Just a week ago, she was being hailed as a role model for young people, but on Sunday Paris Brown was facing calls for her to be sacked from her £15,000 a year job as Britain’s first youth Police and Crime Commissioner after she tweeted a series of allegedly racist and homophobic comments.
Ms. Brown (17) was forced to apologise but insisted that she didn’t mean them and that some of them were taken out of context. “I deeply apologise for any offence caused by my use of inappropriate language and for any inference of inappropriate views. I am not homophobic, racist or violent and am against the taking of drugs,” she said after The Mail on Sunday splashed the tweets describing them as a “torrent of foul-mouthed rants boasting about her sex life, drug taking and drinking binges”.
Speaking to the BBC with tears rolling down her face, Ms. Brown admitted that she wrote a “few stupid things” and was “ashamed” but said: “I can’t imagine that I’m the only teenager to have done this”.
She was appointed last week to work with Kent’s Independent PCC Ann Barnes as a representative of young people in the region.
Ms. Barnes said the comments tweeted by Ms. Brown were “awful” and “dreadful” but did not constitute a basis for her to be sacked.
“I absolutely do not condone the content and language of Paris’ tweets. I suspect that many young people go through a phase during which they make silly, often offensive comments and show off on Facebook and Twitter,” she said.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select committee, said he was “deeply shocked” and demanded that Ms. Brown be “removed from her post immediately”.
“Public money should never be given to anyone who refers to violence, sex, drunkenness and other anti-social behaviour in this offensive manner,” he said.
