https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/shocking-revelations-about-sarah
Has authoritarianism arrived in the UK?
Sep 02, 2024

I’ve just watched an interview with Sarah Wilkinson on the Crispin Flintoff Show and it was disturbing to say the least. If you’ve read my recent newsletters, or been paying attention to social media, you will be aware Sarah Wilkinson is a pro-Palestinian journalist who was arrested in the UK under section 12 of the Terrorism Act. This is shocking enough, but Sarah has now broken down the treatment she received from police and the absurdity of her bail conditions.

Sarah says she was woken up at 7.10am and her street was filled with 16 or 17 police vehicles, all to arrest one woman. Officers in plain clothes barged into her house when she answered the door, and they refused to present a warrant, saying they had one, but didn’t need to show it.

Balaclava-clad men shoved Sarah’s son against a wall and led Sarah to a police van as they ransacked her house. Sarah says the handcuffs were painful and when she was taken to the police station, she was taken on a long route. It’s supposed to be a 45-minute drive, but the route took two hours and involved going in the wrong direction and U-turning. Sarah had no seatbelt in the police van and was repeatedly flung off her seat. The police officers were not wearing uniforms and she was concerned they might not have been police at all and she might have been abducted.

As Sarah points out, she is a 69-year-old woman who suffers from Crohn’s disease, and she cannot eat without medication.

Throughout her detainment, Sarah was denied her medication and therefore could not eat. She genuinely feared that if police had kept her for the full week, her health would have been at serious risk. She says she was given access to someone who claimed to be a nurse, but the nurse also refused to give her medication.

Sarah says this person did not appear to be a real nurse because when questioned, she could not even spell Crohn’s, let alone explain anything about the condition. Sarah was given a cup of tea on the understanding she would be given her medication afterwards, but she was then denied the medication, putting her health at risk. Sarah says the behaviour seemed to be deliberately malicious.

Sarah was initially denied a lawyer, but she knew her rights and demanded one which she was given. She was told little about why she was arrested, but she was shown a large file containing thousands of her social media posts. Her lawyer looked at some of the posts, but there were far too many to trawl through, The lawyer expressed confusion, pointing out all Sarah has done is report factual information and share articles, none of which is illegal.

Police discussed Sarah’s work with a Palestinian charity and demanded the location of her contacts in Gaza. Sarah was concerned that police would hand those locations over to Israeli intelligence and these people would then be bombed.

Sarah was given bail, but the conditions mean she is not allowed to use any electronic devices, not even a phone. She is allowed to conduct interviews, but only if she never touches any electronic equipment.

All of the electronic equipment in Sarah’s house was confiscated, even innocuous things like cables. She was told she is not even allowed to watch television or call for an ambulance if she needs one. She is also not allowed to travel, meaning she is effectively under house arrest. Given this prevents her from working as a journalist, the bail conditions are impossible to adhere to.

Sarah explained that not only did police trash her house, they hid her Crohn’s card inside of her mattress and she only discovered this because the mattress was upside down. She discovered other items in her house that she suggested had been deliberately hidden too.

Sarah was told she must hand her passport into the police station in one week. Only problem is police had taken her passport and not listed it on the confiscated items. She says they also hadn’t listed £200 that they’d taken and presumably pocketed. Worryingly, she says items were listed that she did not own or recognise.

Sarah must travel to the police station in one week, only she is not allowed to travel, and even if she was, there is no public transport to bring her home. The police officer told her to bring a tent.

If Sarah breaches any of her bail conditions, she will automatically receive a five-year prison sentence without going to trial or seeing a lawyer. She will presumably disappear.

Here is possibly the most disturbing aspect of the story: the urn containing Sarah’s mother’s ashes was cracked and the ashes were scattered around her loft.

As well as having her home trashed, Sarah has found multiple holes in her walls that are filled with putty. She therefore suspects her flat has been bugged and she has someone coming to locate and remove the bugs for her.

There is so much more that Sarah mentioned, so it really is worth watching the interview in full. Many of us are aware of the authoritarian direction the UK has been taking, but to hear it spelled out in this way really brings it home.

I had been under the assumption police needed some sort of excuse, no matter how tenuous, to raid your home, but it seems in Sarah’s case, the only excuse was the sheer volume of her tweets.

Police have placed Sarah on bail while they trawl through thousands of posts and articles, and they will presumably keep extending the bail while they do this. If so, it means Sarah has been silenced until the genocide is over. Also, it’s entirely possible she could be jailed for five years for failing to hand in the passport they confiscated.