Fake image of Mandelson in handcuffs shared online

An image appearing to show Lord Peter Mandelson in handcuffs being led by uniformed police officers through a building has been shared on social media following his arrest.

But this image is fake, and has almost certainly been created with artificial intelligence.

The picture was shared on Facebook after Lord Mandelson was arrested by the Metropolitan Police on suspicion of misconduct in public office on 23 February. He was later released on bail, pending further investigation.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police told Full Fact that it did not release the image, and it “certainly appears to be fake”.

At first glance of the picture circulating on social media, Lord Mandelson seems to be wearing a similar outfit to the one in real photographs of him being arrested at his London home.

But there are several differences. The sleeves on the jacket in the fake picture are puffed, which they are not in the real footage of him being escorted by plain-clothes police officers.

He was wearing the same jacket upon his return home after his arrest. He was also wearing a checkered shirt under a grey jumper, rather than a plain shirt as depicted in the fake image.

Additionally, when we put this picture through reverse image search, a prompt told us it was ‘Made with Google AI’, meaning it was created or edited with one of Google's AI tools.

We have reached out to Lord Mandelson through his lawyers, and will update this article if we receive a response.

Before sharing content like this that you see on social media, it’s important to consider whether it comes from a verifiable and trustworthy source. Our Full Fact toolkit can help you do this.