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

@outedbyfaircop I think I recall your situation and I wasn't aware Fair Cop was involved with it. I didn't think I could hate them more after they used victims who were murdered during the Holocaust to harass trans people with, but fucking hell. It's like they're physically loaded up with flashing neon signs that they're awful and yet there's still people lauding them.

I don't know the details of your case Outed, but I do know that in a democracy, it should never be the case that a private citizen can register a crime against someone else that shows up in record checks without any investigation by the police or court case and without the person knowing anything about it.

That has been the case in this democracy for many years, from far before hate incident recording began. What do you expect the police to do when someone files a report, not write anything down?

none of us have seen your child, and they may pass for a boy. However I remain convinced that overall, lying about the basic facts about a missing child, such as their SEX is wrong.

Do you not think the parents and the police and best placed to make that decision not you? What if the kid had run away due to transphobic bullying at school or something, do you think misegndering them to tens of thousands of people would be likely to make them come home? You have no idea what was going on, what the kid looked like and how they might respond to being misgendered. It's not your, or Fair Cop's decision to make. It was a wicked, wicked thing to do to a child and a family who must have been going through hell and that it has support on here reiterates the point I've made many times that mumsnet is sadly not a safe space for trans parents or supportive parents of trans chldren.

I think once you ask people to look for your child, you give them the facts. What is wrong with saying a girl who dresses and identifies as a boy? Answers to this name etc.

I think once you ask people to look for your child, you give them the facts. What is wrong with saying a girl who dresses and identifies as a boy? Answers to this name etc.

You mean aside from forcibly outing him, being transphobic towards him, and you speaking in favour of people who harassed a missing child alert because they considered the world knowing the contents of his pants as more important than the fact that he's a child that's reported missing?

If a child goes missing (a thing I would not wish on any parent), I would be surprised if any parent didn't give out the clearest and most accurate information/description to try and find them as soon as possible. Whatever that was.

It really depends on what your priorities are - do you want to get your child back in the quickest time possible and have the factual information provided, or do you want to obfuscate and risk a potential delay due to misinformation being out there?

Hard choice - NOT.

@Evarish

I think once you ask people to look for your child, you give them the facts. What is wrong with saying a girl who dresses and identifies as a boy? Answers to this name etc.

You mean aside from forcibly outing him, being transphobic towards him, and you speaking in favour of people who harassed a missing child alert because they considered the world knowing the contents of his pants as more important than the fact that he's a child that's reported missing?

Evarish, your post proves to me that the beliefs of trans allies transcends everything else, including reality and safeguarding.

If I saw a child with a female shape and a female voice dressed in stereotypically ‘boys’ clothing, I would assume she was a tomboy. So I may think, ‘looks like the kid we are supposed to be looking for, but is female, so can’t be’ and the moment would be lost.

A missing child being found safely is of higher importance than anything, including their ‘identity’.

Only you are referring to what’s in ‘pants’ which I think sounds weird and quite sinister.

do you think misegndering them

Misgendering doesn't really mean anything though, does it? Correctly sexing them was what happened.

@jj1968

I don't know the details of your case Outed, but I do know that in a democracy, it should never be the case that a private citizen can register a crime against someone else that shows up in record checks without any investigation by the police or court case and without the person knowing anything about it.

That has been the case in this democracy for many years, from far before hate incident recording began. What do you expect the police to do when someone files a report, not write anything down?

You really need to go back and watch the Court of Appeal hearing or read the tweets. The judges dealt with this point explicitly and at length and the College of Policing barrister had no answer other than 'I'm'.

Yes, when people ring up the police and complain a record is kept. 'x rang up and complained about X, no evidence so we did nothing more'.

The hate crimes guidance is different. It does not refer to an 'allegation'. My record says 'a barrister posting hate'. It is not neutral. The impact on anyone reading that - as Court of Appeal commented - was that they would think the hate was established as an objective fact. That is why the guidance is dangerous, that is why it must fall.

I know I said I wouldn't engage with this poster again! But it's such a obvious bad faith point that they repeat over and over, I thought it worth clarifying.

Sorry - 'no answer other than 'Um'.

