Fair Cop Court of Appeal 8-10 March

[Spero]

Please save the date! This is such an important hearing for freedom of speech, particularly around the issues of sex and gender.

The hearing will be for 1 1/2 days some time between 8-10 March, we don't have an exact listing yet.

Hopefully there will be some live tweeting.

Do support if you can.

twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1361820204649639951?s=20

Thanks for tweeting Spero. The tweets are slightly easier to follow than the live performance :D

Nope. they are utterly captured. A very good point about how they supported Humberside initially.

If Harry loses he may appeal to Supreme Court. If he doesn't then me and Miss B are bringing up the rear - the data protection issues and impact on school children will need to be squarely before the court.

Of course, if Harry wins, I suspect the CoP may appeal. Guess it might depend on how much the guidance is savaged.

The court CLEARLY got the point that discussion of sex and gender on line was nothing like racist utterances to someone in your neighbourhood.

@Signalbox

Thanks for tweeting Spero. The tweets are slightly easier to follow than the live performance :D

It got to the point where typing the C word was making me feel sick.

I'm glad they got that because I've thought for a long time there was a clear difference

Is it possible for the judge to give a partial loss partial win - eg stipulate some things that need to be changed in the guidence but not dispense with recording nchi against people's names altogether?

The people who have built livelihoods and professional reputations on 'hate crimes' - those who lecture, offer training or the chance to be a 'special ambassador' for a mere £3K per annum.

See also "war on drugs" ...

Thanks for stellar tweeting Spero - I couldn't really follow the discussion on DBS disclosure, can you shed any light?

I still can't believe that currently, anyone in the country can end someone else's career if they're one of the millions who require DBS checks - just by making an online report which requires no evidence and won't be investigated.

@Manderleyagain

Is it possible for the judge to give a partial loss partial win - eg stipulate some things that need to be changed in the guidence but not dispense with recording nchi against people's names altogether?

I think that would be sensible and what is needed. Get rid of category of sex and gender as it is too susceptible to malice, import an objective test, don't record by name etc etc - lots of things could be done to tweak it.

The people who have built livelihoods and professional reputations on 'hate crimes' - those who lecture, offer training or the chance to be a 'special ambassador' for a mere £3K per annum

It's astonishing isn't it? On the one hand, whip up a massive industry about what constitutes a hate crime, or hate incident or, er, non crime hate incident. So people don't even know if stating biology is allowed. Extend it everywhere, including schools.

And then, on the other hand, sell lessons and protocols on how to combat it.

@severnboring

Thanks for stellar tweeting Spero - I couldn't really follow the discussion on DBS disclosure, can you shed any light?

I still can't believe that currently, anyone in the country can end someone else's career if they're one of the millions who require DBS checks - just by making an online report which requires no evidence and won't be investigated.

As far as I can understand it - CoP trying to argue no breach of Article 10 because no consequences follow the 'categorisation', its purely admin etc etc etc.

First court found that there could be a consequence for Harry in that if he applied to work with 'vulnerable transgender youth' his record might be disclosed but Judge found that too remote a possibility to be a 'chilling effect'

Court of appeal seemed to be disagreeing and used eg of female academic who said trans women aren't women.

The recordings are on local force data base NOT the police national computer so apparently it is up to the Chief Constable what is disclosed and there are all these apparent 'safeguards' .

Which is of course complete cobblers. I am recorded as 'a barrister posting hate' (as a statement of fact). If I hadn't discovered this by someone boasting about me being reported on line, I would have had no chance to 'challenge' it but it MAY have been disclosed if I applied for eg to be a Judge!

There is no clarity on WHO gets to see this or how long the data is retained. This to me seems a very good example of a 'chilling effect' - we simply don't know what the likely consequences will be but they could be very serious, therefore we censor ourselves to avoid them. This is most definitely a Stasi tactic and why they encouraged so many informants to gather information - its not necessarily what is recorded about you that keeps you quiet, but what you fear MIGHT be.

Sounds almost like a bit of a scam. No it doesn't, it sounds just like a scam

Since it's clear to everyone that the guidance is counterproductive or at least apt to cause problems, revising it would involve a modest amount of effort, and would have neutralised a costly and lengthy legal battle, do you have any idea why the College of Policing are dead set on not amending it?

Is it simply to avoid being seeing to be in the wrong? Or perhaps they're paranoid about a domino effect?

My post was a response to Datum but then again

Thanks Spero - Stasi is absolutely right.

Do you think this was clear to the judges today or will it need your case too?

