Two Metropolitan Police officers tracked down a local photographer to a pub in Chiswick and warned him he was close to committing a criminal offence over tweets criticising a Green Party councillor — despite repeatedly acknowledging throughout the confrontation that no crime had actually been committed.
Alastair Hilton was celebrating with a friend at The Bell and Crown in Strand-on-the-Green on Thursday evening, marking a community victory after Hounslow Council backed down from ordering three historic Thames-side pubs to remove all outdoor seating, when uniformed officers approached him and asked him to step outside.
What followed was a 12-minute exchange that Hilton filmed in full. The footage has since gone viral. “They admit on video that I did not break the law at all,” Hilton said afterwards. “They came to threaten me. To warn me off tweeting about councillors and the council. This is modern Britain. This is the police state. Police coming out to threaten someone who hasn’t committed a crime. I’m fuming.”
The officers told Hilton they had been made aware of posts on X in which he mentioned a councillor’s home being near the pubs and had given descriptions of the address. One officer read out the legislation under which Hilton could potentially be arrested, then swiftly acknowledged he had not given “the actual address” — but warned him: “It is on the line where it could be harassment.” The officers also raised an allegation that Hilton was planning a protest outside the home of Green Party councillor Rick Rowe, which Hilton flatly denied. “I haven’t scheduled any protest,” he told them.
Despite the repeated admissions that no offence had taken place, the officer continued to warn Hilton: “This is why it’s a conversation. I’m simply here saying, simply, be mindful.” When Hilton accused the officers of threatening him, one replied: “We’re going around in circles. I was hoping for a handshake and a walk-off.” Hilton was having none of it. “That is not going to happen. No chance,” he said, before the officers left.
The encounter prompted Hilton to raise what he described as the starkest example of the double standard he believed was on display. Just weeks earlier, he said, his daughter had been the victim of an attempted burglary on her houseboat while she slept. A window near her head was smashed and when she called 999, she was allegedly told: “There’s nothing we can do.” He made the comparison directly to the officers. “So you’ve turned up for something that isn’t a crime,” he said. “But when there is a crime, when my daughter has her window smashed in next to her in the middle of the night, nothing. When there is a thing you have looked at online and you have said it’s not a crime… a copper has turned up.”
The underlying row began when The Bull’s Head, The City Barge and The Bell and Crown — three much-loved pubs on the riverside stretch of Strand-on-the-Green in Chiswick — were told by Hounslow Council to remove their outdoor tables, chairs and sun loungers by Monday. The council said the businesses lacked the required pavement licences to place furniture on the public highway. A worker at The City Barge told the Daily Mail the pub was “losing a lot,” with up to 50 customers at a time unable to enjoy the riverside seating. “Everybody wants to sit there. It’s a beautiful view,” he said.
Hilton had alleged on social media that the original complaint triggering the council’s investigation had been made by Green Party councillor Rick Rowe — a claim Rowe publicly denied following protests outside The City Barge on Wednesday evening. “I want to be really clear. I back our riverside pubs,” Rowe wrote in a statement. “I did not ask the Council to remove outdoor seating from the Bell and Crown, the City Barge, the Bull’s Head or any other pub on Strand-on-the-Green. That is not my position and never has been.”
Hounslow Council has since agreed to allow the outdoor seating to remain in place while the three pubs submit formal licensing applications. Councillor Amy Croft, Cabinet Member for Infrastructure, Enforcement and Recycling, said the council was “keen to ensure that the pubs can continue trading as normal” and would process applications as quickly as possible, while stressing that businesses were legally required to hold pavement licences to place furniture on the public highway.
The incident has added fresh fuel to the ongoing national debate about policing priorities and free speech, coming at a time when accusations of so-called two-tier policing continue to be levelled at forces across England.
