An IT consultant was arrested by police in Britain after posting an online picture of himself posing with a gun during his Florida holiday. Jon Richelieu-Booth said he was shocked by West Yorkshire Police’s decision to prosecute him over what he described as a simple social media post.
The 50-year-old claimed that his LinkedIn post contained nothing he considered threatening. He said he held the firearm lawfully and with full permission from its owner.
The bail document mentioned an allegation of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, along with a separate claim of stalking. These allegations were eventually dropped, but he was then charged with a public order offence relating to a different social media post.
The suspect was due to appear at Bradford Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, where he could have faced up to six months in jail. However, this case was also dropped because there was “not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”
An angry Richelieu-Booth declared:
I have not been able to sleep. I’ve lived in fear of a knock at my door for the last three months. … I thought 1984 was a book, not an instruction manual.
