Suella Braverman statement about police behaviour and TRA police officer response

But will no one think of my scrolling thumb? It’s so tired

MargotBamborough
We are not talking about Margaret standing outside Samantha's place of work. We are talking about Margaret photographing a sticker.
We are talking about how seemingly non crime non events can build into pattern of harassment. So if you have a reporting person who contacts the police and states that all of this is related and why - they should be listened to. I guarantee that the majority of these type of calls are screened out at source - but ones get passed the caller taker stage and dispatcher stage because there is something reported which may elude to a crime of harassment. Are are you happy for the police to say "sorry that you have experienced a series of events and you have finally plucked up the courage to contact us after this last incident -but we are not going to bother and we don't care your life is being made miserable - you should get a grip as the last incident is not even a crime!"

In all your long experience of dealing with harassment cases, has anyone ever been convicted of harassment for undertaking completely legal behaviour in a public place which is neither directed at nor involves the alleged "victim" in any way?
But you have no idea what the reporting person has said in the instance! - so if it does elude to a suspicion of harassment then there must have been a victim to it.
But again who's view point are you going off? The victim states that suspect is deliberately taking a photo to deliberately to intimidate them as its part of series of events. The suspect denies this, 'its a public place and I can do what I want'. Do we just ignore the victim then? After all we can't prove harassment as the suspect must 'know or ought to know'. Even if you use this mythical 'reasonable person' it will be down to a court to judge ultimately what a 'reasonable person' believes. Do we not even bother speaking to the 'suspect' and just assume what they will say to us?

Do we do this with other crimes - assaults for example. Just assume that the suspect will use a self-defence as their alibi, so we won't even bother speaking to them?

And yes - I convict people all the time for harassment/stalking who are engaging in legal behaviour - but their pattern of behaviour amounts to harassment/stalking.

You cannot commit harassment by accident just by looking at and photographing a sticker in a public place.......
And you're OK for the police just to assume this without any kind of investigation. So the reporting person has said that "...all of this is part of an ongoing harassment..." Without any form of investigation, you're happy for the police to just assume - '...well it must have been an accident...'

You obviously have no idea how harassment can affect a person's life and can often push them to the point of suicide, you can not just declare them 'nutters'. Was this older lady arrested, bundled into a van, arrested and held in a cell, remanded - no. She was merely spoken with. No crime was recorded against her.

Are we in a society now where police can not even speak to some one about an alleged offence or incident without having every bit of evidence against them before they do so?

I mean no disrespect, at all, to you @MargotBamborough - you do you!

I've served my time, I'm out early for good behaviour.

I have time on my hands for the next few days before I go back to work, which is why I've been able to engage. But I think it is worth pointing out, for the benefit of any lurkers, that what this person who has identified themselves as a police officer has said about harassment is incorrect.

They might be posting from an anonymous account, meaning that the police could dismiss their posts as not being the official position of the police (MNHQ if anyone reports this post I am NOT troll hunting, I have no reason to disbelieve anyone who says they are a police officer).

But it has echoes of what we have seen on Twitter from official police force accounts, where they appear to have misrepresented the law, either by accident or to suit their agenda. Several police forces tweeted that misgendering is a hate crime, forcing the then Attorney General to issue a statement saying that it most certainly is not.

well people explain all kinds of things on the internet.

I'm not playing chess with a pigeon. got no time for that.

The only way you can be unwittingly engaged in harassment is if a reasonable person ought to know that what you are doing is harassment, which I think probably sums up the mother of four saga nicely. They're harassing her whether they know that that is what they are doing or not. But they will get away with it due to the exemption in the legislation, despite the fact that what they are investigating is not actually criminal.

And in the mean time we have police officers on Mumsnet explaining that looking at a sticker could constitute harassment if the person looking at the sticker was also separately committing harassment, despite the fact that the person concerned hasn't committed harassment and that even if they had, the sticker wouldn't be relevant in any way because it is an interaction between the person photographing the sticker and her environment, not an interaction between her and a person she is supposedly harassing.

