'It takes ordinary people to stand up and say no'

[BovaryX]

There is an excellent interview with Harry Miller in the Telegraph. He talks about how the police are operating on behalf of a political lobby group and how the recording of non crime incidents has accelerated. The Telegraph cites that these have been used against 120,000 people. It is fantastic to see this getting such prominent media coverage. This is a threat to freedom of speech, it is intended to stifle debate and Harry Miller has catapulted these issues to the front page. Great stuff.

^“As a former officer, I have a sense of what the law is and for the life of me I could not see what law I was breaking - and more to the point, neither could the police,” Mr Miller told The Telegraph. “They just had this vague idea that if you continue doing what you are doing then you will become a criminal. I asked how, and they couldn’t tell me.
“That’s not how the law works. We have to know where the line in the sand is and if the police don’t know where that line is, then don’t turn up at my workplace, don’t ring me up, don’t start using coercive control and tell me to ‘check my thinking’ - because that is not the job of the police.”^

'Even if there were valid reasons for recording such incidents against someone, no way should they be used as part of any public or employment background checks. People have a right to a fair trial and only if found guilty, should such incidents be formally recorded against them.'

This point is fair but OTOH the DBs inclusion of things that haven't been to court, if it seems relevant, was brought in sheet Soham where Ian Huntley had a string of complaints of sex offences including rape against him by a string of girls and young women.

If the police don't bother with investigating serious crime esp a prob with sex offences, and then if they do, the CPS don't bring charges unless they are pretty certain of a conviction, then there is zero protection to the public, in practice.

There is a very serious problem here.120,000 individuals have a police record for non crimes What if many of them are like Harry Miller? At the same time, public confidence in the police is at an all time low. Only 1 in 9 people have faith in their ability to investigate real crimes The upper echelons of the police are signing pledges to Stonewall Stonewall are a political lobby group. How is this acceptable?

How do all the people who've spent the last year or two telling us that there's nothing to worry about, this is all perfectly reasonable and necessary in order to be "kind", and btw we're an odd and obsessive minority and everyone else is fine with the dissent being criminalized feel now, reading those headlines?

I suppose you could stick your head in a copy of The Guardian while repeating "it's all going to be fine, the public supports us" for now but I'm afraid that's probably not going to work for much longer. The public is only now realizing what women here have known for years, and they are really not pleased.

I suppose you could stick your head in a copy of The Guardian while repeating "it's all going to be fine, the public supports us" for now but I'm afraid that's probably not going to work for much longer. The public is only now realizing what women here have known for years, and they are really not pleased

TheProdigal
I think that is a great point. Most people don't have any idea what is going on and neither did I until I found this board. But the explicit, existential threat to freedom of speech is now headline news. And the public scrutiny this brings is long overdue

I'm still a bit muddled by what's recorded as a non-crime incident. All the times women are told to "log it with 101" etc - otherwise "normal" things that seem a bit off in context - does it include these?

I have no problem with non crimes being recorded in this sense. They just shouldn't treated like crimes unless they become crimes. And context needs to be looked at.

I’m so pleased for Harry.

The brilliant thing about all this coverage is that (a) it brings in all the people who'd not heard about it, all the men who'd dismissed it as just a wimmin's issue or a joke. And (b) it shows just where mandating being kind at the expense of truthful gets us.

The single biggest obstacle in spreading awareness about what's happening for me has been that it's so mad that people assume you must have gotten it wrong, because nobody could possibly be suggesting that convicted rapists should be put in women's prisons/that changing rooms should be made unisex and teenage girls should be expected to change with both their male peers and adult males/that the Girl Guides would be promoting sending guides out on trips where there will be mixed sex accomodation and not telling the parents about it/that people are very seriously arguing that lesbians not liking cock and gay men not liking vaginas is illiberal bigotry that they really must try to get over for the sake of being woke and if they don't they're indirectly responsible for the deaths of trans people. People think you're the one who's mad when you tell them what TRAs are demanding, at least initially, because the demands are absolutely barmy. They assume the government/institutions/the law would never allow those things to happen.

And then they start seeing the mainstream media giving examples of cases in which those things are happening. If you're not sure how they react to that information, have a quick read of any article with open comments. The current level of "WTF, how did this even happen, who was responsible for this and how do we fix it?" is just the beginning.The social engineering isn't working. Most people think this stuff is insane, they were just waiting for someone else to be the first one to say so.

Well said kittens.

This time last year many comments were along the lines of stop shoving this nonsense down our throats. A sort of exasperated flicking away of the issue. Not realising how it was about to permeate everyone's lives to the point of declaring you a criminal if you disagree.

Now, the penny is dropping.

Irritation is being replaced with incredulity, which then gets replaced by fear.

there needs to be a formal inquiry into what these "non-crime" incidents are, and whether there was any evidence and justification for such records.

If there's no interference with the judiciary - would we need a formal enquiry if Miller v. Humberside goes to the Supreme Court to establish whether it's sustainable to have a non-crime hate-incident recorded (or whatever it is)? Justice Knowles was clear that, as things stand, it was appropriate to record the incident. However, Knowles was also clear that it's time to challenge this.

Not really reassured by the idea of the police having records on people that are not under investigation. Are they going to keep a file on everyone like the Stasi did?

I remember the outcry after Soham. The failure to record and act properly on intelligence about Ian Huntley was by ... Humberside Police. The irony.

By all means let these “non-crimes” (such perfect doublespeak) be recorded for the reasons the police have given. Then keep them on police intelligence files that should not be widely accessible as part of anyone’s PNC record except in clearly defined cases.

This kind of subjective information requires careful analysis before disclosure to make sure one is not being unfair to the individual concerned. I would have thought that the police should have recognised that without needing the involvement of the courts.

The failure to record and act properly on intelligence about Ian Huntley was by ... Humberside Police. The irony.

Perhaps that's why they were so keen to pursue this. Overcompensating.

I've posted this item about unintended consequences of EDBS and what the police retain before but it bears repeating.

EDBS can show surprising things unless you apply to have items omitted: Driven to suicide as a result of an enhanced DBS certificate – the problem with the disclosure of police intelligence

www.the-record.org.uk/unlock-people-with-convictions/driven-to-suicide-as-a-result-of-an-enhanced-dbs-certificate/

[X] got the job and was told that she would need an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check. [She was allowed to start work as long as she applied for it immediately.]

Several weeks later her DBS certificate arrived and on it, disclosed under the ‘additional information’ section was her Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) for a public order offence. [X] had received this whilst she was at university and on a night out with three of her fellow students...[X] had a strange feeling [men they passed] might be undercover police officers so jokingly as she walked past them, she made a pig-like noise.

One of them grabbed [X's] arm and told her that she had committed a public order offence by ‘making a pig-like noise in the vicinity of a police officer.’ They told her that if she accepted a Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) and a fine she would avoid having to go to court. Believing that this was her best option, [X] accepted the PND.

[X] thought that was the end of the matter but of course as her enhanced DBS certificate was to show it most certainly was not. When she took the document to her employer, they told her that she’d acted dishonestly in not disclosing the PND and she was instantly dismissed.

You know the rest from the title of the report.

it baffles me that pressure groups are allowed free reign in schools and businesses up and down the country. People see their posters and read their slogans, which are then passed off as received wisdom (when it's just the strongly held view of a minority of angry activists).