Horse rider faces police probe after calling gypsy a ‘pikey’ when he ‘threatened her family’

A mother-of-two has been summoned for an interview under caution by police after calling a man she claims threatened her husband and daughter a ‘pikey’.

The police move comes after a confrontation on Tuesday morning when she was riding a horse with her husband and 14-year-old daughter on a single-track country road in The Fens. 

Cambridgeshire Constabulary has confirmed it is investigating the woman in her 40s for an alleged ‘racially aggravated comment’, despite closing the probe into the man’s alleged actions.

She is due to be interviewed under caution by the force today, the Telegraph reports.

The woman told the newspaper: ‘As a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, I deserve better than this. I just think it is a sign of the times.’

While riding, she claims two men drove close by them at 30mph before slamming on the brakes, spooking two of their horses.

The woman said: ‘The driver and the passenger then jumped out of the vehicle and launched themselves at my daughter.’

She said her husband, a retired Armed Forces officer, ‘jumped off his horse’ and ran towards the daughter, at which point he was ‘pushed’ by the driver, before the father then pushed back in ‘self-defence’ and the mother called 999.

But after this, she claimed the driver returned to the driver’s door and pulled out what the she thought was a knife but in retrospect could have been a screwdriver.

The mother said the pair then drove away from the confrontation before making a U-turn and ‘screaming’ at the family as they walked their horses.

She said: ‘I think at this point I said to the driver, ‘F— off you pikey’, as I was on the phone with the police.’

This in turn escalated the conflict with the woman saying the driver got back in the car, ‘reversed and hit my horse’, and as a result her daughter was ‘in pieces’.

The issue didn’t stop there as she claims the men returned minutes later in a different vehicle saying ‘We’re gypsies. That’s a hate crime. We live down here. You’re not to come down here, or else.’

The mother claims he was ‘threatening’ them. 

She claims she later apologised to the men for her heat-of-the-moment comment, saying she did not know the driver was a traveller and that she intended no malice or offence.

Police were called to the scene and told the family to go home while they spoke to the driver of the vehicle and she was then interviewed by officers in her living room.

She claims officers were polite but then one of them referred to her as a ‘suspect’ which the mum says ‘My heart stopped as I said ‘You what?”

She claims the officer said that she was being investigated as they had a recording of her using the slur during the 999 call, adding that because there was no CCTV of the initial incident involving the horses ‘It’s your word against his’.

She said she was later invited by the force to attend a voluntary interview under caution in connection with the alleged racially aggravated comment. 

This follows an incident on Tuesday morning when she was riding a horse with her husband and 14-year-old daughter on a single-track country road in The Fens. Picture: Stock image of the Fens, Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire Constabulary told the Telegraph it ‘filed’ its probe into the allegations made by the woman, which means they are closed until further information comes to light.

It said four crimes were raised, one for assault without injury, two for verbal abuse and one for racially aggravated comment.

It added the assault and verbal abuse cases were filed pending further investigative opportunities while an investigation continues into the racially-aggravated incident.

The mother has no previous convictions and is being supported by the Free Speech Union.

This case comes after the now-abandoned investigation by Essex Police into newspaper columnist Allison Pearson for an alleged hate crime over a year-old tweet.

Ms Pearson, a Telegraph columnist, said two Essex Police officers turned up at her door at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to inform her she was being investigated over a post on X from a year ago.

The award-winning writer said she was still in her dressing gown when one officer at the door said ‘I was accused of a non-crime hate incident. It was to do with something I had posted on X a year ago. A YEAR ago? Yes. Stirring up racial hatred apparently’.

The force has now dropped the probe into Ms Pearson, it confirmed.

Cambridgeshire Constabulary told MailOnline: ‘Our initial response to this incident was not appropriate and the crimes that were initially raised as a result of officers attending the scene, should never have been closed at such an early stage. 

‘Quite simply, we got it wrong. A senior officer has reviewed those crimes today, and they have all been reopened and are now being actively investigated

‘As part of this process we will also be reviewing our response and why those crimes were filed, to prevent something like this happening again.

‘We regret any distress our handling of the incident has caused.’