A British man arrested for sharing a photograph of himself using a shotgun while vacationing in the United States is planning to take action against the West Yorkshire Police and an individual he says made false allegations about him that prompted the arrest. 

The businessman, who was visiting family in Florida at the time the photo was snapped, Jon Richelieu-Booth, said he is engaging the British public interest group, the Free Speech Union after a 12-week ordeal in which police came to his home multiple times and arrested him on charges of stalking and possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

The arrest followed a series of three posts shared by Mr. Richelieu-Booth on LinkedIn in August. In them, he is seen near or shooting shotguns. The posts do not reference where he is or what he’s doing. Rather, in the post cited by police, Mr. Richelieu-Booth speaks about filing a complaint over a delinquent client with the secretary of state for business and trade and the North Yorkshire Police. 

In one of the posts, Mr. Richelieu-Booth, who is a frequent commenter on LinkedIn, says, “Let’s start off with a quick check-in to see how everyone is doing. It’s not the most optimum of Contract Markets here in the UK so if you’re struggling please feel free to sound off below, we’re all here to support one another because God knows no-one is coming to save us so we have to have each other’s back.”

Mr. Richelieu-Booth told the Yorkshire Post that nothing in the posts was threatening, but the police visited his home in mid-August to warn him that someone had raised concerns about it. On August 24, they returned at 10:00 p.m. and arrested him. 

While he reportedly offered to show officers his geolocation data proving he had been in America at the time and does not own a shotgun, police declined and held him in a cell overnight before interviewing him the next morning. 

“If they really believed I had a shotgun, surely they would have kicked my door in at 3 a.m. with armed officers,” he told the Yorkshire Post, adding, “I thought 1984 was a book, not an instruction manual.”

In a series of follow-up posts after the police visits, Mr. Richelieu-Booth, who owns a contracting company and hosts a business-related podcast called “Coffee with the Hashtag Guy,” explains that the shotgun photos were taken while receiving instruction from a former Special Forces operative in Baker, Florida. 

He said that the delinquent client, whom he refers to as “>Redacted<” but describes as a “director at Hortor Ltd,” filed the complaint that led to the police interview. 

“The last time I had a visit like this was to tell me my entire Family was dead so this incident was very damaging to my Mental Health, upon hearing why they were at my Door was the kick in the Teeth I really did not need.. especially 3Weeks out from the Inquest,” he wrote, referencing an investigation into the car crash that killed his parents in October 2023. 

While initially being released on bail, Mr. Richelieu-Booth says he was visited by police three more times and then re-arrested in October for breach of his bail conditions. He says he does not know what conditions he violated, but he was expected to appear in court on November 25 to face a charge of displaying “any writing/sign/visible representation with intent to cause harassment/alarm or distress.” 

Mr. Richelieu-Booth faced a potential six-month prison term. Yet police dropped the charges against him on November 18, saying there was “not enough evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”

Mr. Richelieu-Booth’s is the latest high-profile case regarding free speech and social media laws in the United Kingdom. After police dropped charges following the September arrest of Irish comedian Graham Linehan for an X post he wrote while in Arizona, Scotland Yard said it would stop investigating mean tweets and other non-crime hate incidents.  

Mr. Linehan’s case was picked up by the Free Press Union, which says the Metropolitan Police should not only stop investigating non-crime hate incidents, but stop recording them since incidents are input to a database that employers check and can be used to prevent individuals from getting a job.

“In 2023, 90% of all crime went unsolved. In the same year, 13,800 people were arrested for ‘offensive’ social media posts or messages. Instead of policing our tweets, the police should focus on solving real crime on our streets,” the group wrote on X.

Having gone silent on LinkedIn during the police proceedings, Mr. Richelieu-Booth, returned last week to say he was planning to move to Florida. He is also filing a complaint against a “certain individual for making false allegations” and was meeting Monday with the Free Speech Union.

“Thanks to the weaponisation of the authorities against me I no longer feel safe or at ease in the UK so I’m now working on a 7Month Project Plan which will see me sell my Home (and my Rental Property in advance of the upcoming Renters’ Rights Bill), release things I no longer need and move to be with my Family in Florida,” he wrote.