A pensioner has been left feeling very emotional after she was wrongly accused of breaking Scottish hate crime law and taken to the police station.
Morag McDougall Brown, 74, says she has endured two years of abuse from a nightmare neighbour and then one day received a knock on the door from the police.
Speaking to Nana Akua on GB News she said: "On Tuesday morning, two officers appeared at my door that I knew them from previous incidents where had been here.
"They said they were here to arrest me and when I asked why they couldn't tell me.
Morag McDougall Brown got very emotional as she spoke to Nana Akua
GB News
"They said they would need to take me to an interview room at a police station and all they could say was there has been an allegation
"I was unaware of what was happening to me I asked them what would happen if I didn't come? They said we'd need to handcuff you."
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The pensioner went on to explain that the police officers were "very nice" to her because they knew about "harassment, abuse, etc" that she had endured.
After she was taken to Kilmarnock police station, she was searched before being taken to an interview room where they finally told her that she was accused of a hate crime.
She said: "I hadn't even spoken to her. I'd seen her that day out in the back garden and she was pulling down my rose bush so I took a photograph from the kitchen window. I never went out the door.
"So she must have thought that I was gonna report that and she's phoned the police and made up this lie that I called her an awful name."
SCottish first minister Humza Yousef introduced the laws
PANana said: "Well, that's it's awful. I mean, obviously, she's not here to defend herself, so we won't talk too much about her.
"We're more concerned about you, Morag. So just finally, how ridiculous do you think these Scottish hate crime laws are?"
She said: "I think it's awful because she could maybe do that tomorrow and I could be taken away again because they said that they can't interview me in my own home because of the new law.
"They had to take me to a police station where I was searched. I was read my rights. Then it was only in the interview room that they told me it was an allegation that my neighbour had made a complaint and said that I had called her that name."
In a statement reported by The Sun, Police Scotland said: “A 74-year-old woman was arrested on Tuesday, 9 April, 2024 in connection with a report of verbal abuse in the Harbour Road area of Troon on Monday, 8 April, 2024.
“She was released without charge.”
Officers confirmed there was a “hate crime element” to the callout but said the arrest was made under pre-existing laws which deal with threatening and abusive behaviour.
