Police have said there’s ‘no evidence’ images show migrants stealing a swan to eat

Police say there’s no evidence for posts on Facebook that imply photos show migrants attempting to catch a swan to eat.

One such post includes an image of two men, one of whom is holding a swan, with the caption: “Winsford Marina in Cheshire. They are eating the swans”. Other posts sharing the same image have similar captions.

The images appear to have been first shared in November 2024 but have recirculated on Facebook in recent days following comments made by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage MP last week, about migrants supposedly eating swans in Royal Parks. We’ve written about what he said in more detail here.

In a Facebook post on 24 November 2024, Winsford Police confirmed it had received reports of “a male handling a swan”, but said that while it had not identified the person in question, there was no evidence to support claims that they’d been trying to capture the swan to eat it.

The statement said: “The information that we have so far is that a male grabbed a swan by its neck and picked it up. It looks like this was done to have a picture taken before the bird was put down. If you believe some of the stories circulating, the swans are being stolen so that they can be eaten. There is absolutely no evidence that this is the case, and anybody commenting or sharing such stories is doing nothing more than harming the Winsford community.”