14.02.20 Live updates on Harry and Kate’s cases HERE

[MrsSnippyPants]

I shall be glued to social media this morning and thought it might be useful to have a place where we can post updates as they come in so people need to follow just one thread.
Please post Twitter handles of anyone providing live updates as you find them.
@WeAreFairCop are saying it is likely the judgement will NOT be read out so they hope to get a copy and summarise and tweet after 10.30am

The judgment for him is incredibly important and can be referred to in future legal cases.This alone is a big win
I agree. And I think the reference to Kathleen Stock's analysis about spurious accusations of transphobia and that this is a debate not a monologue are particularly encouraging

What is this please? Sorry if I'm being ignorant!

This alone is a big win.

It's huge.

TRAs are harnessing existing legislation and twisting it to support their, as the judge puts that, 'outer margins of rationality'.

Hate crime, hate speech, hate incidents, equality law, harassment laws, malicious communication laws, all of it.

And if each one needs to be put before a judge and a ruling made, then so be it.

More and more people are enthusiastically picking up their spades.

Onwards to the Supreme Court then!

I think there should be serious evidence of actual hate before the police record things like tweets as HCNC - where's the line? Who decides? It is extremely subjective, and yes, open to abuse.

BBC News are reporting this - they're concentrating on whether Harry's tweeting is acceptable or not. Dorks.

The judgment
emphasises the vital importance of free speech in a democracy and provides a
reminder that free speech includes not only the inoffensive, but the irritating,
the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the
provocative, and that the freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth
having

So one can cause irritation but not "annoyance"? How can you differentiate? Clear as mud...

Barracker - that's my feelings exactly.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/14/police-compared-stasi-gestapo-judge-rules-interfered-freedom/

Of course, this could lead to a delightful game of counter-accusing, where those who see transphobia everywhere are in turn attacked for disability hate or race hate etc (as the College of Policing assure us earnestly the massive overreach of the law applies to everyone, not just transpeople).

Much of the hate directed at Caroline Farrow appears to be related to her Catholic viewpoint. I thought religion was a protected characteristic.

Barracker

I hadn't read your comment when I wrote mine, and it's not meant to be contradictory. I completely agree that a case by case basis is unacceptable. I'm hoping that it won't come to that. As police forces generally become aware of these rulings, one would hope they would not get their cases past the CPS. Or since the CPS appear to have been captured, if they do, the CPS will come under scrutiny, also.

This is only the beginning, in my opinion. And yes, Harry taking it up the food chain is vital.

A few months ago, someone on here said that as the reporting was ratcheting up, and Maya's case was lost, this was going to get very, very messy.

And it is. My gut feeling is that we are only going one way. But it will be a two steps forward, one step back scenario.

The judge appears to have left us with a situation where the recording of hundreds of thousands of noncrime hate incidents can continue unchecked, and continue to blight people's 'criminal records' and affect employment opportunities.

I think the judge is aware of the current political climate in which the government have said that they want the judiciary on a tighter leash to not extend the law in any way that's inconvenient to the government. (See the appointment of the dreadful Suella Braverman.) I believe he stayed within the domain where he was confident to exercise his power, ie specific behaviour by the Police but decided to steer clear of the hottest potato. He clearly didn't like the College of Policing guidance but perhaps prefers to leave it to high levels of the judiciary.

I hope Harry appeals

Can someone clarify - did the judge order Harry's NCHI be stricken, or will it remain?

Barracker
Yes, I think that is an accurate summary.

There's a vast amount of stuff to read Cookiecrumble888. As a shortcut, start here:

www.faircop.org.uk/harry-miller

PC Gul took leave of his senses

This bit raised an eyebrow - unauthorised plain clothes police visits but outwith any real police authority. All seemed very "Nice life. Be a shame if anything happened to it" vibe...

81. On 23 January 2019 PC Gul attended the Claimant’s workplace to speak to him. He says that he deliberately did not go in uniform so as not to attract wider attention and because ‘the fact that the purpose of my visit was simply to speak with Mr Miller rather than the exercise of any police powers that were available to me.’

Thank you I'll read

As I understand reported comment of the judge Barracker the record will remain but is supposedly of less potency because the judgement is that the tweets were lawful.

Can someone clarify - did the judge order Harry's NCHI be stricken, or will it remain?

As far as I know, it remains. The contention was over whether to add a rider to the effect that subsequent police interference was illegal.

As I understand reported comment of the judge Barracker the record will remain but is supposedly of less potency because the judgement is that the tweets were lawful.

They are all lawful, though. Otherwise it would be a hate crime, not a hate incident.

Anything termed a hate incident is still lawful.

Just heard the verdict on Harry on six music news. Yes yes yes. The judge’s comment were strong nothing unlawful.

Basically what's happened Cookiecrumble888 is that the events reported in the link made Harry Miller decide to challenge in the High Court whether Humberside Police had treated him properly and whether the Police recording non-crime hate incidents which involve no hate, to create a damaging Police record, was lawful.

