Girl Guide Safeguarding - how to make a complaint

I think it's unlikely that she's asking for help and involving the Human Rights Committee and Joanna Cherry just for shits and giggles.

We've all seen how the police jump at the chance to persecute women for ''non-crimes'', so this is, unfortunately, very believable.

Why would Cllr Nina Killen be lying? What would she gain from making up that Merseyside Police passed on a complaint about her friend to Derbyshire Police, who was then interviewed (with a stunned solicitor there with her) and is now waiting on CPS for a decision?

Regardless of police involvement the incident and safeguarding issue has happened.

Where do you stand on that?

Or has that all passed you by.

pick a side
I'm on the side of not potentially getting sucked into scaremongering and mass panic because a friend of a friend or a friend of a friend 's next door neighbour said so on the internet.
It' s all speculation and second or third hand accounts.
The person claiming it, yes if concerned should send an email.
People just going by what they're fed though and no proof it's even happening at all and just blindly believe, that's what I am referring to.

Well you understand why the letters and emails are being written then? So if we are agreed no one should be acting inappropriately then " trans rights " are irrelevant ( although I'd like to know what rights we are talking about as they are never revealed trans people have all the sane rights as everyone else. The rights being disputed are those which create safguarding breaches and erosion of consent and boundaries re the opposite sex and vulnerable situations) and you would agree that the photos and social media accessibility and the role if this person in the GG are an issue as the conduct was inappropriate.

Unless you feel the right to post inappropriate photos is part if trans rights or why bring it up?

Pick a side. Are you siding with individual and their right to post explicit photos whiksy advertising theor role as a guide leader. Or the women who feel that is a safguarding risk, even more so as the girls in girl guides will he told this person is a woman amd potentially placed in a mixed ed sex supervision/changing situation.

Its awfully transphobic to suggest that trans people need the right to behave inappropriately . Why don't you think they should he held to the same standards as everyone else? You surely think they are capable?
I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about here.
What bit of what I've said has anything to do with that?
(For what it's worth, yes nobody should be behaving inappropriately.)

Colin Hunt

Thanks, @Alekto, I'd forgotten that.

I also support trans rights. People with gender differences should not be discriminated against in employment, health, housing, law or leisure, and I have never seen anything on here which would aim to deny them those rights.

I know and like plenty of trans people who add richness to my family and community.

I find the portrayal of this population as a bland group of universally polite, quiet, kind, unassuming people to be tedious and unrealistic. Trans people are as varied as any other population. Having a gender issue has no protective effect against being a massive dickhead...as this bit of mumsnet frequently reminds us.

because they don't like the name of who's saying it

I admit, people who choose to use 'zany' spellings put me in mind of the Fast Show's Colin Hunt. That's not dislike though, just secondhand embarrassment.

That was a key message that ran through every safeguarding training session I delivered in my 12 years as a designated safeguarding lead.

Pressed too soon - nothing to do with commenting on mental health states and just wondering aloud why reasoning and checking first doesnt seem to be a thing anymore.

aspersions cast on women's reasoning/mental health #456 this week
My comment has nothing to do with casting aspersions on women's mental health, and completely mean it to people so that means both men and women

Is that suggesting it's funny because I can't possibly know any sense of reasoning because I support trans rights?

Its awfully transphobic to suggest that trans people need the right to behave inappropriately . Why don't you think they should he held to the same standards as everyone else? You surely think they are capable?

Why is it that following safeguarding rules and social media guidelines when you have a role that involves children, many of whom are vulnerable is a trans rights issue?

What rights are lacking exactly? Besides being able to flout safguarding rules ?

Amazing isn't it, in this progressive right side of history world that women are having to share information to help each other in the case of a politicised police coming to punish them for raising safeguarding concerns with a national children's organisation.

Also how many people will note this, and decide next time they see an issue, that it's safer for them to say nothing and just let it be someone else's problem? And how much does it come up in serious case reviews that a child was harmed or died because an adult didn't feel safe taking the risk of getting involved?

