A British man has spoken of his shock after being arrested and questioned for weeks over a photograph he posted on Instagram while on holiday in the United States, sparking a police investigation that he says left his career in ruins despite all charges being dropped. Jon Richelieu-Booth, a 50-year-old IT consultant from West Yorkshire, had travelled to Florida earlier this year, where he visited a private property and posed for a photo holding a legally owned firearm. He later uploaded the image to Instagram, describing it as a harmless holiday snapshot taken in a country where gun ownership and recreational shooting are widespread. When he returned to the UK, however, the post drew the attention of West Yorkshire Police, who said the image had raised concern because of the way it was presented online and the potential alarm it could cause to members of the public.
Officers initially visited his home and advised him about the implications of sharing images involving weapons. Richelieu-Booth said he explained that the gun was legally handled in the United States, where he had been invited to shoot on private land. Despite this, he was arrested on 24 August on suspicion of firearms possession with intent to cause fear, a charge that stemmed not from the American incident itself but from the interpretation of how the image appeared publicly in the UK. The arrest formed part of a wider inquiry that also included claims of stalking, which he strongly denied. The allegations were later dismissed, but his case continued to widen as investigators examined a separate social-media post, leading to an additional accusation of a public order offence.
Richelieu-Booth said that what followed was a series of police visits and interviews that stretched across nearly three months, during which time officers seized his computer equipment as part of their inquiries. Because he worked as a freelance IT contractor, the loss of his equipment severely disrupted his ability to earn a living. He described being unable to access clients’ systems, losing ongoing work and suffering reputational damage. He said he repeatedly told police that the firearm in the photograph had been handled legally under American law and that he had no criminal intent in sharing the post, but the investigation continued while digital forensic checks were carried out.
The prospect of a court appearance loomed for weeks. Although the firearms and stalking allegations were eventually dropped in their entirety, the separate public order offence was pursued for several more weeks. Richelieu-Booth maintained that the claim had been based on a misinterpretation of a post that he said carried no threatening meaning. Shortly before he was due to appear in Bradford Magistrates’ Court on 25 November, the Crown Prosecution Service withdrew the remaining charge, ending the legal case against him. By that point, however, he said he had spent 13 weeks under investigation, leaving him anxious, unemployed and unsure of how to explain the circumstances to colleagues and clients.