Britain's first youth crime commissioner Paris Brown, who is just 17, stepped down from her post on Tuesday, less than a week after her appointment was announced. Her inappropriate Twitter postings were seen as the primary reasons for her resignation, SKY News reported.
Brown acknowledged that her statements on Twitter written in the last couple of years had offended many people in a TV interview. She served as the youth police and crime commissioner for Kent for just a couple of days. Police are investigating whether her comments amounted to a criminal offense, the Guardian reported.
Critics claimed the comments were racist, homophobic, and condoned violence, drug-taking as well as flaunting her love of drinking.
Brown pleaded to be left alone now that she was standing down.
Ann Barnes, the police and crime commissioner for Kent, who hired Brown, admitted she had not vetted her young employee fully before she appointed the 17-year-old as youth crime commissioner. The tweets, posted when Brown was aged 14 to 16, have now been deleted from her Twitter account.
"I accept that I have made comments on social networking sites which have offended many people. I am really sorry for any offence caused," Brown said. "I strongly reiterate that I am not racist or homophobic. I have fallen into the trap of behaving with bravado on social networking sites. I hope this may stand as a learning experience for many other young people. I now feel that in the interests of everyone concerned - in particular the young people of Kent who I feel will benefit enormously from the role of a youth commissioner - that I should stand down as I feel that the recent media furore will continue and hamper my ability to perform the job to the level required. I ask for the time and space to recover from what has been a very difficult time and to allow me to move on."
In one message she wrote, "Im either really fun, friendly and inclusive when Im drunk or Im an anti social, racist, sexist, embarrassing [expletive]. often its the latter."
Another said: "Been drinking since half 1 and riding baby walkers down the hall at work oh my god I have the best job ever haha!!"
In another she wrote: "I really wanna make a batch of hash brownies."
Barnes, who has no plans of stepping down, said that the idea of a youth crime commissioner was a good one "to reduce the gap between younger people and the authorities, particularly the police. I was not recruiting an angel, and I was not recruiting a police officer. I was recruiting a young person, warts and all. I think it would have been absolutely impossible to have found a young person who had not made a silly, foolish or even perhaps a deeply offensive comment during their short lifetime."
"We used Kent police's vetting procedures, which do not normally involve scrutiny of social networks for this grade of post," Barnes said, and adding she will not resign, despite recruiting Brown in the first place. Barnes is now advertising for a new chief of staff.