The verdict is: Police behaviour - bad, recording non-crime hate incidents which involve no hate and potentially damage people's employment prospects - fine.

I should imagine Mrs B is a strategic claimant, very likely connected to TELI or, one of the other groups who are hellbent on pursuing 'strategic litigation' for their cause.

Im not sure thats the case with regards the reporting of Harry Miller's tweets by 'Mrs B' though of course many of the trans rights groups have actively encouraged the reporting of 'transphobic hate incidents/crimes'

From the full judgement:
(extract)
"There is certainly no evidence that before Mrs B became involved anyone found the tweets offensive or indecent or in any way remarkable. They were merely moments lost in the Twittersphere (as I believe it is known).

60. However, Mrs B was offended by them. She writes in her statement that:
    “I was so alarmed and appalled by his brazen transphobic comments that I felt it necessary to pass it (sic) on to Humberside Police as he is the chairman of a company based in that force’s area.”

61. She goes on to describe the Claimant as a ‘bigot’ who ‘eighty years ago … would have been making the same comments about Jewish people’. It is not clear what comments she is specifically referring to, but I understand she regards the Claimant as someone who eighty years ago would, by his writings, have contributed to the socio-political conditions in Germany which paved the way for the Holocaust and the murder of millions of Jews.
    She also says that over different decades he would have made offensive comments about gay people and black and Asian people.

62. She continues:
    “I doubt very much that Mr Miller has met any transgender people. Never even come across them. Never even interviewed them for a position with his firm. Never employed them. Never even sat down for a cup of tea with them. So, what makes him an expert suddenly in transgender issues ? In his interview with The Spectator, he claims he is ‘concerned’ with the introduction of self-ID. Self-ID has nothing to do with him. Doesn’t affect him at all. I doubt he has even read the proposals behind it. In his interview with the The Telegraph, there is a desire to protect the female members of his family. Laudable, of course. But protect them from WHAT ? Does he, in his feverish imagination, honestly believe that transgender people are a threat ? Seriously ? He claims to be a ‘feminist’.
    I’d like to ask him how many females he actually employs at his firm, outside of his secretary. He is NO feminist.”

63. It therefore appears that Mrs B was just as exercised about what the Claimant had said in these interviews as she was about his tweets. The Claimant gave the interviews after his case received publicity in the media.

64. She goes on (emphasis in original):
    “He and his followers on Twitter honestly believe he has not done anything wrong. They say a crime has not been committed. (Clue: ‘Hate CRIME’. Now maybe that might need to be reworded but it is clear he has still committed an offence).
    …
    All the transgender community want is to be LEFT IN PEACE. Transgender people ARE who they say they are.
    Trans women ARE women and Trans men ARE men. It NOT for the likes of Mr Miller to decide who is what, nor is it any of his God damn business.
    All they wish is to be treated with full and unswerving respect from their peers – respect should be automatic and, contrary to popular opinion, not earned. To be treated equally and fairly before the law. That is it. No more, no less. They are not monsters. They are not predators. They are not weirdos. They are not freaks. They are, in nearly every single case, decent, law-abiding people who cause harm to no-one. The amount of vitriol, abuse or worse they have to take on a daily basis from people like Harry Miller is an absolute disgrace and an affront to any society that calls itself civilised.”

65. I should make clear that in none of the tweets did the Claimant use any of the words
    ‘monsters’, ‘predators’, ‘weirdos’ or ‘freaks’.

66. Mrs B concludes her statement as follows:
    “I’ll finish by addressing Mr Miller directly: Mr Miller, whether you or your followers like it or not, you have been served notice that your disgusting, bigoted, bullying, utterly reprehensible behaviour is NOT going to be tolerated any longer. That is NOT a threat either.”

67. In a separate email to the police Mrs B wrote:
    “I do not think it is an exaggeration to state that, should this man and his organisation win this case, transgender people can kiss the few rights they have goodbye. It will be truly ‘open season’ on the transgender community, a community that has suffered more than enough from constant vile and unjustified attacks on them in real life, in the media and online. Do you know what it is like to be transgender in this country in 2019 ? To be denied your rights to be the person you want to be ? To be subject to disgusting and unwarranted attacks just for having the temerity to exist ? To be subject to the most awful discrimination ?”

68. The Claimant wrote a witness statement in response to Mrs B’s evidence:
    “6. I completely reject any suggestion that I am racist, homophobic or transphobic. The suggestion that I am serves to show how ignorant the writer is, and that the writer simply does not know me or anything about me.
    …

1. The assertion that I would have been making ‘the same comments’ (clearly meaning bigoted comments) about Jewish people 80 years ago, about black and Asian people 40 years ago and gay people 30 years ago is simply gratuitously offensive.”

www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/miller-v-college-of-police-judgment.pdf

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8003907/Businessmans-transphobic-tweet-LAWFUL-High-Court-rules.html?ito