New Year New Judicial Review? CPS Hate Crime Guidance for schools

[Spero]

If you haven't seen this, I think you should.

www.faircop.org.uk/post/police-must-not-patrol-trans-discussion-in-schools

In brief, the CPS have published guidance about hate crimes in school - but won't let parents see the guidance. Its for teachers only. I've emailed for a copy and so have others. I have a child in the school system. I want to know how serious the risk is that she will be arrested and charged for discussing biology.

I think anyone else who is also worried should email the CPS and ask to see the guidance.

Teachers and schools can download the pack from this website. This is a resource for schools, so a password is required to download the pack. This can be requested by emailing [email protected].

Why on Earth are they including examples that cannot be shared? And if they cannot be shared then why are they sharing them with hundreds of thousands of teachers and teenagers?

Rejecting someone or not wanting to work with them because of their sexual orientation, trans identity or perceived trans identity

Are disability, race / pregnancy (and the rest of the protected characteristics) not included in that definition? If this is the CPS guidance, then why have they just selected these two? Are they telling children that there's a hierarchy and that race and disability don't count? (knows the answer but is ever optimistic)

And what is the definition of 'rejecting someone"? As a sexual partner? As a friend?

There is no definition of 'rejection'

However, as this is also an example of 'hate' I am going to assume it includes sexual rejection

"Ostracising and excluding from friendship groups"

I've only got to page 25 now and must have a break.
I think most of it now is just 'case studies' but I think section 4 is going to be very important - where they talk about 'identifying criminal offences'

Is the inability to draw lines around anything that does not prioritise/include straight men the ultimate result?

If legislation still had a different age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex that would have to be state that either gender identity was or was not a factor which would make writing a lot of guidelines and practice less blurry.
I can’t actually think of any differences which exist (good) which would aid the difference being pointed out (bad).

Child benefit used to be universal regardless of income and was designed to provide unemployed mothers with direct access to money in order to feed/ clothe children regardless of family income to aid with financial control/abuse. It also gave national insurance contributions protecting future pension. - Gone. So high earning men can make sure their wives cannot access any money without their say so and the women have no national insurance contributions to state pension.

Shared parental leave - great in theory, the more men who take equal time off the better but I do wonder if women are being coerced by their partners to sign off the sharing. It’s not an extra government benefit for the other parent it’s only possible if the mother gives up some maternity leave which women fought for. The amount of time, the amount of pay all fought for by women. Be nice, share.

And then there is all the how do you protect sex based women’s rights if you can’t define what is a woman.

But it’s okay, we have the Equalties Act and discussion and oh yeah, no. We have No Debate and prosecution of hate crime instead.

Thank you so much Spero
It really is unbelievable that the CPS and police are prepared to police what should be individual autonomy, boundaries and rights to consent.

If anyone could PM me a copy of the CPS guidance (anonymously if need be) I would be grateful. We're still working on the EHRC guidance, but what Spero posted suggests to me that the CPS guidance potentially violates articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Keeping it secret from parents already potentially breaches

Article 5 (parental guidance and a
child’s evolving capacities)

^Governments must respect the rights and
responsibilities of parents and carers to
provide guidance and direction to their
child as they grow up, so that they fully
enjoy their rights. This must be done in a
way that recognises the child’s increasing
capacity to make their own choices.^

Article 18 (parental responsibilities
and state assistance)

^Both parents share responsibility for
bringing up their child and should always
consider what is best for the child. Governments must support parents by
creating support services for children and
giving parents the help they need to raise
their children.^

Keeping the guidance secret means parents cannot adequately protect their children from falling afoul of the law.

Bold and italic fail

Bold and italic fail

Sorry for the double post. On a really fast, really wobbly train with slow and wobbly internet connection.

Sorry for off topic posts btw.

I’m going to have a good think about anything in the last 30 years that appeared progressive or at least not harmful which enables unexpected beneficial results for another agenda.

Children excluding someone from their friendship group is 'hate'?

Seriously.

Children may make no decisions on whether a person is someone they like, want to spend time with, treats them well etc.... saying no to any LGBT (and we know what that means) child who wants to be with them = hate.

Putting aside for a moment the pure irrationality of it and that adults certainly make choices on who is and isn't a friend (kind of the definition of friendship) and part of their chosen social circle, and that personal boundaries aren't hate how on earth are teachers supposed to police that? What are parents going to say when their child comes home in tears and says they were told they had to play with x because otherwise it was a hate crime?

