Michael Chadwell, 62, was convicted on Monday of sending a “grossly offensive racist message” in a group chat that included five other former police officers, according to Metro UK. It was a private WhatsApp group chat, where the men sent each other whatever they wanted because it was private and they weren’t planning any terrorist activities against others. In fact, Chadwell served in the Met’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and Counter Terrorism Command.

But apparently sending a joke about parrots was enough for Chadwell to be convicted based on a relative construct. An image sent by Chadwell, along with an image of multicolored parrots, read: “‘Why do we cherish the variety of colour in every species… but our own?’ – underneath which a comment in response said ‘because I have never had a bike stolen out of my front yard by a parrot’.”

Is the joke funny? No. Is it racist? It definitely is given the context. But does it warrant potentially five men’s lives being ruined? Absolutely not. And definitely not under any type of free speech concept Britain pretends to still have.

Chadwell unfortunately tried to defend the joke as not “racist,” when he probably should have focused on the fact he sent a private message via a Meta-owned company and exercised his right to free speech.