If the rate of 'ums' is any guide, the Court of Appeal are really going to put the boot in and I hope it does.

Evarish, your post proves to me that the beliefs of trans allies transcends everything else, including reality and safeguarding.

A group of people who were fixated on interrupting a MISSING CHILD ALERT to force through their absolute rain of bullshit does not get to talk about safeguarding.

Neither you, nor Fair Cop, knew what he looked like beyond the description given and yet you insist that 'he must obviously look and sound like a tomboyish girl!!!' based on nothing but pure speculation drawn out your ass, and you made sure to spend HOURS hammering it down, all the while a child was missing, and all the while his parents had to have the alert removed from Mumsnet because you're so fucking transphobic that you actually caused MORE problems to a family who's child was missing rather than trying to help.

The hate crimes guidance is different. It does not refer to an 'allegation'. My record says 'a barrister posting hate'. It is not neutral. The impact on anyone reading that - as Court of Appeal commented - was that they would think the hate was established as an objective fact. That is why the guidance is dangerous, that is why it must fall.

Thanks for clarifying. This is really terrible legislation.

@Evarish

Evarish, your post proves to me that the beliefs of trans allies transcends everything else, including reality and safeguarding.

A group of people who were fixated on interrupting a MISSING CHILD ALERT to force through their absolute rain of bullshit does not get to talk about safeguarding.

Neither you, nor Fair Cop, knew what he looked like beyond the description given and yet you insist that 'he must obviously look and sound like a tomboyish girl!!!' based on nothing but pure speculation drawn out your ass, and you made sure to spend HOURS hammering it down, all the while a child was missing, and all the while his parents had to have the alert removed from Mumsnet because you're so fucking transphobic that you actually caused MORE problems to a family who's child was missing rather than trying to help.

Take some deeeeeep breaths because you’re actually playing into the other assumption about trans allies, which is that they’re nasty and aggressive.

What did you do to help this missing child can I ask?

So, in these type of cases, all it needs for you to be deemed as guilty of something is for someone to sling some mud state they perceive something you have done to be hateful. The j'accuse is the proof!

Except for real hate towards women. Nobody is even pretending that deserves ink on paper.

What also clearly troubled the Court of Appeal was that Harry Miller was recorded as a 'suspect' on a document headed 'Crime Report' and the reporting person was a 'victim'.

the Court asked if this was typical of the way police forces recorded hate incidents and the College of Policing again had no answer but 'um'.

It was a pretty poor show - you would think they would know, or their guidance should be clear about how police forces record these complaints, so they don't end up losing someone a job down the line for completely unfair reasons.

And this I think may be what sinks them. The guidance is clearly not assisting the police to make the right and proportionate decisions. As it stands, I don't think its fit for purpose.

there is clearly a need for some kind of perception based recording BUT the police ought to exercise a greater deal of discretion as to what they choose to record as 'hate'. The CoP kept on and on and on repeating that the decision to record was an entirely neutral administrative decision - a mere 'categorisation' - but from my vantage point at least it seemed that the Court of Appeal wasn't buying it.

We will see! hopefully judgment before Easter, but the court gave no clue.

[quote Evarish]@outedbyfaircop I think I recall your situation and I wasn't aware Fair Cop was involved with it. I didn't think I could hate them more after they used victims who were murdered during the Holocaust to harass trans people with, but fucking hell. It's like they're physically loaded up with flashing neon signs that they're awful and yet there's still people lauding them.[/quote]
Stop lying. They did nothing of the sort. What a disgusting accusation.

I think Evarish is referring to me. As I have already explained, i got into a conversation with someone on Twitter who was boasting about burning JKR's books. When i commented that those who burn books will burn people and the dangers of continuing on this road, with specific reference to the Holocaust, this anonymous account then revealed they were Jewish and lost several members of their family to it.

Whether that was true or not, i will never know. But here we see helpfully highlighted by Evarish, the real dangers of the hate crime guidance.

Because Evarish dislikes me or Fair Cop or whatever, Evarish either genuinely perceives me to be a hateful anti Semitic bigot OR wants to use a fake perception to cause trouble. To the police it doesn't matter. They are explicitly excluded from challenging Evarish's motivations or rationality because that would be 'secondary victimisation'. They must record, if Evarish reports me, that I have been 'posting hate'.

