Grenfell Tower bonfire: Police search property

Short form: Grenfell Tower was an over-populated, badly built apartment tower that burned a year ago, a bunch of people died. So then these guys made a cardboard model of the tower, set it on fire (outside, as some sort of bonfire, on private property), laughed about it and filmed it. And… now they’ve been arrested.

Crude and in poor taste? You bet. It would be akin to building a model of the Twin Towers and intentionally crashing a toy airplane into it. But what’s *illegal* here? The article says:

The men have been arrested under section 4a of the Public Order Act 1986, which covers intentional “harassment, alarm or distress” caused via the use of “threatening, abusive or insulting” words or signs.

Wait. Isn’t Britain the same county that has an annual tradition of setting fire to effigies of Guy Fawkes?

According to THIS ARTICLE, it seems as if the illegality was being simply “offensive.” Which should be frakin’ disturbing to anyone with the slightest interest in the freedom of expression. The British government is always going on about how they are a free country, so it does not make sense for people to be arrested simply for being offensive. “Laws against bad jokes” and “free people” are mutually exclusive concepts. So what’s the story here?