Man Arrested In The UK For Posing With Gun More Than 4,000 Miles Away In The US

An IT consultant from Yorkshire has been arrested over a photo he posted on social media featuring him holding a legally owned gun in the US.

Jon Richelieu-Booth, 50, posted a photo of himself in August holding a gun on LinkedIn while he was on a holiday in Florida. There was no threatening language in the post, and it was simply a picture attached to a lengthy post about his day and work activities.

Jon says he was holding the gun lawfully, on private land, and with full permission from the owner.

As reported by the Yorkshire Post, Jon returned to the UK and was visited at home by a police officer who said someone had raised concerns about the picture and he should be careful about what he posts.

Police then returned to his home again at 10pm on August 24 and arrested him.

Jon said he tried to show police geolocation evidence proving the photo was taken abroad, but was told it was ‘not needed’.

He was kept in a prison cell overnight and was then interrogated over the picture of the gun and another photo of a house he shared on social media – which he told police he had never been to and was taken by someone else.

He was released on bail until the end of October, at which point the officers visited him on three further occasions and also interviewed his neighbours.

Now, the bail document itself mentions an allegation of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, and a separate claim of stalking. Both allegations have since been dropped, but he was then charged with a public order offence for a different social media post.

That charge has now also been dropped, right before he was due to appear at Bradford Magistrate Court tomorrow (Tuesday December 2), where he faced six months in jail.

Jon says: ‘I have not been able to sleep, I’ve lived in fear of a knock at my door for the last three months. I haven’t spoken to my neighbours for four months. It has damaged my ability to run my business.

‘It was a massive overreach by the police.

‘I thought 1984 was a book, not an instruction manual.’

So it definitely sounds like there was more to this arrest than just the photo of Jon Richelieu-Booth with a gun in Florida, but it’s still odd that this was also used to charge him. In the end, all the charges were dropped, so it sounds like the CPS did a review right before the case went to court and decided the case didn’t stack up for some reason. As one of the charges was related to stalking, maybe they thought he had posed with a gun as a means of ‘intimidating’ whoever he was supposed to be stalking?

Either way, it’s not a great look for the UK, which already has enough of a reputation for being a bit Orwellian. Just be sure you’re not making any ‘microaggressions’ at Sheffield uni – it could land you in a spot of trouble.