J.K. Rowling to face no further action from police after social media comments

J.K. Rowling will not be prosecuted, police have said, following comments the author made about new hate crime laws online.

Yesterday (April 1), Rowling dared police to arrest her as she expressed her opposition to new hate crime legislation that has just come into force in Scotland.

The new laws came into force yesterday, making it a crime to “stir up hatred” on the basis of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. A person commits an offence if they communicate material, or behave in a manner, “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive”, with the intention of inciting hatred based on one of these characteristics. Separate laws will be brought in to tackle misogyny as a specific offence.

Rowling decried the new legislation in a lengthy thread on X/Twitter.

“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,” she wrote.

She added that “freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland” if what she termed “the accurate description of biological sex” is “deemed criminal.”

Police have now said JK Rowling’s comments about new hate crime laws “are not assessed to be criminal”.

In response to the police’s decision on Tuesday (April 2), Rowling posted on X/Twitter: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women – irrespective of profile or financial means – will be treated equally under the law.”

Scotland’s First Minster Humza Yousef has addressed the “disinformation” being spread about the bill, particularly by gender-critical groups, claiming there is a “triple lock” of protection for speech – an explicit clause on free speech, a defence for any accused person’s actions being “reasonable” and  the act being compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.

Rowling was reported to the police last month over accusations of transphobic abuse, after she said the broadcaster India Willoughby – who was mentioned in the thread posted today – “didn’t become a woman” and is “cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is”.

Willoughby said Rowling’s words were “in breach of both the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act” and later said on X/Twitter that it was recorded as a non-crime hate incident. In response, Rowling said that the “police are going to be very busy”.

The author has faced a backlash for a number of remarks, stemming back to 2020. Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have all spoken out against her views and defended transgender women and men.

A number of actors have also come to Rowling’s defence, including Evanna Lynch, Helena Bonham Carter and Jim Broadbent.

In October, Rowling said she would “happily” go to prison rather than refer to transgender women as “women”.

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