Cressida Dick faces grilling from MPs over police investigation into gay conservative pundit Darren Grimes
Police commissioner Cressida Dick is under scrutiny for the decision to investigate Darren Grimes (Chris Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty)
Metropolitan police chief Cressida Dick could be questioned by MPs on the decision to launch a “politically motivated” police investigation into gay conservative pundit Darren Grimes.
Grimes, 27, is accused of stirring up racial hatred in a controversial interview with David Starkey, which was broadcast on Grimes’ YouTube channel ‘Reasoned’ in June. The widely-condemned video saw the historian claim that slavery wasn’t a genocide because “so many damn Blacks” survived.
Grimes confirmed on Friday (October 9) that he’d been told by the Metropolitan Police to present for an interview or be arrested. He rejected the accusations levelled against him and warned he intended to “fight this all the way” with the help of the Free Speech Union.
Now Scotland Yard’s commissioner could face questions over the decision to investigate Grimes, after Tory MP Tim Loughton announced his intention to raise the case with the Home Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday (October 14).
“We are due to have Cressida Dick in in due course and this is another reason to question her,” Loughton told the Telegraph. “It looks like a deeply political decision and we need to find out if it went all the way to the top and her fingerprints are on it.”
He said that Grimes, who has frequently faced backlash for invalidating trans and non-binary identities, is only guilty of “being an amateur interviewer” who did not pull Starkey up on his remarks.
Cressida Dick accused of ‘singling out’ Darren Grimes.
Loughton referenced a “kill whitey” joke made by Black comedian Sophie Duker on the BBC, saying that the fact she hasn’t been investigated suggested “double standards” from the police.
“That is why this does seem to smack of a degree of political correctness and a singling out of Darren Grimes,” he said. “This seems to be a completely vexatious investigation and we need the police to be doing rather more important things.”
The issue is also expected be raised in parliament by Tory MP Ben Bradley, a strong advocate for “cultural conservatism” who recently refused to take part in racial and homophobic bias training.
“I don’t know what the Met Police and the wider establishment have against Darren, but a criminal investigation against a broadcaster/commentator for something an interviewee said is absolutely unfathomable in a country that has freedom of speech and freedom of the press,” he told the paper.
Bradley described the case as “utterly mad” and said he would be “asking Government to fix our dodgy legal system”.
PinkNews has contacted the Met Police for comment.
