A retired senior South Wales Police officer said she was visited by former colleagues after a 10-month inquiry into social media posts in which she referred to a transgender activist by a male name.
Cathy Larkman, a retired superintendent who served more than three decades with South Wales Police and who founded the South Wales Female Police Association, said officers called at her home near Port Talbot on Sept. 4 and later informed her an investigation had been opened after a complaint about three social media posts dating back to September of last year. South Wales Police said the report was received on Nov. 26, 2024, and that the investigation has now been closed because "the threshold for a crime has not been met".
Ms. Larkman told the Mail she had used the shortened name "Fred" in posts related to a debate about strip-searching policy and transgender women. Those posts included phrases she said read "Fred blocked me" and "Fred, put that drink down." She said she was told by officers they did not believe the comments amounted to a crime and expressed surprise that the force had spent months assessing whether the shorthand amounted to a hate crime.
Ms. Larkman said she believed the complaint had been made by Lynsay Watson, a transgender former police constable who was sacked by Leicestershire Police in 2023 for gross misconduct after sending more than 1,000 messages to another retired officer. A social media account called SEEN Police Official Open Public Network, which respondents believe is run by Ms. Watson, said a complaint had been made to South Wales Police about "a malicious activist." South Wales Police said in a statement that no suspect or subject had been identified when the investigation closed.
Ms. Larkman, who won awards during her policing career including service as a firearms commander, said activists were trying to "weaponise police" to pursue private grievances and criticised what she described as ideological capture within the police service. "This is not what police are there for. They are not there to police unfashionable thoughts or hurty words," she said.
The case joins a series of high-profile incidents that have focused public attention on how police handle complaints about speech on transgender issues. The inquiry into Ms. Larkman's posts occurred days after the arrest of writer Graham Linehan, an outspoken critic of transgender ideology, who was detained by armed officers at Heathrow Airport, a development that prompted debate about policing practices and free expression.
Darren Millar, leader of the Welsh Conservatives, said the public should be free to express "gender critical" views and that police involvement in such cases should be limited unless violence is being encouraged. "Providing they are not encouraging violence this should never be a matter for the police," he said.
South Wales Police said officers received a report of an alleged hate crime/malicious communications incident on Nov. 26, 2024, and that as part of their probe they visited an address in Margam, Neath Port Talbot, on Sept. 4. "The threshold for a crime has not been met, and the investigation has been closed with no suspect or subject identified," the force said.
Legal and policing experts say authorities must balance the protection of vulnerable groups from harassment and hate crime with rights to free expression, and that decisions about whether to pursue criminal investigations depend on the content and context of communications. The closure of the investigation into Ms. Larkman's posts does not, under the force's statement, imply any finding of wrongdoing.
Ms. Larkman said the visit and months-long inquiry had alarmed retired and serving officers she knows, who she said were frustrated at time spent on what they view as disputes over personal grievance and language. The investigation and its closure come amid wider public and political debates in the United Kingdom about how police should respond to reports related to transgender people and to speech on gender identity.