The police repeatedly requested my phone passcodes in the interview + kept returning to this topic + pressuring me. One of them said, "You're under a duty to disclose the passcodes + we're requesting them formally. Your refusal means that you may be committing a RIPA offence."

I was under no duty to hand these passcodes over. They hadn't obtained a RIPA notice. Furthermore, the police knew that I was a journalist when they applied for their s8 search warrant, but didn't declare it when asked if they knew of any info that undermined their application.

FYI, you're not supposed to apply for this warrant if you suspect that the material you intend to seize might contain journalism. The warrant stated that they were searching for materials relevant to drug supply such as phones + notebooks. 🤷‍♀️

It's common sense that a journalist's phones, laptop + notebooks might contain journalism. So when I applied to the Crown Court to get these items back, the judge ruled that the police were the ones that had acted unlawfully + not me.

I’d told the men that I didn’t believe they were legally allowed to seize my journalism, as the back of the warrant specifically stated that it was excluded material under PACE. They kept saying, “We can do what we want.”

I began to question myself at this point, so I also told them about the danger of supplying my passcodes as it's tantamount to snitching. And I thought it was appalling that the privileged white male officer told me I wouldn't be in any danger at all + dismissed my safety fears.

As a man in a privileged position in society, he has no right to arrogantly dismiss a single mum's safety concerns. The town centre manager had already reported a guy pulling a gun on me – on CCTV – as he didn't like that I'd written a VICE News story about his crimes.

Here's my court transcript whereby Devon + Cornwall Police were forced to withdraw their objection to returning my journalism. They made a PII application to get a private audience with the judge, even though you can't typically get PII when someone hasn't been charged.

They lie like they breathe

Yeah, they really did. That was the scariest bit about the whole thing. I wondered what else they would lie about next.

You should tell them to go fuck themselves

I tried my very best to do exactly this. 😂