Three officers detained Kate Scottow, 38, at her home in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, before quizzing her at a police station
Boris Johnson has hit out at police after a mother was arrested in front of her children and locked up for seven hours after referring to a transgender woman as a man online.
The former Foreign Secretary spoke out after three Hertfordshire Police officers detained Kate Scottow at her home before quizzing her at a police station about an argument with an activist on Twitter.
Mrs Scottow is accused of a 'campaign of targeted harassment' against transgender activist Stephanie Hayden and has been made the subject of an injunction that bans her from writing about Hayden online.
A complaint from Ms Hayden was previously behind a police verbal harassment warning given to Father Ted writer Graham Linehan following a Twitter spat. She also campaigned against Sussex University over perceived 'transgender hostility' and was among those who pressurised a billboard company to remove a poster in Liverpool, which said the dictionary definition of 'woman' was an 'adult human female'.
Johnson branded the investigation in Mrs Scottow an 'abuse of manpower and police facilities' at a time when violent crime is on the rise.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he asked: 'Is this really the right way to fight crime? Is this what our brave police officers signed up to do?
'Are you really telling me that it is a sensible ordering of priorities to round up Twitter-borne transphobes and chuck them in the clink, when violence on the streets would seem to be getting out of control?'
Mrs Scottow's arrest came after a complaint by transgender activist Stephanie Hayden (left). Boris Johnson said sending three officers to deal with the case and holding Ms Scottow for seven hours was an 'abuse of manpower' at a time when violent crime is increasing
Johnson said members of the public would be upset at 'the considerable expenditure of public money on what would seem to be a silly (if nasty) Twitter spat'.
He said of Mrs Scottow: 'It would seem that her attitude towards transgender people is antediluvian and offensive - but if, and only if, you can be bothered to read her tweets, and if, and only if, you can be bothered to take offence.'
Mrs Scottow, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, had her photograph, DNA and fingerprints taken and remains under investigation.
More than two months after her arrest on December 1, she has had neither her mobile phone or laptop returned, which she says is hampering her studies for a Masters in forensic psychology.
Writing on online forum Mumsnet, Mrs Scottow – who has also been served with a court order that bans her from referring to her accuser as a man – claimed: 'I was arrested in my home by three officers, with my autistic ten-year-old daughter and breastfed 20-month-old son present.
'I was then detained for seven hours in a cell with no sanitary products (which I said I needed) before being interviewed then later released under
