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David Paisley calls out JK Rowling for mocking typo in police tweet about supporting the LGBTQ community

As South Wales Police defended their LGBTQ outreach programme on Twitter, Rowling mocked them for a typo.

By Alastair James

Words: Alastair James; pictures: Markus Bidaux and Wiki

The actor, David Paisley, has called out JK Rowling for mocking a typo in a tweet from South Wales Police about supporting the LGBTQ community.

South Wales Police’s LGBTQ network shared images of Pride police vehicles and a Pride stall in Cardiff city centre on Saturday (19 March), writing that they were “engaging with our LGBTQ+ communities with a focus on Recruitment and Hate Crime.”

After a Twitter user accused the force of “virtue signalling”, South Wales Police’s account made a typo as they responded that they made “no apologies” for “virtual signalling”.

“For people who aren’t really arsed”

Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who has been criticised for remarks about transgender people, picked up on this mistake and wrote to her 13.9 million followers: “Virtual signalling. Like virtue signalling, but for people who aren’t really arsed.”

Former Holby City actor David Paisely was among those to criticse Rowling for taking a public swipe at the South Wales Police given the context of their LGBTQ outreach in the city.

“The “virtue signalling” JK Rowling is laughing about is South Wales Police LGBT+ Network doing community outreach work 10 minutes walk from Bute Park where Dr Gary Jenkins was brutally murdered in a horrific homophobic attack in July 2021,” wrote Paisley.

Dr. Gary Jenkins died 16 days after he was violently attacked in Cardiff’s Bute Park last July. He was “viciously beaten, robbed, tortured” in the attack, which was deemed to be motivated in part by homophobia.

Lee Strickland, 36, Jason Edwards, 25, and Dionne Timms-Williams, 17 were found guilty of murder in February and will be sentenced in March.

Paisley also highlighted that Rowling follows the group Fair Cop on Twittee. Fair Cop have previously tweeted comparisons between soldiers carrying Nazi flags and to soldiers carrying LGBTQ Pride flags, as well as threatening legal action against police forces that join in with Pride celebrations. 

The group also also tweeted “#SayYesToHate” on Trans Day of Remembrance.