The Fair Cop Report on the Capture of the Police is out

I can kind of see what you mean about a different audience - it's the kind of thing that would appeal to my dad. Mind you, he is into conspiracy theories, he also can't stick to a clear point and wanders around seemingly unconnected things when trying to make an argument, and the fundamental issue is he is also of the mind that 'feminists brought this on themselves' because he bundles anyone who doesn't think quite like he does into the 'feminist' bucket - be they woke hipsters, trans rights activists, MGTOW, or actual feminists.

The ‘perpetrator’ rarely gets told about accusations against them until they are charged. Imagine you reported a man because you suspected he was abusing his partner. Do you think the police should immediately contact him, and tell him who made the complaint? And in the event there is no evidence, or it isn't quite a crime, then the police should destroy all records of the allegation?

Well there's not much to stop vexatious reports about anything, although if it was found to be malicious then that could result in counter charges.

It will not be found to be malicious because there is no investigation. The ‘perpetrator’ does not get told and has not opportunity to correct the record. A record that could cost them their job.

I do remember the police retweeting "No Terfs on our Turf" actually.

seems to be true, HOWEVER they've linked to a story from February 2019 from GMPCityCentre, whereas the No Terfs on Our Turf thing seems to be from GMPPrideNetwork from our October.

So there's an interesting story there in that it's not one incident, but several, from Manchester police. But the report fails to tell it.

I'd like to see Fair Cop explain exactly what it is they object to

Is it an objection to the police recording non crime information full stop?

If not do they object to that information being potentially disclosable?

Do they object to it being specifically called a hate incident?

Or do they think the police should have discretion on whether to record non-crime incidents which were reported to them as being perceived to be motivated by hatred?

If it's one of the first two then they are actually seeking to remove important safeguarding protections and I think they need to be clearer about that.

I do remember the police retweeting "No Terfs on our Turf" actually.

Agree about the tone and style. Many of us dug (a few times!) and the appeal is so important. Please don't come over all tinfoil hat.

hate incident is merely a record of an incident which did not meet the threshold for criminal charges which is held in a local police station and which in very limited circumstances could be made known to a prospective employer in the kind of roles which require an enhanced DRB which is mostly jobs in childcare.

A hate incident is NOT merely a record of an incident which did not meet the threshold for criminal charges: it is any incident where someone (who may be removed from the incident itself) perceives hate was involved. There is nothing at all to stop vexatious reports. There is no need for any hate at all to be involved. Absolutely no investigation is made into the merits of this report which, as you point out, can affect someone’s employment.

@AnyOldPrion

When it comes to a hate crime, which means a criminal offence has been committed, then the characteristics are disability, race, religion, transgender identity or sexual orientation and they are defined by law, the police have no sahy. What it means is that if someone is prosecuted for say assault, and the victim perceived this was about race or sexuality then the court has the power if it agrees to give a harsher sentence. The police have no powers to expand these characteristics as they are enshrined in law.

Most police forces use the same characteristics to record hate incidents, but because this is just about what the police call routine information that is collected then they have the discretion to record incidents featuring other charateristics. Nottingham police force now record misogyny as a potential hate incident for example (although confusingly they talked about this as being about hate crimes rather than incidents). The main justification for this is that it is known that hate incidents, such as insulting remarks in the street which fall short of a crime can often escalate into actual crimes such as assault or damaging property (or worse as in the case of Stephen Lawrence) and so recording them, and encouraging the public to report them, allows police forces to build up a picture of what's going on. This is what Fair Cop are trying to prevent, although they lost in court and are now appealing.

It's been really unhelpful the way hate crimes and hate incidents have been confused by the media and often the police themselves. But in short a hate crime means an actual crime has been committed, these are also recorded in the hate crime statistics. A hate incident is merely a record of an incident which did not meet the threshold for criminal charges which is held in a local police station and which in very limited circumstances could be made known to a prospective employer in the kind of roles which require an enhanced DRB which is mostly jobs in childcare.

Assumption of virtue leads to toleration of violence: the intimidation of attendees at a Woman’s Place UK meeting where the meeting hall was surrounded with masked protestors waving trans flags. The police did not intervene

That doesn't describe any clear crime.

A few days later, the lone protestor who banged on the window of Labour MP, Jess Phillips, was promptly arrested for a public order offence. Jess Phillips is a vocal trans ally.

Ok, but this doesn't seem to have been connected with trans issues.

It was an angry man banging on a female MP's door. www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/jess-phillips-man-fined-for-kicking-labour-mp-s-office-door-while-yelling-fascists-a4258696.html

We don't want angry men banging on MP's doors.

When the transwoman, Tara Wolf, was convicted of violently assaulting feminist Maria MacLachlan, the judge handed down a lighter sentence because Maria persisted in calling her assailant a man

What other kind of assault is there?

Violence that is tolerated includes the public burning of Harry Potter
books because JK Rowling tweeted that the term for people who menstruate is ‘woman.’

That's not violence though.

Manchester Police order ‘TERFS’ to stay out of the Pride village (Abbit, 2019)

The link doesn't support that. I spent 10 minutes fact checing the claim, and it doesn't appear to be true. What they said was 'TERF is not offensive', which they later deleted.

Women carrying a banner declaring ‘LESBIANS DON’T HAVE PENISES’ are fought to the ground.

No link is provided, but it appears that they were forceably moved from the parade to the side of the road. www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/lesbian-protesters-clash-police-security-16228379

This is intended in a constructive spirit. If this is aimed at alerting policymakers to political capture of the police (which will be more effective than talking to individual forces in my view) then FC need to bring someone on board who understands the public policy world and can produce something professional looking that can be shopped around influential think tanks, APPGs, given to MPs etc.

