Police chairmen 'silenced for exposing cancel culture' to challenge punishment TODAY

He was later sacked for speaking to GB News about his legal battle over his suspension.

PC Richard Cooke was sacked as chairman of the West Midlands Police Federation in March for branding allegations of racism in his force "nonsense". He also backed PC Prior after his GB News appearance.

He was barred from standing for re-election and ordered to undergo equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training.

The duo have now joined their cases together to pursue a judicial review into their punishments - which were meted out by the Police Federation of England and Wales.

The review is being backed by the Free Speech Union, which has labelled their treatment "draconian".

"PC Prior is an elected representative, which means he can’t take his case to an employment tribunal," the FSU said. "Instead, we must launch an urgent judicial review - a far more costly and complex legal challenge - to overturn this politically motivated suspension."

In a statement, it added that both PCs have lost "significant income" as a result of the action taken against them.

"This is one of the most important cases the FSU has taken on," Lord Young's group continued.

"If senior officers can be silenced and punished for speaking out, it will deter others from doing the same."

The FSU continued: "This case is about more than one man.

"If even the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation can be gagged for discussing the challenges frontline officers face, what does that mean for ordinary police officers?"

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It also pointed to two cases which appear to exonerate PC Prior's position:

• A 2020 stop and search incident which saw two officers sacked, then reinstated after "irrational" misconduct findings
• A 2023 arrest in which an "aggressive" black woman was handcuffed for alleged fare-dodging on a bus. The officer was convicted of aggravated assault and false imprisonment - which was overturned.

According to both the police union boss and the FSU, cases like these leave officers afraid to do their jobs because they know they can be "dragged through politically charged misconduct investigations, even when they’ve done nothing wrong".

PC Prior had told GB News that the Met’s leadership was hampered by the “racism of low expectations,” in that it failed to call out what he termed as “bad behaviour” by some minority ethnic Londoners that had led to high-profile confrontations with officers.

He said that “for fear of upsetting certain elements of the community, they don’t call out bad behaviour".

“This encourages people to behave poorly,” he added. “They are actively not engaging with people they should be engaging with for fear of complaint and suspension.”

So far, the FSU has raised over £140,000 of its £150,000 crowd-funding drive to support PCs Prior and Cooke.

A spokesman for the Police Federation of England and Wales said PC Prior had been found in breach of the federation standards.

He also added that as a result, he was removed from his position as chair and as a federation representative and also prevented from standing for election to any federation position.

"Both sanctions are imposed on a permanent basis in line with our standard policy on governance matters," the spokesman said.