Did an image shared on social media capture the recent arrest of a "45-year-old British mother in the UK" later sentenced to nine months in prison for a Facebook post? No, that's not true: The image first appeared online in 2017. It documented a drug bust.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on April 16, 2025. It opened:
A 45-year-old British mother in the UK has been sentenced to 9 months in prison for writing on Facebook: 'We must take back our country, I can no longer stand British girls being sacrificed to Muslim grooming gangs.'
The same post included an image of the police officers preparing to enter a building.
This is what the entry looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The post implied that the image showed the arrest of the "45-year-old British mother". However, that wasn't true.
A reverse image search showed that the photo came from a 2017 news article (archived here) about law enforcement activities in Grimsby, UK. The report read:
Police raids have taken place in the East Marsh in Grimsby in a major crackdown on drug dealers and anti-social behaviour.
It is believed the raids, involving large number of police, targeted key suspects believed to be involved in drug dealing.
A search across Google News for the keywords seen here (archived here) did not show any credible reporting corroborating that a "45-year-old British mother" was sentenced in 2024 or 2025 for writing on Facebook what the post reviewed in this fact check alleged.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks of the claims concerning the U.K. are here.