Jesus wept.

Well as we have seen in the Saga Of PC Useful, Sorry Police, Anti Terror Legislation and the Innocent Mother of Four, it's quite possible for the police to end up engaged, perhaps unwittingly*, in a campaign of harassment directed at an entirely innocent member of the public.

*let's say, charitably, that this is a case of Sorry Police being Useful Idiots - let's give them the benefit of the doubt

@BezMills I think they're also in danger of straying into harassment territory.

I posted a link to the Protection from Harassment Act above. There is an exemption for conduct in connection with preventing and investigating crimes, which is necessary because the police need to be able to interview people - even innocent people - in connection with crimes without being guilty of harassment.

But as has been said ad infinitum on this thread, photographing a sticker is neither a crime nor a course of conduct which could, in conjunction with other conduct, constitute harassment. You cannot commit harassment by accident just by looking at and photographing a sticker in a public place, no matter how upset someone might be to see you doing that, and no matter how many other issues that person might have going on in their life to cause such an extreme reaction.

Harassment requires a minimum of two incidents before it can be said to form a pattern of behaviour. The police would be well advised to steer well clear of sticker lady from now on, because if they interview her again in without there being a connection to any crime, I think it is they who would be guilty of harassment, and unable to rely on the exemption in the legislation if the reason they are paying her a visit is, yet again, not in connection with a crime, but to make someone who is offended feel that SoMeThInG hAs BeEn DoNe.

I have faith that most officers would rather not involve themselves in matters of sticker photography. Those that do, probably need 'words of advice' from a wise senior officer. There's plenty for the police forces to do, and this kind of Useful Idiocy is wasting their time and our money.

there isn't a hive mind, FFS, stop overreacting.

We are talking about actual events and the Police defenders are trying to tell us we're always wrong and the police are always on top of things. Or that they're not all bad.

Do you know what is bad? the bad ones. But also the ones who just let it all slide for the sake of a quiet life. Meahwhile old women have 3 plods visit to tell her she is Very Very Wrong to take a photograph of a sticker.

I used to have this board hidden and now I remember why

. I'm a woman . I want women only
Spaces and I agree with a lot but we'll have to agree to disagree .

I find these boards hostile prickly and difficult if you don't have a hive mind .

I'll let you get back to whatever point it is you're trying to prove.

But the ONE trans police officer who decried it out of 145,000 gets the front page .

also. You claim that this forum has an anti police agenda. It is utter tripe but then you write this bollocks (bold above) and show us you have UNDERSTOOD nothing of what has been written time after time page after page. One trans police officer isn't running the "let's have harsh words of advice, as 3 officers, to an old lady who took a photograph", are they? or are they?

There's no delusion. Most I know are tired , run into the ground with refereeing petty shit and just want to be catching the bad guys .

i nearly bust a rib. No. No. No.

That is delusional tripe. I read today about something going on in the Met area.
The plod are, as usual, doing the square root of fuck all. The victim's husband got video evidence, there is no indication the plod even went looking for it. So no. You are run into the ground with the weight of your own incompetence.

Met Police not taking masked stranger attack seriously - victim - BBC News

Because let's be very clear about this. The police are choosing to get involved in petty shit at the expense of real police matters. The police are choosing to toe the trans activist line.

Despite Felix's incessant bleating that they can't just ignore reports made to them because the activists would be very upset and go to the press, I guarantee you that if the police said, "You called us over a sticker? Stop wasting our time!" and booked the culprit, (a) the public would be 100% behind the police, and (b) the time wasting activists would stop doing it.

They are using the police as enablers and enforcers in their activism because the police allow themselves to be used in this way.

The only anti police agenda on this thread is coming from people like me who don't think the police should be getting involved in petty shit and would like nothing more than for them to get back to catching criminals.

Criminals.

Not women who photograph stickers own feminist books.

I'm glad that some of you applaud this letter.

