Trans threat: police finally make arrest

A death threat against nurses at the centre of a legal struggle for women’s rights included a picture of a kitchen knife and named the hospital they work at. Police arrested a man, who targeted the Darlington Nurses, only after the Daily Mail contacted them, the paper reports.

The email threatened to “murder whoever doesn’t support trans rights” and warned: “I know the address.” Three nurses were escorted to their cars by security. The* Daily Mail *reports that all seven stayed away from work before returning on Friday.

North Yorkshire Police arrested a 29-year-old man in connection with the investigation into a threatening email and social media posts.

Bethany Hutchison, president of the Darlington Nursing Union, said: “We reported the threat immediately and supplied the police with the correspondence. Yet days later, we were left facing uncertainty while police forces passed responsibility between one another.

“Other police forces must take note, especially as White Ribbon Day approaches, and many of these forces have firm commitments to ending violence against women and girls. Protecting us needs to be more than a slogan. 

She said the threat was “not merely offensive online abuse” but “a specific and terrifying threat against a group of identifiable women at a named location”.

The apparent trigger was the nurses thanking JK Rowling for supporting their campaign for single-sex changing facilities. “Whatever a person’s beliefs, threatening to murder women because they uphold biological reality is utterly unacceptable,” Hutchison said. “We will not be frightened into silence.”

“To women watching this unfold, our message is simple: stand together, speak the truth and do not allow threats to drive you out of public life. We remain unbowed.”

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre, which supported the nurses, called it “an extraordinarily grave situation”. She said: “Our society has reached a sorry point when women who peacefully and lawfully defend single-sex spaces can face threats of lethal violence. The law must be enforced, violent intimidation must be confronted.”

The threat comes as groups like BASH BACK continue to operate, despite being connected to criminal activity including hacking and vandalism.

Meanwhile, women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen has been charged over a message alleged to be “grossly offensive” under the Communications Act. During an unconnected employment tribunal last year it was revealed that her name had been booed during a police training session.

After the sluggish arrest, police released the 29-year-old suspect on conditional bail while enquiries continue. The episode ought to be a reminder to the police to take such threats seriously, even when they come from activists with whom they are instructed to agree.