South Yorkshire Police posted on social media that a man had been arrested for inciting hatred by ‘repeatedly insisting’ he was English in the presence of minority groups.
This is not a genuine post by the force and there are no records of any such arrest.
A screenshot circulating online appears to show a post by South Yorkshire Police claiming a man had been arrested for “repeatedly insisting” he was English. However, this post is not a genuine one from the force and there are no records of any such arrest.
The screenshot shows a post on X (formerly Twitter) of the police force supposedly saying: “NEWS: Sheffield man Richard Thompson has been arrested and charged with inciting hatred under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act.
“Thompson used threatening language in public, repeatedly insisting he was 'English' in the presence of minority groups.”
It has been shared on Facebook with the caption: “Imagine being an English man in England getting arrested for saying you’re English because it offends a minority group.”
The force confirmed to Full Fact that the post is not genuine and there are no records of the alleged arrest. The post does not appear on South Yorkshire Police’s official social media channels or website.
A spokesperson said: “We have no record of this on our system or social media and believe it may have been created inauthentically by that X profile.”
Another clue the post is not genuine is that it includes a “tinyURL” link shortener, which is different to the type of links previously shared by the force. It also links to a page that does not exist.
This is not the first time Full Fact has seen fake screenshots that falsely appear to show social media posts by police forces. We’ve previously written about posts supposedly from Essex Police outlining its recruitment strategy and Merseyside Police reporting the arrest of four males for stealing an air ambulance helicopter.
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Image courtesy of Mikey |
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because South Yorkshire Police confirmed that this is not a genuine post by the force, and there are no records of this alleged arrest.
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