From The Critic nearly four years ago:

Police are investigating a woman for raising safeguarding concerns about Girl Guide commissioner Monica Sulley

We’re in UpsideDownLand again.

A teacher and mother-of-three has been questioned under caution by Merseyside Police for sending a letter to Girlguiding UK raising safeguarding concerns.

Her story begins in November 2021 when it emerged that Girlguiding UK had appointed a local commissioner called Monica Sulley, a role that involves overseeing Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers in Southwell, Nottinghamshire. 

Social media reports showed that Sulley, a trans woman, had posted pictures of herself on Instagram wearing dominatrix clothing, one of which was captioned “Now behave yourselves or Mistress will have to punish you #mistress.” She had also posted a picture in which she wielded what appeared to be a fake assault rifle. 

The Merseyside woman, who does not wish to be named, wrote two emails expressing safeguarding concerns about the appointment: one to Girlguiding UK, and one to the local Girlguiding organisation in Southwell. She was one of a number to write such emails: in late November, Mail Online reported that Girlguiding UK was carrying out an investigation into Sulley.

The woman received a formal acknowledgement of her email from the national organisation, which didn’t address the particular issue she’d raised. She then heard nothing more until 7 January this year, when a police officer came to her house and told her she needed to attend the police station for an interview under caution, which “meant that I could attend voluntarily, but that if I chose not to attend I could be arrested.” As a response to a simple email, this felt, she says, as if things were “spinning out of control.” 

On 13 January, she was interviewed under caution at Smithdown Lane Police Station in Liverpool. During the interview, which lasted an hour, she was asked about the contents of the email and why she sent it. She was told that she could be charged under the Malicious Communications Act.

If Sulley had been displaying his kink privately, I could maybe see it, but he was displaying it on Instagram. If you flaunt your kink on social meeja you may get talked about.

She didn’t have difficulty answering the questions, she says: “I’d been a teacher and a mum for years and am old enough to feel certain and confident that there was a breach in safeguarding. I kept referring to the unsuitability of such a person for the role, and that it meant that young girls in this case were threatened, that their safety and privacy were threatened.” 

She also told the police officer that safeguarding rules exist to protect women and girls from the minority of biological males who are predatory. At the prompting of the duty solicitor, she pointed out that when Girl Guides go to camp, they share accommodation and showers, and that “to have male-bodied men in that setting, I believed, was a safeguarding concern.”

At the end of the interview, she was told that her case would be sent to the CPS for consideration. Her duty solicitor, she reports, “said he had never been more baffled in his life.” When the solicitor asked the police officer whether it was necessary to proceed to the CPS, the police officer replied, she says, that the email was considered a “hate crime”. 

Again, this was nearly four years ago, and maybe wouldn’t happen now, but still, godalmighty – that it ever happened is horrifying.