Why are the public putting up with this?
This is not policing with consent.
This is Stasi levels of intimidation and these Starmtroopers are a disgrace to this once free country.
How many more before the public say “Enough!”
The police are the enemy. https://t.co/pn5pRsl0x0
— Laurence Fox (@LozzaFox) May 11, 2025
A retired special constable is planning to sue his former police force after they handcuffed him in his own home over a social media post warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain.
Julian Foulkes, from Gillingham, was detained at his home by six officers from Kent Police – the very same force he had given ten years of his life to – after he questioned a supporter of pro-Palestine demonstrations on X in November 2023.
In the context of a rise in protests at the start of the Israel-Hamas war – and reports of an anti-Semitic mob storming a Russian airport – Mr Foulkes tweeted an activist: ‘One step away from storming Heathrow looking for Jewish arrivals…’
‘Shocked’ and ‘flabbergasted’, Mr Foulkes was later handcuffed on his own doorstep by uniformed officers equipped with batons and pepper spray.
The 71-year-old was detained for eight hours, interrogated and issued with a caution. But on Tuesday, Kent Police apologised for the ‘distress’ caused to one of their former colleagues and deleted the caution from his record.
Speaking to MailOnline today, Mr Foulkes revealed he had accepted an offer from the Free Speech Union to fund a lawsuit against Kent Police for wrongful arrest and detention.
He said: ‘This is absolutely an Orwellian-style thought crime. It’s absolutely ridiculous because I sent a tweet which was reasonable in the circumstances and it was a tweet based on events I’d read about just the previous day and in the previous week.
‘It was taken out of context and I really can’t go through all the failings of Kent police – as much as I’d like to – but it’s been quite astonishing to me especially as I served with them for 10 years.’