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Joke lead to ‘homophobia’ warning
Monday 30th March 2009, 11:30AM BST.
A councillor was questioned by police for two hours after a jokey one-liner at a public meeting was deemed “homophobic”.
Conservative Jonathan Yardley was “let off with a warning” after being “put through the mill” by a sergeant and an inspector for making the quip at a recent West Midlands Police liason meeting he had chaired.
Audience members were given handsets allowing them to electronically answer questions that were being flashed up on screen as part of a presentation.
A police authority worker said: “Let’s start with an easy question to get us going: Press A if you’re male or B if you’re female.”
Councillor Yardley, who represents the Tettenhall Regis ward, said today: “To general amusement, someone piped up: ‘What if you’re transgendered?’.
“I quipped that you could press A and B together. There was much laughter.
“Several days later a complaint of homophobia was made. I was asked to go to the local police station, questioned for two hours by a sergeant and an inspector and let off with a warning.”
The 48-year-old said he had not realised there was a transsexual in the audience whose male partner had asked the original question. Councillor Yardley said the event then carried on as normal. But at a routine meeting with Wolverhampton’s chief superintendent Richard Green just days later, he was stunned to be told a complaint had made about “homophobic comments”.
He was then contacted by Tettenhall sergeant Mark Evans, who asked him to attend a meeting at the village’s police station with city centre Inspector John Smith.
Councillor Yardley said: “They put me through the mill and asked me to confirm what I’d said and told me that a complaint had been made and I could be prosecuted. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They explained the legal process and what had happened and how the complaint had been made and they said I could be subject to a civil prosecution. There are much more important issues that the police should be spending their time on. These are the times we live in, you can’t make jokes any more.”
West Midlands Police spokesman Mark Payne said today: “As part of a regular series of meetings that the councillor has with of officers, they raised with him his inappropriate comments and offered him advice on making them in public.”
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what a crazy country we now live in!
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what a complete waste of time and money. try dealing with the real crime issues,then you might get joe public onside again!!
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This is hilarious and comedy at its best….as Harry Hill would say…..”Now what are the chances of that?”
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Did the policeman, (sorry police person) question him ,(sorry I say him but we don’t know for sure, he/she could be a transgender)(sorry, didn’t mean to label you), about why the men got the letter A and the females B? Isn’t that sexist? Putting men first! disgusting, I just hope he/she didn’t ask about peoples helmet sizes (sorry can I call people people? or is it humans (what if we have an alien amongst us? We can’t discriminate against them (who are you calling ‘them’? ) I feel sorry for the stools, It’s always the ‘chairs’ that get all the attention at these meetings! What? I’m talking rubbish? Theres a surprise!!!
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Faced with a ridiculous
situation such as this people should stand their ground and say “well charge me then if you think you have a case”, after all, what jury of average, sensible
thinking people would convict ?, and it would turn the tables back on to fools who think this is a good use of police time.
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It ay the rozzers fault, but the plonker who made the complaint.
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Transgender and homosexual are NOT the same thing! Many transgender people are heterosexual and most homosexuals are not transgender.
The councillor involved should sue the police and his accuser for defamation as the FACT that gender and sexuality are not the same thing is easilly demonstrable in court. To suggest that transgender people are homosexual is, well, homophobic.
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What a complete and utter waste of time,West Midlands Police are a laughing stock ,no wonder they have lost the streets, to busy going after easy targets. please note WMP = WE HAVE NO FAITH IN YOU ANYMORE
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11 years of people with too much time on their hands and nothing better to do. Add to that the fact that Labour govt. is obsessed with ‘inclusion’ and ‘equality’ that they send thousands of people on pointless, meaningless courses so that they are ready to spot ‘thought crimes’ such as this.
Common decency and doing a proper job has gone out the window and it has been replaced by box-ticking, form-filling and procedure-following.
Promising everything….delivering nothing.
Thanks NuLabour.
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Perhaps it’s time for councils and police forces to sack their hate crimes oficers and instead employ a ‘sense-of-humour restoration officer’ instead.
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it’s not often I think Councillors are in the right, but what an absolute joke.
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What a bloody waste of police time!
Roll on the ——-I’d'now but let it roll on!
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Presumably button “C” was for not sure ?
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Not the cleverest comment to be made in a public meeting by an elected Councillor,not even after a glass of wine or two.
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is wolves bloke suggesting the councillor had been drinking?
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Well we certainly know whose side the Police are on. It is not ours.
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Tipton Fox (#5) SPOT ON! I personally would have walked straight out the cop shop and asked them to arrest me if they wished to detain me.
