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 necessary much clearer

Not necessarily right though - that was my understanding from previous reading here. I missed the article 8 reference in today's case.

So...is that good or bad for Harry?

JC; volume of hate incidents so large would be impossible for police to investigate each one. Recording on basis of perception ensures they continue to be monitored.

[But police don't monitor] Now that's interesting isn't it

It's hard to tell which way this will go, because there are arguments on both sides, but clearly the College of Policing have been a bit cavalier so one hopes that even if the judgement went against harry that it would still result in some changes to the recording of hate incidents?

It's uncertain greatpurplepolkadots. Yesterday it looked like Harry Miller was struggling to make headway but today it seems the judges are very skeptical of a number of parts of the College of Policing case.

I see that today the youtube comments have been turned off. Yesterday people were merrily chatting away about what it load of bollocks it was.

Thanks @highame and @NecessaryScene1 that makes it clearer!

I mean the chat feature up the side of the webpage, not the comments. Chat was on yesterday but isn't on today.

Judge is sounding a bit testy!

JC: at a high level the principles are equally applicable to the different types of hate crime and hate incidents.

[Refusing to accept the distinction between clearly racist speech and debate about existing laws will I trust be their downfall]

Fair Cop's comment about this distinction between the different types of incidents seems to be important. I can remember thinking that the Race recording was the one that had been brought in post Stephen Lawrence and was the foundation and most important. Others have ineffect been tagged on but are not anywhere near as significant

Lady judge: Doesn't that potentially stigmatise a group of people who are engaged in a public debate about these issues, who are more likely to be complained about, by people like Ms B or others, who feel offended by this debate? And doesn't it have a chilling effect then on their freedom of expression? And that's the interference.

One weird thing about the College of Policing case is that they've written their guidance, it leads to injustices, and yet they do not feel under any obligation at all to write clearer guidance to reduce the likelihood of harm.

To me a fundamental point is how can the College of Policing put themselves forward in this way but then disclaim any responsibility for their guidance leading to harm? I get that the harm isn't inevitable but that shouldn't be enough to get them off the hook of needing to seek to reduce more harm in the future.

Judge can't get her head around his argument.

This lady judge really likes to frame her questions about how this could be damaging to female academics.

This lady judge really likes to frame her questions about how this could be damaging to female academics

It's very reassuring to hear isn't it :)
She's probably thinking bloody hell that could be me!

I had lost the thread. Quite a bit happening
udge - 6.3 uses mandatory language. It would just be recorded as a complaint if the guidance didn't exist. ... doesn't that potentially stigmatise a group of people engaged in public debate, more likely to be complained about by Mrs B and others offended, and has chilling effect
Judge - lets link this to rationality argument. Must be some rational basis to make it hate incident. You say its completely neutral but saying must be rational basis! Is that stigma free? Connotes acceptance by police that there is rational basis for hate element in this tweet!

JC battles on: that is not stigma, not equivalent to a judgment. The categorisation goes no where. It is useful for certain purposes, but in and of itself it doesn't stigmatise or interfere with the person complained about.

Judge - is that right? The purpose is to have something there the next time a complaint is made! Might lead the police to think we need to take this further?

JC They might think 2 times zero is zero.

Surely the purpose of writing guidance is to avoid the more outrageous misinterpretation of the law, not to just shrug your shoulders and say - well we didn't actually tell them to do that.

@nauticant

One weird thing about the College of Policing case is that they've written their guidance, it leads to injustices, and yet they do not feel under any obligation at all to write clearer guidance to reduce the likelihood of harm.

To me a fundamental point is how can the College of Policing put themselves forward in this way but then disclaim any responsibility for their guidance leading to harm? I get that the harm isn't inevitable but that shouldn't be enough to get them off the hook of needing to seek to reduce more harm in the future.

Yes exactly. Clearly the hate incident thing was set up with good intentions but it needs to be thought about a lot better than it has been.

UDGE - lets just look at this. If fact is people know about this type of recording and it impacts on what they feel they can and can't safely say - what then?

I like this one

udge - but this is recording as hate incidents. We know the implications for this in the real world are very significant.

JC But what are the implications? Its just a categorisation!

Back at 2 p.m.

So there you have it, no consequences, just categorisation mmmmmmm

Following.

Its just a categorisation!

"It's just admin!"

I get the sense this is a bit of a form v substance argument. Courts will look beyond what something is called (or categorised ) to what it actually does in practice.

It feels like the CoP are saying this guidance only covers this limited purpose / process and the Judge is saying but in reality it has the effect of doing something broader.

The whole point about having the record is to alert you to the possibility that there is potentially a greater risk of crime being committed in the future, the more "hate incidents" are recorded against the person the more they need to be wary that this person may escalate to hate crime.

It reminds me of the Lord questioning Graham Linehan yesterday, who wanted to make something of the fact that Graham had been banned from four platforms, as if that of itself meant he was more likely to be guilty of hate, rather than looking at the evidence of hate itself.