The razor blades libel

Police, journalists and trans activists join forces to smear feminists with a disgusting, dangerous lie

It’s now been a little over a month since Harry Miller won his case against the College of Policing, and it appears the police have not learnt very much from it.

Since the start of this year Surrey Police threatened to arrest a man for sharing an image saying ‘trans rights are very, very boring’ and parents who complained to Girlguiding about safeguarding, because one of its leaders is a man who shares pictures of himself in women’s bondage gear and brandishing firearms, found that THEY were being questioned for ‘transphobic’ thinking.

But even those two extraordinary stories are now being overshadowed by what’s happened in Newport. This is the story (so far).

On January 21, Gwent Police tweeted this statement, saying that a ‘number of posters containing offensive material’ have been ‘installed’ throughout Newport and that the public should not remove them, instead an authority will ‘safely remove’ them. This was retweeted by Labour MP Jessica Morden, who later removed the retweet.

Three days later, Jenni Swayne, a disabled woman who lives in Newport, revealed that she had been arrested, held in a cell for several hours - during which time her home was searched - and released at 3.30am (in January), before riding home on her mobility scooter, for posting stickers such as this one about women’s rights in her local area.

This in itself is shocking, but the reason why she was treated so appallingly may prove to be disastrous for Gwent Police. Amid the incredulity over their response to the stickers, Gwent Police issued this statement, which, despite Gwent’s Chief Constable Pam Kelly saying the details on Twitter were not correct, firstly confirmed almost everything Jenni had said: She was released nearly 13 hours after the arrest - at 3.23am, her phone was seized, her home was searched and more material was seized (including a book she was reading and notes she had made) and after a healthcare professional assessed her, it took more than three hours until she was given medication she needed.

The book seized from Jenni Swayne’s house

But then came this: “This public safety message [on Twitter] was intended to make the public aware of the dangers of potentially removing a poster, after glass and pins had been stuck behind the posters.”

This seems to suggest that the police are saying that glass and pins were actually found behind the stickers. Let’s, for a moment, ignore the fact that the logistics of doing that and motivation behind it make it highly unlikely, and instead look at some recent cases of members of the public claiming that sharp objects had been placed behind stickers and posters (spoiler: the stories always turn out either to be hoaxes or the cases are closed due to insufficient evidence).

In 2018 a trans activist posted a picture of a cut finger online and revealed this had come from touching a ‘transphobic’ sticker, only to find a razor blade behind it, and had contacted the police. When a reverse image search was carried out online, it emerged that the picture was at least five years old, and the finger belonged to an American rapper. Despite this, the British Transport Police still investigated the claim and then issued a statement that it was a hoax that had wasted considerable police time. Around the same time Manchester Police revealed that they had also been investigating reports of razor blades behind women’s rights stickers, before concluding that there were none.

Even more pertinently, someone called Layla Stokes - who just happens to live near Newport and is a trans activist - revealed he cut himself when trying to remove a laminated poster about opposition to face masks amid Covid. Incredibly, despite this being almost impossible and there being no evidence for it (Layla went to the police but claimed he had thrown away the razor blade, while he had also covered the poster in alcohol, which meant no forensics could be carried out on it), and Layla having a history of making online self-harm threats, and claiming to be a ‘plural system’ who clearly is a fantasist (he previously claimed to have been disemboweled by a stranger before walking to the hospital carrying his own intestines), some mainstream media such as the BBC and ITV ran with the story, treating it as if it might be true.

And despite the total absurdity of the claim, South Wales Police assigned officers to investigate, merely revealing three months later, and only in a response to BBC Wales, that that the investigation had ended and ‘no action [will be] taken’ against Layla or anyone else.

A full thread on Layla’s lies, and how they’re often related to stickers, can be found here.

Layla, who uses the Twitter handle N3KOcardiff, is also responsible for posting this sticker around South Wales, which the police also didn’t deem to be a problem.

Layla has also revealed he’s been in Newport recently.

And Layla has also revealed he’s been talking to Gwent Police in the last few days, who he says have said they ‘like my stuff’.

In fact some trans activists have even messaged women, and included Gwent Police in their posts, with Layla’s ‘shut the fuck up TERF’ sticker, again without any comment or action from the police about the abusive language.

Not to be outdone, even though the BBC and ITV fell for Layla’s lies about stickers containing razor blades just a few months ago, both the BBC and ITV have reported the latest case without a mention of any of the above.

But it is surely the police that come across as the most ridiculous and dangerous element in this story. When a fantasist made false reports to them that stickers have sharp objects behind them, they did nothing to stop him doing it again. When he posted violently offensive and misogynistic imagery, they again did nothing to stop him. And now he is linked to a new set of absurd claims of stickers having sharp objects behind them, instead of arresting him for wasting police time and threatening women, they arrested a disabled woman, held her in a cell for several hours, searched her home, removed books, seized her phone and notes, and only let her go at 3.30am, and have suggested that glass and pins were actually found behind feminist stickers, which is currently enabling other abusive men to spread the lie.

Harry Miller and Fair Cop may have to have several victories before the police can be trusted again.