The police should not record us as hateful in secret

[Spero]

Dear all

At 2pm Tomorrow I will be launching something which I understand it is against the terms and conditions of this site to mention but i hope you will check out my Twitter page for more information - @SVPhillimore.

I know its a difficult time of the year to ask people to do more gardening but if you don't feel like actually hefting a spade I would be really grateful if you could amplify my information.

I seriously think we are currently facing the most significant threat to our fundamental civil liberties in my life time. My lawyers have written today to Wiltshire and the College of Policing to give them until November 20th to delete the recording made about me that I am 'hateful' and to withdraw the hate crimes guidance. If they won't - we go to court.

This is relevent:

"Box 6 –Proportionality

Police must also consider whether it is proportionate to consider disclosure of information –this is part of the „relevant‘and „ought to be disclosed‘requirements we covered earlier.Firstly, the information must have passed all of the other tests: if it does not pass the test at Box3 OR Box4 (or Box5, if it relates to a 3rdParty) it cannot be proportionate to disclose and so cannot be disclosed at all. However, just because information passes all of the other tests, it does not automatically mean that it would be proportionate to propose disclosure.Police must consider other factors,such as how long ago an incident occurred; how old the applicant was at the time of the incident; the conduct of the applicant since the incident(if known); whether the information is relatively trivial and not really evidence of a risk at all. Finally, the Chief Officer must establish whether or not they believe that the impact of disclosure on the private life of those concerned outweighs the potential risk to the vulnerable group from making no disclosure. In every case they must consider whether there is likely to be an interference with a person‟s private life and, if so, whether that interference can be justified."

I wonder what the police think is the point of them recording a person as hateful without telling them.

I mean, if they feel someone is heading towards harassing someone surely they would have a word to avoid further problems.

Although then you get into Harry situation of the police checking your thinking.

Please note the number of times the document shared refers to a Delegate. The whole sign off can be delgated to anyone. The disclosure unit does it.

jj1968
Thank you for keeping this important thread bumped. Re your somewhat disingenuous comment
I don't think is this a welcoming place for trans parents unfortunately, I think this is a place where trans parents are likely to receive significant abuse with little recourse and in the knowledge that if they act the same way they will probably be banned

Such hypocrisy - you don't post about parenting - your posts criticise and berate women - repeatedly. You're currently on Spero's thread pompously lecturing a woman barrister with your googled knowledge of the law / police procedures and (yet again) criticising a woman as "breath -takingly entitled"

Despite all this, you appear to perceive yourself as the victim?

pompously lecturing a woman barrister with your googled knowledge of the law

So glad someone mentioned that.

@Escapeplanning

Please note the number of times the document shared refers to a Delegate. The whole sign off can be delgated to anyone. The disclosure unit does it.

The law literally specifies a police chief. You're wrong about this.

Section 113B(4) of The Act(as amended by the Protection of Freedoms Act): (4) Before issuing an enhanced criminal record certificate the Secretary of State must request any relevant chief officer to provide any information which —(a)the chief officer reasonably believes to be relevant for the purpose described in the statement under subsection (2), and (b) in the chief officer‘s opinion, ought to be included in the certificate.

Honestly, the strategic insertion of the words or Delegate are not a minor detail to be handwaved away. I write governance documents. If something is not delgated as a matter of course the words or Delegate would not be in there. The audit trail has been intentionally set up precisely to permit DELEGATION.

@Escapeplanning

Honestly, the strategic insertion of the words or Delegate are not a minor detail to be handwaved away. I write governance documents. If something is not delgated as a matter of course the words or Delegate would not be in there. The audit trail has been intentionally set up precisely to permit DELEGATION.

I'm sure the disclosure team gather the information. It will then be presented to the relevent police chief to make a decision. If that did not happen it would be a clear breach of the law I posted above and so would not stand up if it came to court.

relevent police chief OR DELEGATE

@Escapeplanning

relevent police chief OR DELEGATE

"If anything still remains for disclosure consideration, it then passes to the Chief Officer (or their delegate) for a final review of thecase as recorded in theAT3. The Chief Officer is responsible for making and authorising the final decision: should the information be disclosed or not. "

So yes, they can delegate, but the responsibility for the final call lies with them.

To summarise
Information must pass certain tests (contained within the MP7a and MP7b) and police must
record, in the AT3, their thought process (their „rationale‟) to explain how/why they reached all
of their conclusions and decisions.
Information must be assessed by the Chief Officer to determine whether it is reasonable to
believe that it is relevant and whether, in their opinion, it ought to be disclosed. Information
should only be disclosed if it meets both of those requirements.
Consideration must be given to the Human Rights impact of disclosure and non-disclosure on
the applicant and on the vulnerable group/groups associated with the application – this is the
specific duty of the Chief Officer/Delegate of each force and their rationales and decisions
must also be recorded in the AT3 audit trail.

It's right there on page 6. No criteria or restrictions on who this is DELEGATED too.

We can both do cutting and pasting. I'm not selectively picking bits however.

@Escapeplanning

We can both do cutting and pasting. I'm not selectively picking bits however.

I cut and paste the law. Throughout all the guidance notes relating to this it makes it very clear that only the Chief Officer has legal responsibility for any decision to disclose. Maybe in very limited circumstances the courts have found they they can delegate, I don't honestly know, but if their delegate gets it wrong it will be the chief officer called to account. It's certainly not something routinely signed off by disclosure teams. I'm not really going to argue about this anymore, its also very clear that there are stict protocols in place to balance the privacy rights of the applicant against safeguarding needs.

Perhaps a more pertinent discussion is do you consider from a safeguarding perspective that it is reasonable for soft police intelligence to be potentially disclosed if deemed a safeguarding risk in an enhanced DBS check?

