A women’s rights campaigner today discovered she will not be charged for saying a transgender GP ‘enjoy[ed] intimately examining female patients without their consent’ on social media last year – two months after the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case.
Maya Forstater, the executive director of charity Sex Matters, was first notified she was under investigation by the Met for malicious communications in August 2023, after taking to X to tweet a claim about the trans GP.
The doctor previously said that after transitioning, patients allowed her to perform ‘more intimate examinations that they did not let me to do when I was a male GP’.
A decision to take no further action agaist Ms Forstater was made in early September, the CPS confirmed to MailOnline today, due to insufficient evidence that her post was offensive.
However, the Met, whose responsibility it is to update the individual, did not tell the campaigner her case was being dropped until today.
Speaking to MailOnline, Ms Forstater said she is ‘furious’ about the unnecessary stress caused, having spent the last few months believing she might go to court.
‘I’ve just had a call tonight from the Met to tell me. I’m furious. They’ve treated me abysmally from beginning to end of this case,’ she said.
‘They’ve jumped when a Twitter troll called them and they haven’t had the decency or professionalism to treat me right. I’m not surprised but I’m shocked they continue to treat people this way. They’ve not even given me the basic service to let me know what was happening.’
Maya Forstater, 51, (pictured) was first notified she was under investigation by the Met for malicious communications in August 2023
Ms Forstater added: ‘I’ve been worrying for the past 18 months.
‘It’s not a nice thing to have hanging over your head. They should have let me know when the case was dropped.’
When approached by MailOnline this evening, the Met gave the following statement: ‘An allegation of malicious communication, relating to a post on social media, was reported to police in June 2023.
‘A number of enquiries were carried out by officers, including liaison with the Crown Prosecution Service.
‘We can confirm our investigation has now concluded, with no further action to be taken.
‘While it is right that a full investigation was carried out, we do recognise the length of time it took and the impact that will undoubtedly have had on all parties.’
Ms Forstater was first contacted by police officers two months after her tweet in June 2023, and was invited to a voluntary interview with the force to share her version of the incident.
She alleged that the Met Police warned her that she would be arrested unless she voluntarily attend a police interview.
Ms Forstater told MailOnline she is ‘furious’ about the unnecessary stress caused, having spent the last few months believing she might go to court
Ms Forstater claims she was given no details of the allegation except that it was regarding a post allegedly targeting a person from the transgender community.
She was then interviewed under caution at Charing Cross police station in September 2023, where she discovered the allegation related to a tweet she had made about a transgender GP.
In August this year, it was confirmed to Ms Forstater that her police file had been passed on to CPS, but she claims that she has not been updated since.
When contacted by MailOnline, Ms Forstater claimed she was being ‘discriminated’ against by the police for the tweet.
‘I am just one of the people who have been caught by this. They [the police] should be out catching criminals not hurt feelings on Twitter,’ she said.
‘This is a part of a pattern of police going after people who express gender critical views,’ she added.
‘I wrote a tweet and someone was offended by a tweet – I hate to think about the police resources are spent on a social media posts.
‘If there is any sense in the world the CPS will see there is no crime here.
‘Its a massive infringement on my freedom of speech and the freedom of speech of anybody who wants to say any truth.’
She previously told the Telegraph: ‘When I express my views publicly, I do not do so with the intention of causing distress or anxiety to those who disagree with me.’
Ms Forstater has contacted Allison Pearson (pictured) after the journalist accused of stirring up racial hatred in a post on social media in 2023
Ms Pearson (pictured in 2011) said she was ‘shocked’ to have officers turn up on her doorstep on Remembrance Sunday
Boris Johnson branded the investigation ‘appalling’ and an attack on free speech
‘I express my views because they are important to me, and I consider them to be a legitimate contribution to an ongoing political debate.
‘It may well be that persons who have seen my tweets are offended or upset, or would prefer that I did not utter them.
‘There is no right not to be offended in a democratic society, nor to use the powers of the state to destroy other people’s rights in pursuit of your own political goals.
‘Nothing that I have tweeted comes anywhere close to meeting the criteria of being so obviously indecent, grossly offensive, threatening or factually false that it called for an investigation into my intentions in writing it.’
Ms Forstater’s experience encouraged her to reach out to journalist Allison Pearson, 64, who was informed on Remembrance Sunday that she was under investigation for a post she had made on the platform over a year ago.
Allison Pearson, 64, claimed two Essex Police officers turned up at her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to inform her she was being investigated over a post on X from a year ago.
The writer said she was still in her dressing gown when one officer at the door said ‘I was accused of a non-crime hate incident.
‘It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently’.
Ms Forstater told MailOnline: ‘When I saw her story there were so many parallels in her experience.
‘They couldn’t tell her who the tweet was from. They talked about the victim as if they proved there had already been a crime.
‘The only difference is they didn’t turn up at my door, they emailed me.’
She described the process with the police as ‘terrifying’, explaining that she felt she was not being questioned by the force but a political organisation.
A spokesperson from the Met Police said: ‘An allegation of malicious communication was reported to police in June 2023 relating to post on social media.
‘A number of enquiries have been carried out by officers and these enquiries are ongoing. This has included liaising with the CPS.
‘While it is right that we carry out a full investigation, we do recognise the length of time this has taken so far and the impact it will undoubtedly have had on all parties.’