No further action against Zack Polanski over guillotine re-post, police say
The Metropolitan Police said it would take no further action after Green Party leader Zack Polanski republished a photo of a man wearing a T-shirt with an image of a guillotine and the slogan “We’re just planning for Nigel”.
In the statement, the police stated that they did not believe that sharing the photo constituted a crime.
But he added that wearing the T-shirt should be recorded as an offense and that a complaint had been made to Avon and Somerset Police, which covers Bristol where the photo was taken.
Polanski had previously told the BBC he had made an “inadvertent mistake” by rebroadcasting the footage.
In response to the Met’s decision, a Reform UK spokesman said: “Once again we find ourselves living in a two-tier Britain.”
Reform UK reported Polanski to the police on Monday after he shared the Instagram post.
The leader of the Green Party of England and Wales accepted a photographer’s request to collaborate on an event with his Instagram account and shared the photo, which he said was the fifth photo in a series of 20 photos.
Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Polanski said: “If I had done this on purpose I would be apologising, but because it was a mistake the important thing is for me to say that it was a mistake, but also to make sure that I condemn political violence and also, most importantly, to make a commitment to be better on social media.”
Announcing the decision to take no further action, a Met Police spokesman said: “We absolutely understand the reaction to this image being shared online, particularly in the context of increasing threats against politicians.
“We take the safety and security of those in public life, including politicians, very seriously.
“When we detect threats, we take appropriate action and investigate where there is evidence of crime.
“There will be those who argue that those who shared the image in this Instagram post should be prosecuted, but our review concluded that the threshold was not met in this case.”