Any ideas how we rid the police force of the ideologues who seem to think their job is to police thought crime instead of actual crime and assuage the hurt feelings of self obsessed activists?

I don't think police think they have a modicum of respect at all

They don't think anyone does

There's no delusion. Most I know are tired , run into the ground with refereeing petty shit and just want to be catching the bad guys .

There is and has a been an anti agenda on this forum for a long time . I'm not wanting g to debate any more than you are . It's pointless. People have their mind made up and the title here proves that point because the actual letter is about being impartial and not showing g any sympathy or affiliation with any political standpoint, be that trans , Black Lives Matter, pride , protests , anything.

But the ONE trans police officer who decried it out of 145,000 gets the front page .

That officer needs to tread very carefully if they have any sense because there is a very very clear social media policy and maybe they're just an idiot.

But that one does not stand for the opinion of the other 145,000 rank and file police , I absolutely applaud this directive . Brilliant . Let's get back to catching criminals instead of doing the fucking Macarena.

You can't win in real life , you ain't ever gonna here .

The reason you won't 'win' (odd choice of word) is because you cannot and will not look objectively at what the perception the public have of what the Police has become, you will not look at yourselves and find yourselves wanting in any way shape or form. That is why public confidence in the Police is nose diving, funnily enough the Police need the public just as much as the public need the Police.

If the Police as a whole took a long, hard, objective look at themselves and what they have become, accepted that was not what the public wanted or expected of them and put in place the requirements to change then they would get somewhere, they would earn back the respect of the majority of the public and yes the Police do need to earn back the respect of the public.

The irony is the cohort of people they are pandering to now would defund the Police in a heartbeat and usually have the anacronym ACAB in their social media bios. If the Police seriously think the activists they are appeasing at the moment have a modicum of respect for them they are seriously fucking deluded.

That is not the exact wording in the legislation but that is what it means in layman's terms. The person has to be engaging in conduct which they ought to know constitutes the harassment of a particular person because any reasonable person would think that it does.

Our sticker photographer is lacking a specific victim and has not engaged in any behaviour which a reasonable person would think was harassment.

I qualified as a solicitor 10 years ago this week, since you ask.

margot

In order for a course of behaviour to constitute harassment it needs to be directed at a victim and intended to harm them on some level. You can't accidentally harass a nosy bystander by photographing a sticker they object to.

Where did you do your law degree because you need to ask for a refund

That is not the legal definition of harassment.

He's not explaining police procedures, he's fabricating a completely fictional scenario to justify why it might be reasonable or proportionate for police officers to go and question an innocent lady for photographing a sticker because some nutter has taken offence to it and thinks the police are there to avenge their hurt feelings.

And he's demonstrating that at least some of the police don't understand what harassment is.

In order for a course of behaviour to constitute harassment it needs to be directed at a victim and intended to harm them on some level. You can't accidentally harass a nosy bystander by photographing a sticker they object to.

I do think you should ignore events which are not crimes and do not require police attention actually Felix, yes.

Particularly events such as photographing stickers which are neither a crime nor evidence of hatred.

If I call you up at your place of work and report both Owen Jones and Billy Bragg for committing daily non hate crime incidents towards women on Twitter, are we to assume you will give the matter your full attention? Will you go round to their houses and tell them that their behaviour, whilst completely legal, is upsetting to women and that they should knock it off if they know what's good for them?

If not, why are you not unequivocally condemning your police colleagues' heavy handed treatment of Margaret?

Felix, please focus.

We are not talking about Margaret standing outside Samantha's place of work. We are talking about Margaret photographing a sticker.

In all your long experience of dealing with harassment cases, has anyone ever been convicted of harassment for undertaking completely legal behaviour in a public place which is neither directed at nor involves the alleged "victim" in any way?

Isn't the answer here actually for Samantha to mind her own fucking business?

If Samantha is following Margaret around to see if she does anything that could be reported to the police as a non hate crime incident, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Samantha is the one harassing Margaret?

Why don't we just ignore felix and hopefully he'll go away. Don't engage.