A non-crime hate incident is where no criminal offence has been committed but the person reporting it believes the incident to be motivated by hostility.
In a statement, Essex Police said officers “went to a residential address to arrange a time to do an interview with a woman about a complaint made by a member of the public”.
“At no stage during the short interaction between the woman and our officers was she informed that the report being investigated was being treated as a non-crime hate incident. To suggest otherwise is wholly inaccurate and misleading.
“As the public would expect, we have body worn video of this interaction which entirely supports our position in this respect.”
In her article, Pearson said she had not been told which post the complaint was about, but that “a year ago, I was consumed with the aftermath of the Oct 7 attacks by Hamas” and slogans brandished at pro-Palestinian marches.
The has seen the now-deleted post from 16 November last year. It shows an image of two police officers standing next to two men holding what appears to be a flag of of the Pakistani political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The post tags the Metropolitan Police alongside the words “how dare they”.
It adds: “Invited to pose for a photo with lovely peaceful British Friends of Israel on Saturday police refused. Look at this lot smiling with the Jew haters.”
X added a notice to the post stating that the image was taken in Manchester, not London, and that it is “not related to Palestine”.
