A Yorkshire IT worker was dragged from his home in handcuffs and thrown in a cell for 24 hours – all because he posted a holiday snap holding a shotgun at a LEGAL American gun range.
Jon Richelieu-Booth, 39, was on a dream trip to Florida when he fired guns for the first time in his life. He shared the perfectly innocent pictures on LinkedIn with the caption “Great day at the range!”
Eleven days after landing back in Britain, the knock came.
At 10pm on 24 August, six West Yorkshire Police officers stormed his house and arrested him on suspicion of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence – for photos taken 4,000 miles away where owning the guns is completely legal.
🚨WOW
— Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@Tablesalt13) November 29, 2025
UK man arrested after posing with a gun in the USA
The UK is literally the toilet bowl of the world right now pic.twitter.com/w1oTMnmfE6
“I offered to show them the geotagged photos, the emails from my American mates, even the range receipt,” Richelieu-Booth said, still shaking with rage. “They didn’t care. They just wanted their arrest.”
He was locked in a freezing cell overnight, strip-searched, DNA-swabbed and fingerprinted – then re-arrested twice more over the next 13 weeks on bizarre bail breaches.
All charges were eventually dropped, but only after his life was wrecked.
West Yorkshire Police confirmed they investigated the gun pictures after a single complaint that they caused “serious alarm and distress” under Section 4A of the Public Order Act – the same law used to jail people for hurty tweets.
This is the new normal: UK cops now arrest 30 people a day for social media posts, with West Yorkshire second only to the Met for thought-crime collars.
Even the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been forced to admit there have been “egregious examples of disproportionate arrests” over things people type online.
Reddit exploded:
- “You can go to prison in Britain for posting a photo from Texas. Free State.”
- “I’ve got pics of me at a UK gun club – am I next?”
- “George Orwell is spinning in his grave so fast he could power the National Grid.”
Welcome to 2025 Britain: where a tourist photo in Florida can get you handcuffed in Yorkshire.
По материалам: http://www.planet-today.com/2025/11/uk-man-arrested-by-british-police-for.html