Merseyside Police have, understandably, been forced to apologise after getting involved in a rape joke on Twitter, and Tweeting responses from their official account.
On Sunday afternoon, whoever was in charge of the @MerseyPolice account responded to a Tweet addressed to them saying: ‘Hello. I’d like to report and incident of rape that occurred at Goodison Park, Liverpool on November 1st at 3:00’ with ‘Just to confirm there was no actual rape for me? Sunderland certainly got caught with their pants down, though.’
When the Twitter user confirmed that yep, they were making a rape joke, the police Twitter account appeared totally nonplussed: ‘Thanks for clearing that up! great performance by all accounts, I’ve been too busy to watch though’.
This was followed by another user getting on board, writing: ‘I’d like to report an incident that’s been going on for ages. Chelsea get raped every match, can you help?’ to which the Merseyside Police responded: ‘Afraid not, it’s not a criminal offence to lose week in week out.’
The Tweets have since been deleted (obviously) and, while the jokes were made by external users – the force have come under fire for joining in, rather than admonishing those making light of sexual crimes.
Around two hours after the Tweets, the police deleted them all and released an apology:
Someone's going to be having a fairly shocking week – but it's a good lesson for all police force's on Twitter to learn: erm, don't join in with rape jokes.
Follow Stevie on Twitter: @5tevieM
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.