Crown Prosecution Service – Hate Crimes in School You need to look at this

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

Below is a link to the new CPS LGBT hate crime school guidance. This is really worrying as it will potentially criminalize girls and boys who want to uphold their single sex based legal rights to single sex dormitories, toilets, changing rooms. It argues that other forms of bullying, such as racism, anti Semitism, islamophobia, because of a disability, is not as important or serious. Check out P25, p33 and the examples in particular

Safe Schools Alliance and Fair Cop are concerned about some of the content of this guidance:

It creates a hierarchy of rights.
It blurs the distinction between hate crime, which is defined in law, and ‘hate incidents’, which are not.
It seeks to create a fear among children of being criminalised for asserting sex-based rights or discussing biological reality.
It suggests that any child who states a preference for single-sex spaces is committing a hate incident, and possibly a hate crime.
It suggests that wearing slogans or sharing information with others that recognises biological facts may be treated as a hate crime or incident.
It promotes the ideology of political lobby groups Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence, which have no known qualifications to advise on child safeguarding.

We are asking parents, teachers, governors, and anyone else who is concerned about this guidance to write to the CPS to complain

Key links/info

The problematic CPS schools hate crime document:

www.cps.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/publications/CPS-LGBT-Hate-Crime-schools-pack-December-2019-IF.pdf

MN threads for inspiration

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3804613-New-Year-New-Judicial-Review-CPS-Hate-Crime-Guidance-for-schools

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3804613-New-Year-New-Judicial-Review-CPS-Hate-Crime-Guidance-for-schools

Safeschool Alliance guidance on concerns with the policy

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2020/01/28/write-to-the-crown-prosecution-service/

Information on who to complain to - please suggest others!:

All MPs members.parliament.uk/members/Commons

EHRC - www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/contact-us/general-enquiries-and-information

CPS -
www.cps.gov.uk/contact (I am unsure if the complaints section is just for those who are within the criminialjustice system).

Useful info

childprotectionresource.online/the-crown-prosecution-service-in-the-classroom/

Link to the Dept of Education

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/about/complaints-procedure#how-to-make-a-complaint-about-the-department-for-education

You appear to have difficulty comprehending the document. At the very least, your interpretation is vastly overreaching. The document says nothing about LGBT hate crime versus other hate offences. It also does not equate preference for single-sex spaces with hate crimes. A careful reading reveals that the only occasion "single-sex" is mentioned is in the sentence: "Under the Equality Act 2010, providers may exclude transgender people from single-sex facilities if they can show it is a proportionate way to
achieve a legitimate objective."

Instead of peddling fear, read the document calmly!

Completely agree @LondonW3

It’s called the LGBT Bullying and Hate Crime project. That’s what it’s about entirely.

It’s also inaccurate and makes claims such as:
“Refusing service is against the law (Equality Act)” which is simply not true. We have (no thanks to Stonewall who are campaigning to abolish single sex spaces) the single sex exemption which means that certain services can be provided to one sex alone on a segregated basis if it is essential (changing rooms for instance).

I wouldn’t trust Stonewall as far as I could throw them. They don’t make the law but they consistently misrepresent it as they have done here. They also have no locus or expertise on safeguarding which should be front and centre in any guidance to schools.

And note in the scenario about a transwoman in the ladies that pupils are asked how the transwoman feels. Not how women and girls feel at having their privacy destroyed. It’s shocking.

We should all want to know what our schools are doing to ensure bullying is prevented but that doesn’t mean safeguarding can be dismantled.

And of course “single sex” is mentioned only once. Stonewall want to abolish the concept. Unfortunately for them the concept still exists in law (for now).

Bit of an own goal there W3.

What "own goal"? Simply, I know how to read and don't jump to conclusions without actually reading a document.

I actually sent the cps link to hate crime to ds school recently as a lawyer friend sent me the link.

In actual fact the wording for every type is exactly the same and I used it to demonstrate in law their is no heirachy in protected characteristics and they needed to sort it. I've often said society sees a heirachy where law does not.