A plays with B who is trans but A and B say won't play with C who is also trans but is unkind to them. C is pissed off about this and complains to staff.

Are A and B both guilty of a hate crime?

What about the two hundred other kids on the playground with other protected characteristics, how does this work for them?

Precisely, Michelleoftheresistance.

And article 5 doesn't just speak to the responsibility of parents to look after the interests of their child, it also demands that the child's capabilities are taken into account.

Does this guidance sufficiently distinguish between an 11 year old and an 18 year old pupil? Does it take into account that children function at a different level from adults? That their pre-frontal cortex is immature, longterm consequences of their actions are difficult to understand for children?

Is this guidance in the best interests of all children? (Article 3)

As per the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), children also have a right to freedom of expression, to have their views respected, a eight to privacy, to freedom of thought, belief and religion.

"Discipline in schools must respect children's dignity and their rights."
(Article 28)

I mean FFS did they go out their way to breach the UNCRC?

Contrasting the cps info about disability hate crime might be useful.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/disability-hate-crime-and-other-crimes-against-disabled-people-prosecution-guidance

There is quite a large amount of boxes to tick to get it considered as a hate crime.

I can’t find anything that suggests my autistic child could count “ostracising and excluding from friendship groups” as a disability hate crime.

Ok so This

www.youthandpolicing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CPS-LGBT-Hate-Crime_teacher_pack.pdf

Compare to

www.youthandpolicing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/CPS-Disability-Hate-Crime.pdf

I wonder about the section on categories that might take place within school. It looks like a one way system to shut down any discussion of competing protected characteristics. Maybe we should print T shirts that say Trans rights are human rights on one side with Woman - adult human female on the other.

Also unless the dates are wrong those have been out side by side for some time.

So if Sarah and Emily don't want to play with Angela who was Andrew until last week, that's a hate crime?!

If Sarah and Emily like Angela and enjoy Angela's company then all is fine. What I'm interested in is if Angela is a dick to Sarah and Emily and insists on Sarah and Emily doing as Angela says, is saying no to Angela now a hate crime on the grounds that however Angela behaves, Angela is trans and has a magic trump card staff must obey? Could this system be open to exploitation at all? Would this in any way take responsibility from Angela to learn to manage Angela's behaviour in a way that means other kids want to play with them?

And if John, Ben, Katie and Elizabeth are four kids watching Angela's progress who amongst them have some social skill issues, behaviour challenges, and/or social communication challenges, so aren't the popular kids and don't find friendships and social relationships easy, and are lonely, isolated and frustrated, are they being shown a magic way out?

And are those kids going to find inclusion, friendship and everything they hope for, or are they going to find that kids forced to perform friendship at them are going to be angry, resentful and that 'being nice' out of fear really isn't the same as friendship?

The support of inclusion for kids with additional needs for years has walked the line of helping kids learn to have friendships and have relationships with peers and encourage understanding and inclusion without enforcing that Sophie MUST sit with James at lunchtime every day because James wants it, and because otherwise James has a massive meltdown. Even though Sophie doesn't like James, and wants to sit with her chosen friends. Sophie's actually being commandeered as a tool to minimise inconvenience to staff and she's being taught all sorts of inappropriate things in the process: but she's providing a useful short cut to actually addressing and meeting James' needs.

Which is the real issue. Comorbidities are known to abound in kids raising gender identity questions. Many unmet needs.

But sex is also protected characteristic. So are girl is going to be committing a hate crime for not wanting to play with boys?

*girls

I can't wait for this to get into the newspapers.

A plays with B who is trans but A and B say won't play with C who is also trans but is unkind to them. C is pissed off about this and complains to staff.

If looks could kill they probably will in Games Without Frontiers. War without tears.

@BustedWench

Datun ‘hate crimes’ do not accord with the equality act - sex is not included.

Michelle - I have an autistic child and school has been a hard road - particularly primary. I have never wanted the school to force friendships. However hard it has been at times - and there has been a lot of exclusion (no party invites, after school activities, etc) - it's not up to individual other children. Schools need to encourage inclusion and I hate whole class parties which exclude the one weird kid but when it comes to small groups of two or three, no one can or should force children to include a child they don't gel with.

And it's an awful lesson to teach children about their boundaries.