This waiting on judgments is going to be nerve wracking isn't it. I thought this hearing was less dramatic than the ONS one for the lay reader, but there seemed to be some solid understanding from the judges of what Harry and his team were driving at.

@nauticant

Since it's clear to everyone that the guidance is counterproductive or at least apt to cause problems, revising it would involve a modest amount of effort, and would have neutralised a costly and lengthy legal battle, do you have any idea why the College of Policing are dead set on not amending it?

Is it simply to avoid being seeing to be in the wrong? Or perhaps they're paranoid about a domino effect?

I honestly think people are utterly captured by it all. Stonewall has been laying the ground work for years. People have been fed the line that this is another section 28 battle, they are on the right side of history and we are evil bigots for objecting. I really truly do not think they can 'see' what is going so wrong. And of course there must be an element of fear that they will be hounded and sacked if they step out of line. It is the Emperor's New Clothes for 2021.

That is why I have always said that we fight this and we win in the courts. The Judges are not steeped in social media and twitter spats. They are aware and guard fiercely their independence. There are the beginnings of attempts to capture the judiciary with the Equal Treatment Bench book etc but I think certainly at the higher level, this hasn't yet succeeded.

It does look like there's a fair amount of judicial capture in the levels below the High Court. Which means for the moment the fight has to be at the High Court level or above which is horribly expensive.

Well. That went rather better than I had expected after yesterday.

What were you unhappy about yesterday, Spero? I thought it went well.

The beauty of this case is that it will be binding on lower courts. So a positive outcome would filter down. Expensive though it is perhaps some of this needs to go all the way to the SC.

I also suspect that some public institutions are happy to get a court judgement even if it goes against them. That way they haven’t recanted they have simply been forced by the courts. The big bad feminists took us to court and we lost - not our fault.

Expensive though it is perhaps some of this needs to go all the way to the SC.

I'm in. As someone mentioned on another thread, the modest spadework I've contributed in the last year to legal challenges has been worth every penny. I used to give to a number of 'Stonewalled' charities but not any more.

The courts are where this will be changed.

@tickboxes absolutely I'm happy to keep digging. I stopped a couple of direct debits to charities that were making false assertions about the equality act so I will divert that money to these fights (even though I think we shouldn't have to go to court for this)

@AngelaMerkelEyeRoll

Well. That went rather better than I had expected after yesterday.

What were you unhappy about yesterday, Spero? I thought it went well.

The common law arguments were dull and irrelevant and clearly annoyed the Judges. I felt very flat yesterday. But much better today!

@jj1968

do you agree with 'but free speech' being a justification for wading into a sensitive situation about which they knew absolutely fuck all, and putting an already very vulnerable child in further danger? is it free speech to shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre?

@outedbyfaircop

I remember this, it was shocking I'm so sorry you and your family had to go through it. Placing a vulnerable child at risk of harm to score political points was truly one of the lowest points of this debate and that people still support Harry and Fair Cop after that really reveals something very wrong within some gender critical circles. It chills me where this might one day lead, especially now Harry is whipping up outrage from Tommy Robinson supporters and conspiracy theorists.

It is pertinent to this thread, which is about Fair Cop and the potential limits to free speech - this is an organisation which has shown they couldn't care less about the safety of a trans child or the feelings of their family at what must have been one of the most difficult times of their lives attacking policies brought in following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and which was founded by an abusive man with growing links to the far right. That he receives any support on the feminist part of a parenting website is truly shocking, not least because he is intending to destroy policies such as monitoring misogynist hate incidents which was hugely popular with women when it was trialled.

Thanks for this jj, much appreciated. I’d like to say i’m surprised by the people defending these actions (or excusing them by saying err well you can’t expect volunteers to check they’ve got all the facts before putting vulnerable families at risk during the worst time of their lives’) but i’m not really, not massively. People on both sides of this debate seem to tie themselves in a lot of knots maintaining very entrenched positions, and I don’t see any sort of solution ever being reached. I’m a name changed longterm poster, and in days gone by i marched alongside a lot of FWR regulars at Million Women Rise several times, i even took the kid these people have cheerily thrown under the bus with me, would you believe. Some of them are probably here on this thread, calling me a shit parent and a liar for doing the best for my kid. Still it’s nice to see that women and children’s safety is paramount, until it becomes acceptable collateral damage in someone’s politics, or they turn out to be the wrong sort of women and children.

I would have supported almost anyone who brought this case. There are obvious problems with the police recording non crime hate incidents at the whim of an anonymous complainer.