 18 January 2021 British Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands outside a room where technicians are manufacturing the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccine at Oxford Biomedica, in Oxford
Reuters
UK news in pictures 17 January 2021 People on the sea front in Brighton during England’s third national lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus
PA
UK news in pictures 16 January 2021 Cubicles erected inside Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire, for people to receive an injection of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine
PA
UK news in pictures 15 January 2021 Vehicles negotiate a flooded road in Mountsorrel, Leciestershire, with a large swathe of England covered by 30 flood warnings by lunchtime Friday
PA
UK news in pictures 14 January 2021 NHS workers from hospitals across the capital during a socially distanced protest outside Downing Street, London, timed to coincide with the weekly clap for heroes
PA
UK news in pictures 13 January 2021 A public health notice to ‘stay home’ at a bus stop in London
EPA
UK news in pictures 12 January 2021 The sun rises behind Scarborough Castle in Yorkshire
PA
UK news in pictures 11 January 2021 A healthcare workers fills a syringe with a Covid-19 vaccine at the NHS vaccine centre that has been set up at the Centre for Life in Times Square, Newcastle
PA
UK news in pictures 10 January 2021 Grey seals on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, where Friends of Horsey Seals, who monitor the coast from Winterton to Horsey, have recorded over 2000 births this season
PA
UK news in pictures 9 January 2021 An open water swimmer holds up a sheet of ice as she enjoys a socially-distanced dawn swim after breaking the ice on the surface of a lake near Scunthorpe, northern England
AFP via Getty
UK news in pictures 8 January 2021 Sledgers have fun in the snow surrounding the Angel of the North near Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
PA
UK news in pictures 7 January 2021 A dog wearing a jacket running in Queen’s Park in Glasgow
PA
UK news in pictures 6 January 2021 A pedestrian crosses a deserted road in Leeds
AFP/Getty
UK news in pictures 5 January 2021 Pigeons gather outside the shuttered entrance to a John Lewis department store, closed down due to pandemic restrictions, on an empty Oxford Street in London as Britain enters another national lockdown
AFP/Getty
UK news in pictures 4 January 2021 Supporters of Julian Assange celebrate after the verdict outside the Old Bailey in London. District judge Vanessa Baraitser denied the extradition of Assange to the United States. He faces charges for hacking computers and violating the country’s Espionage Act. The US has confirmed it will appeal the decision
Getty
UK news in pictures 3 January 2021 Allenheads in Northumberland, after heavy snowfall overnight
PA
He added: “A message on an ad-van and on social media this weekend by the local policing team on the Wirral to encourage people to report hate crime, although well intentioned, was incorrect and we apologise for any confusion this may have caused.
“Our hate crime coordinators draw on a wealth of experience and expertise to provide effective and, above all, sensitive and appropriate support for victims.”
The Independent has asked whether the force plans to educate officers on the issue of hate crime and legitimate expression.
Almost three-quarters of the incidents were race-related.
Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation saw the biggest percentage rise, increasing by 19 per cent to 15,800. Transgender identity as a motivation rose 16 per cent to 2,500 total records.