It's like the last three decades of safeguarding development and the inquiries into the deaths of children that formed it, just never happened.

What happened to fact checking first instead of blindly taking as word everything you see

I thought we were supposed to believe and affirm whatever people told us? So if a man says he's actually a woman we are supposed to believe them and not question it? Are there certain people we demand proof from but others above reproach? It's all soooooo confusing, it's almost like we are not meant to believe women.

hahahaha!!!!!

This has got to be the funniest thing you have posted yet!

"Why?
Is that suggesting it's funny because I can't possibly know any sense of reasoning because I support trans rights?
No attempt to even acknowledge what I said.
Just straight into sniggers and fingers in your ears.
Okey dokey.

It's like all sense of reason has left the building.

Aspersions cast on women's reasoning/mental health #456 this week.

This has got to be the funniest thing you have posted yet!

will take Nina Killen's word that this has happened over yours and Blueberry's anyday though eel.
Why though? That's my point - people take it as chilling things happening as gospel without any proof, or evidence, and would fire off complaints on the basis of someone on the internet's friend of a friend or just a friend said so so it must be true.
Then won't listen to anyone else saying otherwise because they don't like the name of who's saying it.
It's like all sense of reason has left the building.

And as many of us have written polite and not hateful letters to GG even, before this became mainstream, about this issue, it is actually a good thing to discuss it, and to be prepared in case it is more widespread.

I would like to also ask, how many women writing to express concern at a potential safeguarding breach resulting in a visit from the police and very likely a record added for a 'non-hate crime' would be ok in your mind?

n+1? Always the next one?

'Have you complained to Girl Guides or similar and been threatened by the police with arrest / "being spoken to"? This thread is a brief primer on some of the law in this area.

The police have no lawful power to interfere with lawful free speech.'

...

There can therefore be no lawful arrest where lawful free speech is involved. This means if you are simply stating your point of view and the police want to interfere with that in some way, by speaking to you, by "inviting" you for interview, unless they provide a lawful basis

you have every right to refuse. Ceri Black did precisely this in Norther Ireland because she judged the police had no lawful basis to arrest her or suspect her of a criminal offence. That seems to be the case as they declined to arrest her.

Arrest is governed by section 24 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. An arrest in law requires two things to be lawful. Grounds and Reasons.
legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/24

Grounds (see ss.(1-4)) basically means the police must have "reasonable grounds" for believing a criminal offence is currently, has or is going to be committed. Free speech is not a criminal offence.

"Reasons" means the law requires an arrest to be necessary (see subsection 5) - the most commonly used is 5 (e) - "prompt and effective investigation of an offence. Note the word offence.

It follows thus. If there are no grounds for suspecting a criminal offence an arrest will be unlawful. If there is no reason for an arrest similarly so. If an arrest is unlawful it can amount in civil law to a "wrongful arrest/false imprisonment".

This explains why sometimes you do not get arrests when threats are made. The reason is that the police have been advised by a civil lawyer if they do arrest they will be liable in civil law.

So it comes to this. Any attempt to interfere with free speech, because of the chilling effect that has in a democracy should be closely scrutinised. You are entitled to speak you mind where you are simply exercising lawful freedom of speech.

It's very sad that I read today that some police forces don't appear to be on top of this basic principle of law despite the Court of Appeal (Civil Division) in Miller v College of policing being clear on this. But I hope this assists anyone worried about this.

• hope Dennis doesn't mind me reproducing most of his thread here in case it's of use to any women worried about this issue. I'm not on Twitter so can't ask him directly. It's good to know that informed allies like Dennis are there to help.

There is no proof apart from a second hand anecdote concerning an unnamed party they even
This
I never get how people automatically would fire off a letter of complaint /get all it's chilling, terrifying etc etc over something they haven't even seen and have only ever heard second hand from an anonymous internet user, and even then it's usually only happened to a friend, not even them.
What happened to fact checking first instead of blindly taking as word everything you see or has that completely gone out of the window?!