GB News presenter Bev Turner says Britons need to "think before they post" on social media after a woman arrested for sharing "misinformation" about the Southport stabbing was released by police.
Bernadette Spofforth was met by three police officers at her home in August after sharing a post on social media about the incident, wrongly claiming that the perpetrator was an asylum seeker who had arrived to the UK by boat.
Breaking her silence, Spofforth shared a video statement on social media, claiming she had been "dragged from her home" and "held by police for 36 hours".
Spofforth defiantly told her followers: "I had not and would not make something up. Perhaps the authorities and the activists did not care about the truth, and just wanted to punish me as an example.
Bev Turner said the arrest of Spofforth is about 'free speech' and the Labour Government
X / GB News
"My bail conditions included that I couldn’t engage onstage social media. They didn’t want me to speak to you about anything at all, which meant I couldn’t tell you of the damage done to me by activists and reporters - it had been so complete I couldn’t leave my house."
Reacting to the statement on GB News, Bev Turner said she has been keenly following the case, praising Spofforth as a "powerful and popular figure online".
Defending Spofforth, Bev said that the main takeaway is that this is "about free speech" and about the "current Labour Government" trying to "silence the right".
Bev explained: "She just really makes the point that this is about free speech, and it is about the fact that even though she got some information wrong on speculation, that response I think we can all agree was disproportionate.
Spofforth broke her silence after being arrested and claimed police 'dragged her from her home' and held her for 36 hours in a cell
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"She's only just got all of her devices back, and there was nothing to see. It must have been terrifying, absolutely terrifying. She was in a state."
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Expressing her concern for others posting on social media, Bev warned that following Spofforth's "ridiculous" arrest, we must all "think before we post" on social media.
Bev said on GB News: "It does show that you have to think before you post information that might be wrong. But the idea that she could have somehow incited those riots for a tweet that was up for two hours is ridiculous.
"Bernie's case for me is about this government, particularly this Labour government, because they clamped down so hard on that dissent, they silenced anybody that wanted to speak out about it as far right about the maelstrom of social issues that was whipped up in the aftermath of those stabbings in Southport."
Highlighting how Labour instilled "fear" in Britons who are on the right from speaking out about the Southport riots and others that followed, Bev claimed "everybody was frightened" of receiving a knock on the door from "Starmer's police force".
Bev Turner urged people to 'think before they post' on social media after Spofforth's statement
GB News
She added: "Everyone was careful because they thought that Keir Starmer's police force was going to knock at your door, because you said something online that might be considered to be deliberately posting disinformation, libel to incite violence and more than trivial harm, which is what they thought she had done."
Offering his thoughts on the incident, co-host Andrew Pierce compared Spofforth's arrest to that of disgraced BBC newsreader Huw Edwards, and how he was spared jail.
Andrew said: "We have to contrast it with what we saw in the courts this week when Huw Edwards walked free from court, in my view, with a suspended jail sentence of six months.
"And we now learn that in the last nine months, 27 paedophiles who watched over one million images of children, some as young as two being sexually exploited, not one of those paedophiles went to prison, yet Bernie was banged up in a police cell for 36 hours."