A woman who was held in police custody for 36 hours over a social media post has told GB News she was "held like a terrorist".
Speaking to GB News's Will Kingston, Bernadette Spofforth opened up on her "damaging" ordeal after posting online about the Southport attack in 2024.
In August 2024, public disorder erupted across parts of the country following the brutal murders of three young girls at a dance class in Southport by Axel Rudakubana.
Police were criticised for withholding key details about the attacker, creating an information vacuum in which false claims about the perpetrator spread rapidly online.
Ms Spofforth was dragged from her home by police and held in a cell for 36 hours on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred, after sharing the wrong name of the attacker online.
Despite deleting the post as soon as she realised the information was incorrect, it took a month before she was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Recalling what happened, the author told GB News: "I copied and pasted some information that I saw on X, and I added, if this is true, there will be hell to pay and posted it.
"And a couple of hours later, I checked my phone, my daughter was very unwell at the time, so I wasn't watching the news constantly. I had no idea what had subsequently happened."
She continued: "But I checked my phone a couple of hours later and I saw that the post had got a huge amount of traction, and I was really uncomfortable with that because I copied and pasted something and I was uncomfortable, and so I just deleted it and put the phone back down.
"But I was nervous that I'd done something, that I posted the wrong information, and I checked later on in the evening and it was the wrong information.
"And then subsequently, four or five days later, the police turned up - not without there being a huge amount of furore before then - but the massively damaging part of everything was the police turning up and arresting me and holding me for 36 hours like a terrorist, to then not be able to charge me."
Ms Spofforth admitted that the process of the 36-hour arrest "was very definintely the punishment", and is affected by it to this day.
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She told GB News: "You're always associated with that and it makes you very nervous. I know that lots of other people are very brave and they cope with this thing really well, but for me, the process was very definitely the punishment.
"I found it very hard to deal with, very hard to get over, and it's taken a long time to be able to actually speak without checking that I can say what I've just said because I'm so frightened of being arrested again."
Ms Spofforth revealed that even appearing on podcasts such as Fire At Will "makes her freeze" due to nervousness.
She admitted: "Honestly, it was never like this before I was arrested, but now I'm so terrified of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person that these things just make me freeze. I don't know why."
Asked whether she believes that "instilling that fear in people is a very deliberate and conscious strategy" by police, Ms Spofforth agreed.
She concluded: "Yes it is, absolutely. The strategy is if you can terrify people into not speculating or doing as they're told, by holding some people as examples, like me, for instance, then you do dampen down things like protest, dissent, questioning. You do dampen that down, and I think that was a very deliberate aim, yes."
A spokesman for Chester Police has previously told GB News: "The 55-year-old woman from near Chester was arrested on Thursday, August 8 2024, following allegations related to a social media post containing inaccurate information about the identity of attacker in the Southport murders.
"Following a thorough investigation, a decision has been made that no further action will be taken due to insufficient evidence."
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