Caroline F - new arrest / harassment ?

[catsrus]

Caroline has just posted on twitter that the police were trying to force entry - WTF going on?

Three officers saying she has to go with them.

Three.

twitter.com/cf_farrow/status/1651514281471492096?s=46&t=rbPMHI1uvxUAiQC4E1EE3A

Excellent posts @FGCPC but in your last post you're essentially saying the police prioritise based on risk, but this doesn't seem to be the case from what we know. Marion Millar was arrested for posting photos of ribbons IIRC - how is that high risk?

Posie was visited for being 'untoward about paedophiles' - when she'd reported evidence of trafficking and nothing was done about that. The risk to trafficked women is high and the risk to anyone of Posie saying she doesn't like paedophiles is exactly 0.

Online rape threats from strangers are often overlooked because the risk of them being carried out is perceived as low and women don't benefit from the enhanced response dictated by hate crime policy.

You say the police seem to think that threats of rape are 'low risk' but we know they're not. Women are raped all the time to the point it's basically legal, and often it escalates. We know that Couzens had no penalty for flashing and then escalated to murder. The evidence for this pattern of escalation is quite strong; in terms of domestic violence and stalking there are loads and loads of women who are killed by ex partners after stalking / threatening behaviour. How on earth can that be 'low risk'. I'd argue it can only be considered low risk by misogynist police officers who don't care if women are harmed or die, and clearly care more about men's feelings than women's safety. It's not about the risk being 'perceived as low' it's about the people making these decisions using that as a get out clause for poor decisions for which they should be accountable particularly when people are harmed or lose their life as a result.

What happened to the officers who decided Couzen's flashing didn't merit prosecution or arrest? They could have saved Sarah and this is a pattern we see time and again - men are 'let off' for crimes because misogynistic decisions are made and then women are harmed or die.

To summarise - the pattern of decision making is that women are arrested and evidence gathered for behaviours that are very low risk of violence, whereas men are not investigated nor evidence gathered for behaviours that have proven high risk of violence (especially when you take into account male pattern offending vs female pattern offending). And no police officers are held to account for this clearly biased decision making.

The hate crime laws is a fig leaf - if you really are supposed to look at actual risk.

I have no doubt if 'misogyny' was a hate crime you'd still have CF being arrested and evidence gathered whilst her harassers who have behaved in an intimidatory way to her and her children are not arrested and no evidence gathered. Because the misogyny directed against men who think they're women would be considered high priority / risk and that against women not.

To me the fundamental issue is that the Police are operating in a partial way motivated by political compliance and that by itself, let alone everything else that's going on, risks undermining confidence in the Police.

One would think the Police would be concerned about this. They may be. But they seem to see their own interests being served by thinking very much in the short term to pick up points right now for acting in a way that's "politically correct" (in the true meaning of this term).

Online rape threats from strangers are often overlooked because the risk of them being carried out is perceived as low and women don't benefit from the enhanced response dictated by hate crime policy.

But you are ‘overlooking’ a criminal offence under the malicious communication act 2003. The online rape threat itself is a crime, it doesn’t need to involve any risk of the threat being carried out.

s127(1)(a)sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character; or

Is someone posting a poem on twitter high risk?

When Harry Miller took the Humberside Police to court for the non crime hate incident for reposting a poem after they visited him at work to 'check his thinking', and won, and the College of Police have been told to review their training, and they have done so and completely ignored the directive and are still training using the scenarios they were told to remove...how can anyone trust the Police again?

They can't even review their own materials to remove that which has been found, in court, to be an illegal use of legislation. They are knowingly breaking the law, to train the next batch of officers.

I skim read this thread, and skipped over most of Felix's posts. He may well have been making valid points, but the hectoring tone, and his lack of empathy put me off. Maybe this is symptomatic of the police as a whole.

I'm glad he had the time to lecture women on the Internet in such a lot of detail, giving individual responses. and it was a lecture – he wasn't joining in the conversation.

Boiledbeetle
I am interested in the back story - and i will envisage to read it when I get chance between work, home-life and fixing cars

And you are right - activists will use police to harass and intimidate their victims for their own means. If by making false claims & reports to police - and it can be proven they are false - they should be prosecuted

And the police should be aware of this. And if indeed that this current complaint is by the same person(s) and concerns the back story - then of course it is entirely relevant and must be taken into considertaion.

But - we just don't know that yet

And Caroline is a human being and should be treat with dignity & respect throughout - no matter what she has been alleged to have done. And i do empathise with her. But is this current police involvement linked to the past or is it entirely different? If it is entirely different - has it posed sufficient threat, harm & risk to require officers attending her address?

I am looking at it through police procedure aspect as that was the title of the thread "....Caroline has just posted on twitter that the police were trying to force entry - WTF going on? Three officers saying she has to go with them..."

And the reason why I keep repeating myself is most people on here keeping throwing the argument back at me and say I need to read the back story before I can judge if the police were right to attend. I appreciate that you can see that we don't know the reason why they attended at this point - but others don't seem to and keep repeating it back at me.

This. I read a few then just scrolled past.

FGCPC
Completely agree with you regards the current work load being faced by response cops. Safeguarding is everything - and even your best plans to crack on with your crime enquiries go out the window when the next missing from home comes in or cell watch or hospital watch.

I agree with many of the points raised, and I am definitely not trying to say it's ok. It isn't. I'm just trying to give an insight. Understanding a problem is the first step towards solution.

To come back to overlooking crime, police do this all the time. Very very many crimes are filed without much (if any) investigation if the risk is perceived as low and the likelihood of solving it is also low. This is why police don't attend many car break ins anymore.