The point is that Stonewall really don’t want people to know that there is a legal basis for keeping single sex spaces. That’s why it’s only mentioned once despite the whole scenario being a nonsense because schools are entitled (and indeed obliged by virtue of building regs) to have single sex loos (unless they have individual cubicles without gaps at floor or ceiling and with hand washing facilities within the cubicle).

No indeed there is no hierarchy. Although this doc firmly places girls and their privacy right at the bottom of the pile.

Wonder if the CPS have ever done guidance to schools on misogynistic bullying ?

Obviously they couldn’t have done anything on misogynistic hate crime since there’s no such thing as a hate crime against women but their words on preventing poor treatment of girls in schools will surely be published shortly. Unless there really is a hierarchy and girls’ needs matter less to the CPS.

A careful reading reveals that the only occasion "single-sex" is mentioned is in the sentence: "Under the Equality Act 2010, providers may exclude transgender people from single-sex facilities if they can show it is a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate objective.

That's the sentence that needs highlighting (in pink?) and sending to every school currently thinking that they MUST allow transgender male students to use female facilities and vice versa.

Avoiding accidentally barring girls from their own facilities or avoiding making them embarrassed and uncomfortable IS a legitimate aim.

Obviously they couldn’t have done anything on misogynistic hate crime since there’s no such thing as a hate crime against women but their words on preventing poor treatment of girls in schools will surely be published shortly. Unless there really is a hierarchy and girls’ needs matter less to the CPS.

The CPS don't make the law. It is not their fault that the current definition of hate crime in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Criminal Justice Act 2003 excludes offences motivated by age or gender. The CPS cannot change this. Lobby your MP.

I know all of that. So wondering why they are misrepresenting the law here.

None of this guidance to schools is in their remit.

In what way are they misrepresenting the law?

I note one of your earlier posts says that it is not true that refusing service is against the law under the Equality Act. They are absolutely right on that point. Except in limited circumstances, if you provide a service you cannot refuse to provide that service to someone based on a protected characteristic.

You can because of the single sex exemption.

women’s single sex spaces are circumstances which are covered here. And there are actually countless examples of services being provided to one group and not another (pop up urinals in Soho to pick just one example I read about today, women-only swimming sessions, intimate beauty services - we haven’t yet had a Yaniv). And that’s before you get on to the need to provide different types of protection to women and girls because of the specific risks they run. It is acceptable to run women-only breastfeeding groups for instance and to mandate that you have women only rape crisis centres. Perfectly reasonable to have men only ones too if there’s demand for it.

Those are all examples of the circumstances in which an exemption applies. The pack correctly states the exemption used in all the cases you cite a couple of paragraphs after the sentence to which you object - providers may exclude trans-gender people from single-sex facilities if they can show it is a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate object (I presume the clip to which it refers is about a trans-gender person).

The law is that you cannot refuse a service to someone based on a protected characteristic. However, it is a defence to show that the exclusion is a proportionate way of achieving a legitimate aim. So, in the context of toilets, if you provide facilities for men and women you can potentially stop someone who is biologically male from using the female facilities, but you must allow them to use one of the facilities (or have special facilities for them).

Yes. I know. The sentence at the top of that section in the guidance is wrong. That’s my point.

I don’t expect teachers to know this. But the CPS should.

And then not use correctly applied single sex exemption such as the provision of single sex toilets in schools as part of a discussion about how a transwoman would feel. In a document apparently advising schools on what constitutes a hate crime.

They are either a) muddled about the law hence their misrepresentation in that sentence or b) trying to obfuscate the law with stuff about how the transwoman feels combined with references to hate crimes.

Good luck to any 12 year old girl wanting privacy in this scenario. Unless she’s a skilled lawyer who can dismiss the erroneous language in this document and who is also brave enough to chance an accusation of committing a hate crime - she’s going to keep quiet about this erosion of her rights isn’t she. Well done CPS. Excellent work.