East Worthing and Shoreham MP, Tim Loughton, is leading an adjournment debate this evening in the House of Commons regarding the freedom of speech for MPs and the conduct of Sussex Police after he was subjected to a six month police investigation for endorsing a description of a constituent in an email as ‘unkempt’.
Mr Loughton was investigated under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 after he sent an email to a constituent who then claimed it was racist because he is of Roman Gypsy extraction. He was subsequently interviewed under caution by the police for 90 minutes after which they proceeded with a full investigation, which was deemed necessary to hand over to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) before it was dropped at the end of February.
The dropping of the case left questions for Sussex Police to answer as to why a comment about somebody’s appearance being untidy could lead to an investigation into a racist incident, especially as Mr Loughton was completely unaware of the constituent’s Romany Gypsy heritage. It also raised the issue of what actions MPs should be able to take when faced with a gratuitously offensive constituent.
The debate is an attempt to initiate a campaign against political correctness which is suppressing freedom of speech and costing the taxpayer millions of pounds in unnecessary investigations and lawsuits and investigate why it became a priority for Sussex Police to spend so much time and resources on a vexatious complaint.