Ernest Moret
 Ernest Moret  (publisher) | |
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Ernest Moret is a French publisher who was arrested in London by counter-terrorist police and held in custody for nearly 24 hours. He was asked about his opinion of Emmanuel Macron and participation in anti-Macron protests after he arrived at St Pancras station in April 2023 for a book fair.[1]
Report by Jonathan Hall
In a damning report published on 21 July 2023, Jonathan Hall KC, the reviewer of the terrorism legislation, said the police should not have used Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to confiscate Moret’s phone and laptop and demand he reveal passcodes to the devices.[2]
Hall said this legislation is “powerful” and “must therefore be exercised with due care” and should not be used to stifle the right to protest.
In response to Hall’s report, the Metropolitan Police referred Moret’s arrest to the Independent Office of Police Conduct.
Moret’s lawyer, Richard Parry, said his client was “very pleased” with Hall’s report. “We will now be writing to the Met commissioner asking for a full apology and compensation for all the distress of the detention and everything else that’s followed.
“The police shouldn’t be doing this. They really need to get their house in order. Mr Moret has been the sacrificial lamb to highlight the extreme dangers of crossing the line from terrorism into public order policing. It has gone too far.”
Sledgehammer powers
Hall also called for safeguards to ensure that counter-terror laws are not used to investigate public order issues in future. He said: “The problem with exercising counter-terrorism powers to investigate whether an individual is a peaceful protester or a violent protester is that it is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”
Hall added: “This was an investigation into public order for which counter-terrorism powers were never intended to be used. The rights of free expression and protest are too important in a democracy to allow individuals to be investigated for potential terrorism merely because they may have been involved in protests that have turned violent.”
Hall said Schedule 7 powers were “exceptional” and should not be used for public order policing especially now that some leftwing and single-issue campaigners were now the responsibility of counter-terrorist police.
Hall said: “Now that left wing and single-issue terrorism is part of the core work of counter-terrorism police and MI5, a relatively new area of work where understanding of thresholds may not yet be well developed, there is a risk of recurrence unless modest but additional safeguards are built into the code of practice. I recommend that the code is amended to specify that Schedule 7 should not be used for the purpose of public order policing.”[3]
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:The arrest of journalist Richard Medhurst and the fight to defend democratic rights | Article | 27 August 2024 | Robert Stevens | Now, in a move that would have been agreed to by PM Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Labour has pioneered the use of an amendment to the Terrorism Act passed by the Tories to once again attempt to silence and criminalise a journalist and political activist. The same course is being pursued by governments throughout the world. |
