Report: More than 62,000 arrested for speech crimes in UK since 2021

British police arrested at least 62,199 people for speech crimes between 2021 and 2025, according to a recent report by the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch. 

The figure, drawn from Freedom of Information requests submitted to the UK’s 45 territorial police forces, averages roughly 34 arrests a day. It includes alleged “communications offences” under laws that prohibit communications deemed indecent, grossly offensive, obscene, menacing, knowingly false, or intended to cause distress, anxiety, annoyance, inconvenience, or harm.

“Thousands of people are being arrested for non-violent protest, controversial speech and online jokes,” Big Brother Watch Director Silkie Carlo said in a Sept. 6 press release. “People have even been arrested for holding blank pieces of paper, whilst police visited a TV presenter’s home under the Online Safety Act to urge her to take an ‘online thinking skills’ course following her posts opposing animal testing labs. Enough is enough.”

Big Brother Watch received complete arrest data from 38 of the UK’s 45 territorial police forces. Several other forces supplied partial figures, had not yet completed their responses, or declined to provide data because of the cost involved, the report said. The group estimated that the true total could reach about 73,000 if the forces with missing or incomplete data recorded arrests at the national average rate of roughly 10.5 per 10,000 residents over the five years.

The report counted at least 18,510 charges and 12,292 convictions. The conviction figures cover only England and Wales. The gap between arrests and charges and convictions prompted Big Brother Watch to question whether police needed to make many of the arrests.

Arrest rates varied sharply among police forces. Cumbria Constabulary recorded the highest rate at 25.7 per 10,000 residents over the five years — about 2.5 times the national average. Neighbouring Northumbria recorded just 1.9 per 10,000. Other high rates included Northamptonshire at 23.35, the City of London at 20.51, Essex at 19.57 and Durham at 17.0. Staffordshire recorded the lowest rate, at 0.58 arrests per 10,000 residents.

Big Brother Watch argued that some forces may have developed a more “censorial culture” than others because “excessively broad” laws give police considerable discretion.

“If individuals face substantially different risks of arrest depending on where they live, the principle of equal treatment under the law is called into question,” the group said.

In its press release, Big Brother Watch argued that the Online Safety Act’s chilling effect, geographic disparities in policing speech, stricter limits on protests, and secretive government “counter-disinformation” operations have made Britain increasingly hostile to free speech. It called for an independent national review of laws affecting freedom of speech and reforms aimed at restoring the country’s free speech protections and culture. 

The release follows warnings from U.S. officials about restrictions on speech and religious expression in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. In June, President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission pointed to the prosecution of two Christians in Europe as a broader Western retreat from freedom of speech and conscience. The U.S. State Department also warned in August 2025 that the UK imposed “serious restrictions on freedom of expression” in 2024, including criminal and civil penalties that limit speech. 

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Carlo said in the release there “is a great deal of concern among the public, in Parliament, and in the human rights community that the right balance has not [been] struck on free speech,” adding that government action is “long overdue.”

“We want the Government to restore Britain’s long and proud tradition of upholding freedom of speech,” he added. “That must start with a close look at how our laws are working in practice and a willingness to reform.”