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I’m really offended by this councillor I’m a one eyed, Irish, asian who wears ladies clothes and have recently had the Op. I dread to think what he would say to me if I met him the street …. I think it would tip me over the edge
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From all of us who left the UK many years ago! ……… we earnestly beseech you all to not complain too seriously about what is going on in Britain today! …….. on days when our media entertainment is mundane you have no idea how entertaining it is to be able to view and hear the comedy show that is unfolding on a daily basis in Britain! …… and the portend is it could even out perform such legends as The Goon Show or Monty Python! ……………………
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That old Yorkshire saying comes to mind “There’s nowt so queer as folk.
m willis
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This situation is what is wrong with our Country.
What has happened to “Common Sense” the Political
Correctness Brigade Just totally demean our Society. Please get a life and let the Police get
on with what we pay them to do- ie not “hound and interview” idiotic reasons such as this. Out in this World are Murderers Rapists Theives and whatever – but Policemen are more interested in trying to Crimilaise Stupid of the Mark comments such as this chap made. Grow up all of you and realise where the serious problems are
Disgusted !!!!!
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What did the councillor think he was doing?
To be employed by the council you have to be from an ethnic minority, lesbian, gay or anything but ” normal” to get a job with them.
The chances of him saying something like that and NOT being reported were remote.
He should have kept his comments private like Carl Thatcher did.
As for the person who complained you must be a very sad person.
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In my view, the Councillor reasonably assumed that the question was a joke, and so he gave a jokey response – as you do. I mean, in normal, everyday life, when would you ever expect an individual to be neither male or female? I would have been one of those contributing to the “much laughter” if I had been at the meeting. Human nature suggests that if you are going to be part of a tiny, tiny minority (i.e. transgenders) then you have to expect to come up against situations where the vast majority (i.e. original-gender men or women) assumes that everyone i like they are. I would imagine that transgenders must face more embarassing, harassing or discrimanatory situations than this in their everyday lives and just learn to deal with it. Ridiculous to even complain about the Councillor in the first place and ridiculous for the police to have wasted anywhere near the time and effort on this.
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Well said Jonsi
Someone higher up the food chain seems to have missed that point tho!
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Strangely enough, that is quite obviously not an easy question! This is particularly exaggerated by gender-specific costume fetishism – at least the transgender person was *out*!
About 5 buttons would be astarte!
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totally agree from another expat the uk as became a laughing stock,i’m glad i don’t have to pay tax and council tax any more what a waste of the peoples hard earned cash.
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Shame these coppers weren’t so competent when it comes to burglary, rape, murder etc. Easy targets, by pathetic, useless, politically correct police. This is what happens when you employ people for targets instead of their ability to do the job. Where oh where are those big cops that used to scare you when you were young.
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Get real people. A two-hour chat and a caution for a law-abiding councillor equals a ticked box for the rozzers and a bit of lip service towards a minority group. Easy.
If only tackling violent crime/burglaries/anti-social behavior was so easy. But then that is too much like hard work, isn’t it?…
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obviously his ‘joke’ was not worthy of police questioning, but i have to wonder why he brings it up now, 6 months after the events. the councellor was asked a qyuestion about a vulnerable minority and made a joke at their expense, he needs a little sensitivity training.
in no way was he being homophobic.
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And people here in New Zealand are often suprised when asked if I miss my home in the UK I reply – you’ve got to be joking. This story sums up all that is wrong, and getting worse by the minute, about life in the country I was born in and lived for over fifty years.
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Here we go again. Let’s blame the government.
Never mind that the Association of Chief Police Officers’ guidelines class this as an incident not a crime. Why was it necessary for two officers to get involved?
Should the police ignore complaints to keep the “PC gone mad” lobby?
How much of their time has been wasted fielding enquiries since this story broke?
And why do I suspect that the “mill” Clr. Yardley went through doesn’t compare to the one many of his constituents have experienced in the City’s police stations. What a whinger.
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please fill in form 1(a)/b government guidelines/humour….answers in triplicate to be submitted for on or before april 1st in the year prior to use…only entries in black not blue ink will be considered failing to submit correct authorisation will be a contravention of the political correctness act and can lead to a fine or imprisonment or both
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Careful now!
Down with this sort of thing!
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A cheap joke from Cllr Yardley – somebody deemed capable of chairing a public meeting should know better.
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As a councillor and therefore someone who is supposed to be a role model for ALL sections of the community, the remark was tactless, insensitive and above all unneccessary. I would expect a councillor to act with a bit more dignity.
But I do wonder about the attitude of the transgender person. Surely the idea of the transgender process is to change sex, from one to the other and to be accepted by society. Therefore why does there need to be a third option? Whatever stage in the process the person was at, and therefore whatever sex they considered themselves to be at that point in time, was surely the answer they should have chosen.
And I agree with the above poster who pointed out that this does not amount to homophobia.
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