Rose Docherty is what they call a criminal recidivist in the United Kingdom. The 75-year-old woman has been arrested for a second time for the same fiendish act: offering to speak to women considering an abortion. She was arrested outside the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow for carrying a placard which stated “Coercion is a crime, here to talk, only if you want.” Fortunately, she and her sign were quickly seized by the local police to protect the public.
Free speech literally does not have a prayer in the United Kingdom. We previously discussed the case of Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, who was arrested for standing near an abortion clinic while silently praying. Police asked what she was doing standing at the location and when she said that she was praying in her head, they arrested her.
How Docherty ended up in the hoosegow in Glasgow is a chilling tale of how censorship can consume a nation.
The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act came into force last September. The architect of the law, Scottish Green MSP Gillian Mackay, denounced protests of abortions as “totally unacceptable abuse and obstruction” outside hospitals. So it is now a crime to behave in ways that could influence the decisions of women and staff to access services within the buffer zones.
In other words, it is a crime to exercise free speech. In this case, the “unacceptable abuse” was offering to speak with other women about abortion.
The United Kingdom shows how limiting speech can create an insatiable appetite for greater and greater speech controls. I discuss the UK as a cautionary tale for the United States in my book, The Indispensable Right.
A man was convicted for sending a tweet while drunk referring to dead soldiers. Another was arrested for an anti-police t-shirt. Another was arrested for calling the Irish boyfriend of his ex-girlfriend a “leprechaun.” Yet another was arrested for singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” A teenager was arrested for protesting outside of a Scientology center with a sign calling the religion a “cult.”
British censorship now extends to not just silent prayers but toxic thoughts.
Last year, Nicholas Brock, 52, was convicted of a thought crime in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The neo-Nazi was given a four-year sentence for what the court called his “toxic ideology” based on the contents of the home he shared with his mother in Maidenhead, Berkshire.
While most of us find Brock’s views repellent and hateful, they were confined to his head and his room. Yet, Judge Peter Lodder QC dismissed free speech or free thought concerns with a truly Orwellian statement: “I do not sentence you for your political views, but the extremity of those views informs the assessment of dangerousness.”
Lodder lambasted Brock for holding Nazi and other hateful values:
“[i]t is clear that you are a right-wing extremist, your enthusiasm for this repulsive and toxic ideology is demonstrated by the graphic and racist iconography which you have studied and appeared to share with others…”
Even though Lodder agreed that the defendant was older, had limited mobility, and “there was no evidence of disseminating to others,” he still sent him to prison for holding extremist views.
After the sentencing Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, Head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East (CTPSE), warned others that he was going to prison because he “showed a clear right-wing ideology with the evidence seized from his possessions during the investigation….We are committed to tackling all forms of toxic ideology which has the potential to threaten public safety and security.”
The idea of cracking down on “toxic ideologies” is of course nothing new in countries like China and Iran. However, the anti-free speech movement in Europe has succeeded in destroying the foundations for free speech in the West. the European Union is now one of the most hostile, anti-free speech organizations in the world.
As the anti-free speech movement grows in this country, citizens need to look at Europe for where this path would take us. Americans are appearing before the EU and speaking at European conferences in support of such measures. Anti-free speech views and books are all the rage in academia. It is a dangerous conceit to believe that what has occurred in Europe cannot occur here.
Just ask Rose Docherty.
Keith Starmer seems like a reincarnation of Oswald Mosely
When…
Why the aside about China and Iran? If you included all countries guilty of such, you’d need a list of all countries in the world to work from. This is akin to Tucker Carlson with his China! China! China! when any other threat is brought up.
No one has any civil rights in the UK
Meanwhile muslim terrorists and socialist terrorists get a free pass on any crime.
Except that Trump was elected the second time, this might be the condition right here in the USA. Be vigilant! Evil never rests and neither should we!
..we’ve seen this in the USA in the area of parents not allowed to have a voice over the school’s discussions with their children re: gender changes.. and also in the area of parents not allowed to have a voice at school board meetings re: keeping the above plus other things – most notably CRT.. out of their children’s education… Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has made a huge dent in the area of education (which Fairfax County pushes back on…) keeping CRT out of schools per the voices of parents.. bur now Virginia is threatened by an uber-progressive Dem Candidate who is Heavily s0r0s cash supported…..wanting to overturn what Youngkin achieved….
Liberalism kills everything.
*. Rose was silenced and perhaps that one young woman needing a friend right then and unsure and frightened was denied hearing Rose’s words. Keep trying Rose.
The loss of a such a fundamental right as free expression not to mention thought is the beginning of authoritarian rule. What shape it will take is anyone’s guess but it will get worse.
What I wonder in cases like these, and that of the young Scottish girl arrested for carrying a knife and hatchet while warning a potential predator to leave her sister alone, is where is the embarrassment?
Why are the police and local pols not deeply embarrassed for arresting people offering to speak to others, or offering a silent prayer, or carrying the nation’s flag, or defending a young girl?
Why do they not hang their heads in shame?
I would quit the force before doing such a thing.
Why do these wicked police eagerly arrest an old lady silently at prayer but don’t seem to care about the predators who make streets so dangerous for young girls that they need to carry weapons?
Speech, now even thought, is a crime but gang raping girls is just someone’s cultural custom.
Somebody should face justice if anyone in the UK even remembers it as a thing.
Shame doesn’t exist where evil thrives…
Arrested for a tweet:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/09/arrested-for-a-tweet.php
When did Hamas take control of the British constabulary?
The friendly Bobbie is gone, replaced by Stasi and Mullah religious police.
Very VERY WELL SAID!
The answer is obvious: little, old ladies are not dangerous. But young, male predators can be dangerous. There is not only the risk to consider. Arresting the “wrong” predator can bring a social reaction the police would simply prefer to avoid.
Edwardmahl.
,
So the British police are not only shameless but also cowards.
Liberals have no concept of shame. They lack the gene for it, I think –
I’m definitely going to sleep more soundly in my bed knowing that Rose Docherty is safely behind bars.🙄
Well said. It truly makes us shudder with horror and frankly, makes me want to weep. To think Rose Docherty is behind bars for offering to talk? Or arresting Isabel Vaughan Spruce for having the audacity of SILENTLY praying? JD Vance actually spoke about this in February in Munich–and the EU attendees of his talk were VERY uncomfortable with being called on the carpet for this slippery slope that the EU and UK are bent on. I have relatives in France who are terrified of giving their political opinions that are not in “vogue” today. Truly frightening trend.
Well said.