Sex Matters & WRN - Judicial Review of strip searching policy by Police Chiefs and British Transport Police

It seems from skim reading the judgment that his reasoning is very #bekind special pleading, trans people are more vulnerable than others. I guess SM counsel didn’t quite manage to make the case to him for why it’s harmful.

At the end he says he rejected a half arsed attempt from GLP to intervene really late on. He says if there is an appeal they can do it then. They wanted to make the intervention on the grounds that FWS wasn’t relevant to PACE, and on HRA section 3 (which is about compatibility with the European Convention).

Well the appeal will be interesting.

Batshit decision on a batshit muddle of vague policy ideas.

Good grief.
Again this speaks to the nature of certain very senior and powerful police officers that they've sanctioned this argument to place opposite sex intimate searches outside PACE. Long overdue that for these people to be identified and made to explain their thinking. Checks of hard drives might also be worth considering.

Good to see that Sex Matters are challenging this.

Update:

"The High Court has ruled against Sex Matters in our case against the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and British Transport Police (BTP) over their “consensual” searching policies.

Mr Justice Linden accepted a series of extraordinary legal arguments from the police, which included that constables can enter into consensual agreements with people in custody in the same way that private citizens can enter into consensual agreements with each other. It accepted an analogy drawn by counsel for the police between such “consensual” searches and private citizens consenting to sadomasochistic acts.

We will be seeking permission to appeal this judgment, which we believe is wrong in law."

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/challenging-the-shadow-strip-searching-regime/

I'm just flagging the latest Sex Matters podcast where Helen Joyce and Cathy Larkman from WRN (who is a retired police superintendent) discussed this case. It was really interesting.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5uASNfwmsRNpAp0oNpKF7M?si=b-hZc5nBQ0aoH3fymsE2dA

I suppose it's a slightly mad extension of this whole ideology - 'reality is whatever I say it is, rules and boundaries bend as and when I want them without logic or anyone else's interests mattering, and I have more power than others and can make them pretend whatever I say by threats, name calling and bloody great temper tantrums.'

The whole defence in this case is frankly bizarre the common law rules are not applicable as PACE is mandatory

Isn't it an offence to pretend to be a Police Officer? If a copper opts out of PACE to search a member of the opposite sex are they even still a Police Officer? Or are they imitating one? Are they some kind of Schrodinger's plod?

Quite.

Can a copper punch an annoying member of the public in the face during an arrest and then say for that moment he was being another member of the public rather than on duty in uniform on paid time doing a job with strict codes?

So which other parts of the police code can they potentially opt out of by claiming they are acting as a private citizen at that point? 🤔 What if the officer is assaulted by the prisoner? Does that mean they’d not be covered for insurance and other purposes because they are acting as a private citizen rather than a police officer? It seems a very dangerous precedent to set!

Presumably there are some very senior police officers with an overkeen interest in repeatedly breaching boundaries and enabling assault? Otherwise why is this in court?

It's long overdue that there was a compulsory deep dive into the hard drives of all the senior officers promoting these policies. That might weed out the type of people trying to push this through the courts.

I would only consent if I thought force would be used against me and I’d get hurt resisting. That isn’t consent IMO.

Quite so, if they identify out of PACE , aren't they identifying out of being a police officer so can't do anything to you?

If an officer opts out of PACE and becomes an ordinary citizen so they can get consent, does this mean they will change out of their police uniforms as well? Because that would surely muddy the waters too as the whole point of a police uniform is that you recognise that person has police powers and isn't acting as a citizen.

I would (probably feel I had to) consent to a strip search by an officer of the law but I would run a mile from a citizen requesting the same. And those that wouldn't would be showing they are vulnerable and therefore need even greater protections such as a social worker.

Wow

This is such a terrible argument I can only think that counsel has been left clutching to straws by the client. If they have insisted on having these guidelines defended, I wonder if that is because opposite sex intimate searches have been going on and could leave them with colossal bills for damages when the victims sue.

Eh?! The argument is that you can 'contract out' of part of PACE?! Christ.

I know we say this a lot but I just don’t get this. Why does this matter to the police so much? It’s like the Scottish Government going to court to defend putting men in with women prisoners. Why is this a hill they will die on?

I know some will say the answer is that this is what men want but men want lots of things that the government, police etc don’t jump to do.

seriously if they are talking about police officers swapping in an out of their roles in order to do these searches then that is insane

Well that was clear as mud to this un-lawerly soul. Police not using police powers but using citizenship?

Flaming hell, that complicated double think

Absolutely this. Who in their right mind consents to an intimate search for the purposes of evidence being secured against them? If the person being searched knew it was entirely by consent, they'd surely withdraw that consent? They are only consenting to being searched by the opposite sex officer because either - they don't want a same sex officer doing it (so coercion and not freely given) or because they actually get something out of the opposite sex person searching them (so a fetish and then you have the issue of the police offering suspects a sexual opportunity while they are in custody).

Just to point out - it's not the US. The search not meeting PACE standards would not automatically make the evidence unuseable. But it does give the person searched a case for civil action against the police, so compensation and time and effort which might be enough leverage to get the police to drop a minor "victimless" crime charge.

You may be thinking of the term "Common Law Wife/Husband" which does not exist in English law. But England and Wales are common law jurisdictions which means the basis of the law in England and Wales comes from the common law that judges in the middle-ages developed. Lots of legal reasoning and offences still hold, but laws passed by parliament (statute) over ride where they say they do. Several places that we colonised, like the US, also base their law on common law.

Common law is very much a thing.

Reminds me of that movie quote (where's it from?) "When a man with a gun asks you to do something, he's not really asking."