Suella Braverman statement about police behaviour and TRA police officer response

I just went back to page 1 and the OP as I thought I must have somehow wandered into any number of threads that start of about something specific and then get hijacked.

Hopefully when and if the review SB has asked for is completed we can then hav a discussion about the proposals.

Not sure that it is worth commentating on this thread until that happens.

Cant understand why if someone wants to promote a particular view point they dont start a thread about it.

LarkLane
I'm using the same rights that you have to post on here.
And the forum is 'by parents for parents'

The sticker might be seriously affecting the person's life. But it is not a crime.

The job of the police is to prevent and investigate crimes.

The appropriate response here is to say, "I'm sorry you are very upset about the sticker but putting up stickers and taking photos of stickers are not crimes. This is not a police matter."

Not, "I'm sorry you are very upset about the sticker and even though no crime has been committed we will pay a visit to the person who photographed the sticker and tell her how upset you are and maybe hint that taking pictures of stickers might be a criminal matter so she knows to be much more careful around stickers in the future, if that will make you feel better."

Brefugee · Today 15:28
That's what I was talking about. Felix said several times that we couldn't know it was a serial complainer (they did) and that each individual report should be judged on its own merits (hmmm-a counter to that should be, at this stage, CF should be able to claim harassment but IANAL) ad nausea ad infinitum

No - I gave a disclaimer at the bottom of most of my posts on that thread:
Disclaimer - I am using 'we' to mean me and most others on here. I acknowledge that some on here will know or have been told the details of the complaint and I am aware that Caroline may have access to this thread or indeed people close to her. I also acknowledge that the reporting person, OIC and direct witnesses may also read the thread and hence will not be included in the term 'we'.

But it goes back to the question then - at what point do we ignore any further contact from that reporting person? After the 5th time, 10th time? Is it any calls about any offence from this person? Do we use the same principal for all crimes/incidents reported to police by people?

And CF can make a complaint of harassment against the reporting person if she so wishes.

AnneElliott
So these sticker issues need to be given the short shrift that the other time wasters do.

I agree - but what if they 'over egg the pudding' and make out that they are being harassed and its seriously affecting their life?

Most time wasting calls get binned either by the call taker or at the dispatcher stage - but some are thrived and get through.

MargotBamborough
Can we at least agree that whilst there are current thefts which have not been investigated, the police shouldn't be dedicating any time to stickers?

Of course

What I am suggesting is that if the reporting person has contacted police and just reported that some old lady has taken a photo of a sticker - then it should be binned at source.

But perhaps the reporting person has added much more onto the call to make the call taker think its a lot more involved than just a sticker and that it is seriously affecting her life. Do we still bin it at source?

Really? Rather at odds with this:

YouGov has routinely asked Britons (between 1,627 and 1,820 people at a time) about their confidence in the police to deal with crime in their local area. The first survey for this was in July 2019, when 53 percent said they had “a lot/a fair amount of confidence” whereas in April 2023 this decreased to 39 percent.

And this:

Surveys conducted by the polling organisation YouGov indicate a loss of public confidence in the police:

• YouGov’s monthly tracker “Are the police doing a good job” shows that over the course of 2020 an average of 70% of respondents thought the police were doing a good job relative to 21% who thought they were doing a bad job. However, by April 2023 these figures were 47% and 44% respectively.
• Similarly, the proportion of people who had not very much confidence or no confidence at all in the police to deal with crime averaged 38% in 2020. As of April 2023, this figure had risen to 53%.

I don't waste my time engaging on diversionary debates with the poster who thinks FWR stands for Felix against Women's Rights Brefugee

What decent, genuine, male, police officer of 23 years on response (allegedly) in an English Police Service, thinks it appropriate to obsessively post uninformed diversionary bollocks on a feminist board day after day?

The police have procedures in place as AnneElliot has pointed out.

Yet there are many examples of these procedures not being correctly followed/ignored when it comes to the likes of CF and others.

We ( the women here) can all see that there's something exceptionally rotten going on.

That's what I was talking about. Felix said several times that we couldn't know it was a serial complainer (they did) and that each individual report should be judged on its own merits (hmmm-a counter to that should be, at this stage, CF should be able to claim harassment but IANAL) ad nausea ad infinitum

I believe the te hnical term is cognitive dissonance

When we were suggesting that Sorry Police go do some Real Work rather than harassing Caroline F, it is my recollection that Felix repeatedly implied that we didn't know that the busy mother of four wasn't waging a campaign of violence. Sure, seems unlikely but we after all don't know for sure she's not Criminal Masterminding while sitting in the Berlingo waiting for her kid to finish swimming practice.

After all, Sorry Police would not be harassing her using powers designed to thwart terror attacks, if she wasn't head of some kind of Mumsy Terror Plot. Would they.

Thanks @AnneElliott for your helpful and timely input.

Here's a West Midlands Police document on the use of THRIVE, if anyone is interested.
https://foi.west-midlands.police.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/THRIVE.pdf

It has clickey links to the National Decision Making Model, Policing Principles, and Code of Ethics.
There's also a link to a Greater Manchester Police training video on the use of THRIVE ( 3 minutes)

I think your comments on press interest are a fair bit of nonsense Felix. All police forces use THRIVE now don't they to allocate calls? Mainly because lots of batshit people ring up the police with matters that are a waste of time. Certainly when we got a briefing on THRIVE, considering what the press might think wasn't part of it

The whole point is to empower call handlers to actually determine what needs a pop or response and every CAD call list I've ever seen has actual crimes with real victims that the police just don't have resources to deal with as they're busy dealing with more serious offences. So these sticker issues need to be given the short shrift that the other time wasters do.

