Telegraph journalist Allison Pearson has won a five-figure payout and public apology from Essex’s Police and Crime Commissioner Roger Hirst after suing him for defamation following his comments on her controversial visit from police officers on Remembrance Sunday in 2024. Pearson’s separate defamation action against Essex Police itself remains ongoing. The Telegraph has the story:
Allison Pearson, the Telegraph journalist, has received an apology and five-figure payout from Essex’s police and crime commissioner (PCC), after suing him for defamation.
Roger Hirst, the elected official who oversees policing in Essex, has issued a public apology for comments he made after police officers visited Pearson over a post on X that the police alleged incited racial hatred.
The investigation was subsequently dropped, with no further action taken by the force.
Mr Hirst said he was “very sorry” for the “damage and hurt” he had caused and agreed to pay her “substantial” damages, understood to be a five-figure sum.
His apology comes after Mr Justice Chamberlain, a High Court judge, found that Mr Hirst’s comments were capable of being seen as defamatory.
Pearson has lodged a separate defamation action against Essex Police, which has also been considered by Mr Justice Chamberlain and is ongoing.
Her solicitor, Mark Lewis, of Patron Law, said: “It is very regrettable that the elected PCC who is meant to hold the police to account on behalf of the people who elected him chose to protect the police rather than the public who voted for him. I hope he does not expect the public to pay for his actions.”
The incident in November 2024 when two officers visited Pearson at her home over her post on X prompted a national debate over how police handled alleged hate crime and non-crime incidents (NCHIs) on social media.
Labour has since scrapped the recording of NCHIs in their current form after criticism that they were diverting officers into “policing tweets rather than the streets”.
Pearson was visited by the officers at her home on Remembrance Sunday after it was alleged she had incited racial hatred in a post on X. She said she was left “dumbstruck” by the incident, which led the force to publish a series of press releases online with its version of events.
Worth reading in full.
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I wonder how much similar cases are costing the police service over a year.
They won’t cost the police a penny.
£10,000? That would be a pittance. Hopefully it was a lot more than that, but who is paying for it? The taxpayer?
Her Planet Normal podcast was very good. Called out the scamdemic nonsense fairly early on, I seem to recall.