That's a big maybe there.

And then a swerve.

Really this is just yet another demonstration of tedious pontificating intended to undermine the purpose of the thread. Which you have failed to do.

I seriously doubt anyone has any interest in continuing to facilitate you in this.

@Escapeplanning

That's a big maybe there.

And then a swerve.

Really this is just yet another demonstration of tedious pontificating intended to undermine the purpose of the thread. Which you have failed to do.

I seriously doubt anyone has any interest in continuing to facilitate you in this.

Well yes, there seems very little point arguing over the law when it is written there in black and white and you refuse to accept it. So instead of getting bogged down in that I'm interested what people think should happen.

Should chiefs of police be required to provide relevent and proportionate soft intelligence as part of a DBS check?

Should police be required to record details of all allegations and incidents reported to them regardless of whether they think a crime has been committed, or how much evidence has been presented?

Should police have the discretion to not inform someone who has been reported to them in connection with a crime or complaint?

Because if the answer to these things are all yes then surely you can't support this case which places all of those things are risk. I'm genuinely curious what people would like to see done differently. Is it just the words hate incident that people object to?

Ignoring the derail, I've done some digging. With my back that's quite a sacrifice.

I feel your pain Prawn. All the yoga in the world isn't sorting out my back. Still, I think I have the determination for some more digging.

Try Pilates maybe?

I've always been a bit suspicious of Pilates Errol, not very patient
or good at attention to detail when it comes to positioning/focusing on the core stuff, bit of a blunderer, but I'm willing to give it another try!

"I'm genuinely curious what people would like to see done differently. Is it just the words hate incident that people object to?"

There would be some easy fixes
a) don't permit recording of information more than six months old, unless very good reason - my reported tweets went back to 2017!
b) remove ability of third party to report on behalf of victim unless there is an established relationship and victim is incapacitated i.e. parent can report on behalf of child
c) exercise some fucking discretion about what you record as 'hate'. Remember I am also recorded by the South Yorkshire police for saying 'my cat is a Methodist'. Who on earth is any safer because this is done?
d) allow malicious reporting to be proved on the balance of probabilities.
e) inform people who are recorded and give them a right of challenge.

I would be prepared to drop e) if you give me the others.

I have engaged on the slim chance you may be genuinely wishing to contribute to this discussion . However, to say i am 'breath takingly' entitled to object to my protected political speech being recorded as 'hateful', to waste pages refusing to see the word 'DELEGATE' when its right in front of you, underscores your bad faith to me.

If you do come in good faith, then explain to me how recording my views on sex and gender, or my dog's love of cheese, or the possible religion of my cat makes anyone any safer any time and any where.

I will be intrigued to know.

Thank you for the digging. I hope a hot bath will help any digging relating twinges.

@Spero

a) don't permit recording of information more than six months old, unless very good reason - my reported tweets went back to 2017!

How would this work? Do you mean any information? So someone would not be able to report a historic sexual offence for example? What about information that assisted with a current investigation? If someone provided information on something that happened more than six months ago would the police be obliged to discard it, even if it might help solve a crime? Does this only apply to information which might be classed as a hate incident? It seems perverse if someone is able to make a historic complaint of theft, or even historic information to the police due to concerns about someone's current behavaiour, and that's fine unless it involves an element of racism or something in which case the police aren't even allowed to make a record of it.

b) remove ability of third party to report on behalf of victim unless there is an established relationship and victim is incapacitated i.e. parent can report on behalf of child

This is deeply worrying from a safeguarding perspective. Are you saying allegations of sexual abuse, or harassment, or domestic violence, or indeed racism should be ignored unless they come direct from the victim? Or again should allegations only be ignored from third parties if they involve an element of racism or hostility towards one of the other pritected groups?

c) exercise some fucking discretion about what you record as 'hate'. Remember I am also recorded by the South Yorkshire police for saying 'my cat is a Methodist'. Who on earth is any safer because this is done?

Isn't this exacty the kind of discretion that the police could not be trusted to have, which is why new guidelines were brought in post Macpherson? That racist police might choose to ignore racist incidents and potentially racially motivated crimes? Surely it's better that police log all information reported to them and whether that information is ever released to anyone is based on the careful safeguarding assessment carried out by police chiefs when an enhanced DBS is applied for? That seems more sensible than leaving it to a front desk copper to decide doesn't it, not least give the police's track record of handling sexual assault cases? Or again would this only apply if the offence, incident, or alleged offence, involved hostility towards a protected group?

d) allow malicious reporting to be proved on the balance of probabilities.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that if police decide on the balance of probabilities that a report was malicious they should destroy all records of it. Again that seems somewhat perverse. Surely they'd want to keep a record of someone making malicious complaints for a start, they can't do that without keeping details of those complaints. And are the police really best placed to make decisons to destroy potential evidence based on the balance of probabilities? What if more information comes to light and the balance of probabilities changes? Wouldn't this require legislation? It seems this and other demands go somewhat beyond the power of judicial review.

e) inform people who are recorded and give them a right of challenge

I would be prepared to drop e) if you give me the others.

Well that's very big of you. I'm sorry you were offended I called you entitled but, well wow, you think you can personally make deals with legislators? That you can make a demand that would place people at risk as some kind of bargaining chip? You don't get to make bargains about what the law is you know, we have a thing called parliament that does that.

Finally I'm a little confused. With the exception of your last point surely these are all things that Harry's case would more or less cover. I'm not sure the courts will agree to hear a case so similar to one that is already scheduled for an appeal. So one last question, as a barrister yourself, do you, or any law firm or chambers you are associated with, intend to take payment of any kind from this crowdfunder?