What's needed is a wholesale revision on crimes against women. Most of you on here know that flashing etc are gateway crimes. The police are quite late to that in my view. Same with rape threats. The police really, really need to see the connection between some saddo sending rape threats to a woman online he's never met and the likes of Couzens, Garrick and Jake Davison. Some do, a lot more don't. This is because the link has never been pushed as hard as some other, more fashionable causes.

I agree - the crimes should be investigated properly

FGCPC
I agree with many of the points raised, and I am definitely not trying to say it's ok. It isn't. I'm just trying to give an insight. Understanding a problem is the first step towards solution.

Agree 100%

There needs to be a whole review on the pressures on policing.

We should be pushing things back on other services instead of just taking more & more things on. Police seem to be the fall back resource for everyone. Mental health, social services, custody care etc etc

Even case files and the constant redaction process for media needs to be totally streamlined - one case file can take the entire shift to complete. CPS's relentless action plans which are not relevant to the case itself.

Assaults on police (is it 100 per day now) and the constant cancellation of rest days - no wonder people are going off with stress and leaving less police resources for the their local community

Looks like Lisa Townsend has blocked CF on Twitter.

Lisa Townsend is, at the end of the day, a politician.

Her job is to hold the police to account.

She will have had a cosy chat with the Chief Constable who is looking to protect the reputation of Surrey police and will have assured her that all is in order and that procedures have been correctly followed.

There will be an alleged victim claiming that CF is putting his life in fear or causing him enormous psychological harm. We can all guess the script.

Like @Felix125 Townsend doesn’t know the backstory, she is just going off the police brief sheet and protecting her backside. She cannot comment on a live investigation so she should have said nothing.

If you do the research, CF has been the victim of crimes and threats. These are linked to the current arrests because when you look at the blog website archives, the same people appear to be involved.

CF is mocked and informed by this blog that the police hate her when she complains that nothing has been done.

Statements like the ones Graham Linehan publishes are malicious.

CF is another women who has been seriously let down by the police.

.

Lisa Townsend is known for her GC politics. My assumption would be she probably is aware of the backstory and has been briefed by the police and has had the opportunity to ask them questions about the situation.

My assumption would be she probably is aware of the backstory

Assumption. Probably aware…

Surrey has a new chief Constable appointed by Townsend. Any CC is going to be more concerned with the reputation of their force than the plight of one individual.

It is part of a PCC’s remit to improve and foster trust between the police.

Being GC does not make anyone impeccable. CF is not. Lisa Townsend is not either.

The Tories are still the Tories.

If she is aware and she wrote that tweet and then blocked Caroline, she's completely unaware of what that looks like.

and foster trust between the police…

should read foster trust between the police and the public.

In other words it’s in Townsend’s best interests to say that there is nothing to see here and imply CF is motivated by a desire to grift money from the police as opposed to being genuinely distraught or unfairly treated.

I would have thought Lisa Townsend would have to be especially careful to appear neutral precisely because she is known to be GC. She has already had to explain herself to the panel she reports to over another incident involving trans issues and women’s rights. I can’t remember the details of that incident: I don’t think it had anything to do with CF but it was GC related.

Lisa Townsend pulled Surrey police out of the Stonewall schemes and wrote a hard-hitting article for the Mail.

That aroused the wrath of Crispin Blunt MP (the friend of convicted paedophile Ahmad Khan, you may recall), who pressed the Surrey Police & Crime Panel to ‘hold her to account’. She stood up to them.

She was supported by about a dozen other Conservative Police & Crime Commissioners throughout England.

Just seen some misogynistic posts were made about Townsend on Kiwifarms, and CF, posting right afterwards, didn’t sound like she was bothered. That might explain the block. I think CF offended Sarah Phillimore in similar circumstances to this.

@Felix125 I wouldn't normally post on these kinds of thread, but I take great offence to your policesplaining and repeating that we all need to be good little mumsnetters and wait and see what she's charged with. I got and respected your POV the 1st time. After many repeats it feels like you're trying to silence discussion and are being rude.

From my POV.

Woman gets arrested for twitter tweets - later decided that no criminal act has been committed. Any police officer with an ounce of compassion should realise how distressing and punishing the process was for the woman.

2nd time around - IMHO any decent officer should be aware of the history and be damn sure that a crime has actually been committed before taking anything other than a softly, softly approach or no approach at all until sure a crime has actually been committed.

3rd time WTAF are the police playing at.

If this is indeed the 4th time then hell yes I agree it matters that there have been 3 previous invasive, distressing investigations into a woman found not to have committed any crime. Note found on full facts not to have committed any crime, not dropped by CPS due to evidentiary issues.

I don't agree with Carolines view on a lot of things, but unless there is concrete evidence she was about to commit a violent act then the police come out of this very badly in my view having previously, likely, traumatised a woman by their own processes and not having reflected that any escolation or even continuation looks like an abuse of powers. So, no, we dont know what she is alleged to have done, but we do know what the police have done. As others have mentioned in terms of male / female pattern offending, past behaviour as the best predictor of future behaviour, etc when a woman has already been repeatedly punished by the police for non-crimes YES I judge the police very harshly for even considering putting her door through or taking any incident individually instead of having a thread of self awareness, empathy and self investigation.

The other officer explained how officers hands are tied - disgraceful. Whereas you follow the same course of banging on about the police needing to take each allegation on its own and are part of the problem. The system needs to change.

Why should CF defend Townsend on KF? Townsend overseas the police service that has failed to protect her. So you think Townsend may have blocked CF on Twitter because CF failed to react in an approved fashion to posts made by other people?

I don't think it is wise for any woman, let alone one with a lot of stress going on in her life (as per the thoughtful post from @andweallsingalong), to feel as if it is their role to police misogyny on KF. That way madness lies.

I presume CF ignored it? She didn't join in, or laugh, or amplify it? She simply ... ignored it?