So go for it Evarish. My local force is Wiltshire. If you genuinely believe what you say, I suggest you have a duty to alert the authorities. The justification for the hate crimes guidance is that it provides useful intelligence re 'escalation'. Look at me! Escalating all over the shop! not remotely apologetic or remorseful for what I said! Clearly I am only a few steps away from committing some awful crime.

Also report me to my regulator. My name is Sarah Phillimore.

I am making Subject Access Requests every few months so if I finally get to the High Court I will have ample evidence of the ridiculous toxicity of this guidance.

If you really want to hand the malicious and/or irrational an effective tool to make trouble for those they perceive to be their enemies, then continue to support this guidance. If however you can see the real dangers inherent here, then join me in hoping that the Court of Appeal do the right thing.

I think Evarish is referring to me. As I have already explained, i got into a conversation with someone on Twitter who was boasting about burning JKR's books. When i commented that those who burn books will burn people and the dangers of continuing on this road, with specific reference to the Holocaust, this anonymous account then revealed they were Jewish and lost several members of their family to it

I remember that Twitter conversation Spero. I hadn't realised you were involved in it.

At the time, I wondered how someone who had lost family members in the Holocaust couldn't see the danger in burning books, silencing free speech, and extremists gatecrashing meetings/ talks etc and verbally and physically abusing speakers - because that is exactly how fascism works.

The only Holocaust references I had seen in reference to trans people were where some TRA was complaining that they were suffering as much as Jewish victims of the Holocaust, which I think was absolutely obscene!

Yes I'm aware spero I saw the tweets and the discussion we had about them. The accusations against you are ridiculous.

For the record however, I think the discussions surrounding the missing child were in pretty poor taste, to say the least. I think we all need to remind ourselves at times that there are real human beings involved, and how this may make them feel. I'm glad your son was found safe and well outed

(I'm still supportive of this case and interested to see what will happen.)

I think there must be a recognised difference between publications that people find insensitive or unkind and incitements to violence etc. The mother of this child is clearly very angry and upset and I am sorry for that. But I still don't agree that it was right to try and search for a missing child by giving false information. The priority was to get that child back safe and alive.

I don't see what is served by now branding Fair Cop a hateful organisation for such tweets. They weren't mine although I think I did retweet one -i thought then and think now it was crazy to misstate the sex of a missing child. Why not just say - a male child who presents as female or vice versa, then everyone has the information they need. I am sorry if this makes the child feel embarrassed or invalidated, but that cannot be the priority when a young child goes missing.

• it should never be the case that a private citizen can register a crime against someone else that shows up in record checks without any investigation by the police or court case and without the person knowing anything about it. That has no place in a civilised or fair society.*

You really should get yourself over to aibu then, because “just log it with 101” is really common advice on here for things that definitely aren’t crimes.

Numicon is doing a great job demonstrating why trans people need protection from hate speech (so do women, btw, and i wonder if women were included in the hate speech umbrella, whether everyone here would be quite as against this reporting mechanism as they are when it only applies to other minorities) - this is what kids like mine are up against. Being pointlessly cruel ‘for your own good’ or whatever is a very magdalen laundries way of correcting perceived transgressions against the social norm and i wish i was more surprised that anyone would support such a stance. Before everyone jumps all over me going HOW DARE YOU COMPARE SHITTY MUMSNET POSTS TO MAGDALEN LAUNDRIES, i’m talking about principles and motivations behind being cruel to people, rather than the extent of that cruelty, btw.

I really appreciate your comments btw Sunset, (although obviously i rather think it went further than being a matter of taste). People treating one another as hive mind monoliths, seeing ‘the enemy’ and nothing else, and needing to ‘win’ at all costs are huge problems on both sides of this debate and massive barrier to meaningful discussion.

I’d be interested to know if the people behind fair cop have accepted that they were wrong and taken any steps to prevent this happening again, but i’ll strap in and brace for a jolly good ignoring on that point 🤡