This is a really important issue and FC have a strong argument but presented like this it looks a bit tin foil hat.

That's a really poor piece of writing.

There are numerous jarring mistakes even on the first page, such as 'favor' for 'favour', and 'MacPherson' for 'Macpherson', and it tries to blame the murder of Stephen Lawrence (a black man killed by white racists), but then starts talking about transgender people.

It doesn't suggest even that there might be legitimate goals here.

The introduction then randomly starts talking about covid, then again randomly about the lies of the Brexit campaign, and about the Iraqi information minister.

This is pisspoor.

There might be some good work and accurate research here, but when you start off with a sequence of non sequiturs and dubious premises, it undermines the credibility of what follows.

There are spelling and grammar mistakes throughout the document, and from what I've seen on social media, some of those involved with Fair Cop are not known for their professionalism either.

I gave up reading after a few pages because the endless references to the Arabian Knights, Bez (?!), Godfather 3, and so on, come across as the work of an adolescent English student.

Do they really not have anyone who can write, or at least someone brave enough to tell the author of this that they can't!?

"Tweeting Stonewall slogans is as politically neutral as wearing a MAGA hat." p32 should be essential reading for all the captured public bodies hiding behind #bekind.

I think it's a good addition to the other papers/analyses/reports and hope it is read by many, especially serving officers. I'd love to see it used in schools for discussion.

Thanks for the explanation about the law @jj1968 .

So who chooses the characteristics that the Hate Crime legislation covers? Isn’t it intended to back up other laws? In which case, shouldn’t it reflect the wordings those laws use? Did the government specify what was covered? Or are we back to the College of Policing and/or the CPS choosing what they want again?

I am going against the grain slightly here regarding the style of the report as I think it will appeal to and inform a different demographic to the one on here.

@AnyOldPrion

I hadn’t realised previously that the Hate Crime/Hate Incident activity came directly from the College of Policing and is not based on any actual law. The fact that the College of Policing is effectively inventing and prosecuting the law as it wants it to be, and not as it is, is huge.

Hate crime legislation is law. Hate incident recording came from the Royal College of Policing after the inquiry following Stephen Lawrence's murder. But even before that the police have always kept details of allegations which may not result in charges, or which didn't meet the threshold for criminality and in very limited circumstances this information could be included in an enhanced DBS check. This is an important safeguarding measure - if someone has been accused of several sexual offences, or been reported for dubious sexual behavior which perhaps didn't quite meet the threshold for a criminal charge (or for which there wasn't enough evidence to charge) then that information I think probably should be passed on if someone applied for a job working with children or vulnerable adults. All the policing college guidelines introduced was that should allegations be made which relate to one of the protected strands then it would be recorded as a hate incident. But wall that really did was give it a name, this information would have still often have been recorded, possibly as an incident of suspected racist or transphobic harassment or something.

The reason for this was to allow the police to build a pattern of behaviour. So say for example someone from the far right decided to attack a person of colour, or someone transphobic beat up their transgender neighbour - it would not only be useful to both the police and prosecution had this person previously been reported for transphobic or racist incidents, even if never charged, and it would be seen as an absolute scandal if those accusations had been ignored and no record was kept of them.

For me, I think there's a strong argument that unless incidents were of a violent or sexual nature then perhaps all information held by police should be destroyed at the end of any investigation. But I think it would be a safeguarding risk if someone who had been reported for sexual offences but never charged was able to go and work in a school and the police were prevented from telling their potential employers about the information they hold. I find it very worrying that this is something Fair Cop seem to be trying to compromise, largely because of one man's fury about an admittedly over the top police response.

Agree with all the previous comments. You have to come to the report with a lot of existing knowledge to made head or tail of it.

@HazzatheOwl

Flagging this thread up for you - useful constructive criticism. Don't take your eye off the prize. The end game has to be a report people take seriously, that's been properly fact-checked, not "aspiring to be Private Eye but missing the target" attempts at satire. I say that as someone who contributed to your funding because I believe in what you're trying to do.

Yes - Fair Cop has achieved so much and at a huge cost. That’s why I want this report to properly reflect that & not give detractors easy opportunities to dismiss it

Meant to add, I don't like to criticise and appreciate all the incredibly hard work FC have done/are doing at high personal cost. Thanks to them for continuing with this.

I've had a quick look and it seems they've gone for a sort of Sunday Times magazine reportage style, taking the facts and constructing them into a story with maximum dramatic effect.

I agree with pp that a report works best when it's just facts. Let journalists interpret it and lead the reader by adding in the Alice in Wonderland/Orwell references. A report should be an impartial record of facts and stats that speak for themselves.

Yes I’m frustrated by it too. In my job I write a lot of reports with the aim of influencing public policy and was going for something I could send to my MP but I couldn’t send this

The tone is all wrong; reports like this are not the place for sarcasm or humour or superiority. I’m genuinely not sure who the intended audience is

The design is clearly good & expensive to boot but the editing needs a lot of work. There’s a ton of good stuff in here but it’s completely lost

Echoing others, that report is terrible. It does contain important information but it needs to be presented in a more professional way if they want it to be taken seriously. If they are reading this I strongly suggest they withdraw the report and re-edit - I'm sure they will know people who are used to producing professional reports. I fear this publication massively undermines them as an organisation, and the important message they are trying to pass on.