That would the surveys given to self identifying victims of non crime hate incidents. The surveys that aren't given to the women who try to report death and rape threats but are told to "just stay off twitter" etc. Those surveys @Felix125 yes

You're up for legalising theft basically in order to have available time to do... what exactly?

Chase people about looking at stickers that suggest reality exists?

Bloody hell. Wtaf are my taxes being used for? And wtf am I doing co operating with and enabling this?

Can we at least agree that whilst there are current thefts which have not been investigated, the police shouldn't be dedicating any time to stickers?

JanesLittleGirl
Its not about bad PR - its about doing the job properly and investigating what has been reported.

I have no problem dealing with the shop theft all day - its straight forward if lengthy. But if you want all thefts to be investigated, you lose your resources.

OK, I've been racking my brains and I have managed to think of one circumstance in which the police paying a visit to sticker photo lady might be justified.

On 12th July, Samantha Price, an AMAB woman, is walking back from the shops when she sees a woman in her 70s deliberately damaging her car. The woman realises she is being observed and runs away. Samantha reports the incident to the police but as there was no CCTV in the area and no other witnesses, they don't have enough information to investigate and inform Samantha that they are unable to take the matter further at this time. On 30th July Samantha is exiting the tube station when she sees the same woman taking a photograph of a transphobic sticker which has been placed on a trans rights poster. Samantha informs the police, who obtain CCTV from TfL and are thus able to identify the woman taking the photo of the sticker and attend her home to question her about the earlier damage to the car.

However, given that the only thing they have evidence of this woman actually doing is taking a photo of a sticker, which is not a crime, and they only have Samantha's word for it that it is the same woman who damaged her car, and assuming that the woman is likely to say, "Huh? What's wrong with taking a photo of a sticker? And what's that got to do with someone damaging a car? I didn't damage anyone's car and I have never even met the person who has complained about me!" it's difficult to see how even this would be a good use of police time.

oldwomanwhoruns
Males who wave pink and blue flags?

So what 'gold plated service' are they getting?

MargotBamborough
Come on Felix, you can't expect us to believe that.

You don't believe that people attend police stations and provide statements saying that they are being harassed by a series of events which is now starting to turn their life upside down?

That they will make out that it is much more serious than just a sticker incident? That it is ongoing harassment and targeted at them?

DV's are of course a lot more serious - but the point is that a lot of people don't phone the police at the fist instance of harassment - be it by a partner, ex-partner, a friend, a colleague, a stranger.....

Are you really using the word "incident" to describe both "my husband tried to strangle me" and "I saw a woman taking a picture of a sticker"?

They both get called into police as 'incidents'. They are then assessed and graded as to threat, harm, risk.

So a husband trying to strangle his partner would be graded as an emergency and officers sent. The sticker one will be classed as a minor 'incident' unless something else is attached to it.

Most of these sticker type incidents will be written off at the call taker stage. We will get loads of calls to the police which do not need any police action and are written off bu the call taker. Even if it get passed them, the dispatchers can write it off. But every now and then, something is mentioned which makes it progress further. It will be graded as low priority, but still need to be looked at further.

You definitely get a better class of alternative facts on MN. 👏

Felix, you well know which males we are talking about. And you have been on this board long enough to know that most of our descriptions will result in a deletion.

Males who wave pink and blue flags?

Are you really using the word "incident" to describe both "my husband tried to strangle me" and "I saw a woman taking a picture of a sticker"?

I assume she means males who believe they are in a vulnerable minority group due to their personal identity, and the police questioning women who have committed no crimes about stickers and what books they have on their bookshelves at the behest of that group, when there are actual crimes which need investigating.

Come on Felix, you can't expect us to believe that.

Given the number of sexual assaults, burglaries, robberies and so on which aren't investigated at all, stickers should NEVER be making it off the "as and when" list.

It's also, in my view, grossly offensive to make the comparison with someone who only reports domestic abuse after the 15th incident, for reasons which ought to be obvious but I will list some anyway:

• victims of domestic abuse are reporting someone they are in an intimate relationship with or otherwise related to, not a stranger

• victims of domestic abuse know that reporting the abuse is going to turn their lives upside down, tear their family apart, and quite possibly make them homeless

• victims of domestic abuse are usually experiencing the boiled frog effect, i.e. they've started off in a seemingly happy relationship with just the odd weird moment here and there, only for it to develop into an abusive relationship over time, making it very difficult to acknowledge that they are being abused

• victims of domestic abuse are often pregnant when the abuse starts and their abuser is their child or children's other parent

• victims of domestic abuse often feel a sense of shame in being abused and do not want to admit that they were taken in and made a catastrophic error of judgement (middle class professional women in particular tend to feel that they are not the sort of person who should be capable of being abused)

• victims of domestic abuse have often been gaslit by their abuser into believing that the abuse is their own fault and that they could stop it simply by changing their own behaviour

• victims of domestic abuse know that if they report the abuse to the police and they are not believed or nothing is done, the abuse will escalate and they will be in even greater danger than they were before

• victims of domestic abuse have probably heard a lot of stories about other victims who reported abuse to the police and nothing was done, so they lack faith in the system

• victims of domestic abuse often can't afford to leave their abuser because they have no independent access to money.

All of these are reasons why a victim of domestic abuse might not come forward until the abuse has been going on for a while and has reached crisis point.

None of these circumstances apply to the victims of transphobic stickering, or victims of members of the public having the temerity to look at or photograph transphobic stickers.

oldwomanwhoruns
And explain to us why males of a certain 'type' seem to be getting gold-plated service from the police.

You need to explain 'males of a certain type' and 'getting a gold-plated service from the police.'