Katie Hopkins Meets The Police

The Super Soaraway Currant Bun loves to use pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins to persuade punters to splash their cash on their paper: last weekend, there was a front page “exclusive” telling readers “KATIE … I’m having brain op … I could die”, which wasn’t exclusive, but merely someone at the Sun talking to one of their own pundits. But what the paper is not telling its readers is that Ms Hopkins is under Police investigation.

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After her column on April 17 last, when she talked of refugees as “like norovirus … feral humans … vagrants … swarms … like cockroaches”, Simon Usborne observed, “In the environment that led to creation of the Third Reich in Germany, Polish people were seen as ‘an East European species of cockroach’, while Jews were rats. When Hutu extremists used radio propaganda to incite violence against the Tutsis during the Rwandan Genocide, they called on people to ‘weed out the cockroaches’”.

It was that loaded. As a result, a complaint was made to the Police. Indeed, as the Independent noted, “The complaint was made by the Society of Black Lawyers directly to the Metropolitan Police Commissioners Office, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, at 4.05pm on 20 April”. That means the Met cannot easily ignore it.

And so it came to pass that Ms Hopkins was, as the Mirror has now reported, interviewed by appointment. Here is the Met’s statement: “We received allegations of incitement of racial hatred following an article published on 17th April. A special inquiry team of the homicide and major crime command are investigating it. On Thursday 30th July a 40 year old woman attended a central London police station by appointment and was interviewed under caution. She was not arrested. That investigation is ongoing”.

The 40 year old woman, Zelo Street understands, is Katie Hopkins. So what might she have said to the rozzers last week? There is one very large clue on her Twitter feed from that day: “I am using my pelvic floor strength to keep my gob shut this morning. Wish me strength and gods speed #raging”. So that looks like a No Comment, then.

What the Mirror is not telling its readers - although at least it is reporting the story, which of course the Sun is not, and nor, it seems, is the rest of Fleet Street - is that the complaint was not made just against Ms Hopkins. After all, the responsibility for publishing her rent-a-rant columns rests with the paper’s editor. And yes, David Dinsmore, editor of the Sun, was also included on that complaint. Not a word from him so far.

Katie Hopkins may be “raging” at the indignity of having to pass before the inspection of mere Police officers. The paper that gives her the oxygen of publicity may be keeping schtum. But the Met is clearly taking this complaint seriously - and their investigation is not finished. Perhaps the likes of Louise Mensch would also like to stop and think, after endorsing the use of “swarm”, and talking of a “cesspit” on Sunday.

Not even Sun pundits are allowed to shout “fire” in a crowded cinema.