Suella Braverman statement about police behaviour and TRA police officer response

[Truthlikeness]

I was heartened to see the letter to policing leaders published by the Home Secretary yesterday, reminding them of the importance of remaining politically neutral. She included reference to the heavy handed tactics used against GC women and their failure to take action against violent TRA threats. She also described the Progress flag as 'symbolising highly contested ideologies'.

Full letter here - https://twitter.com/suellabraverman/status/1697905696145092684?s=46&t=qrlGvkcRV2VhASm_7kkOnw

And the response from a serving police officer - rather neatly illustrating the need for the letter in the first place. I don't see how that can result in anything other than dismissal.

https://twitter.com/wearefaircop/status/1698034987826614582?s=46&t=qrlGvkcRV2VhASm_7kkOnw

I outlined a suggested approach in my later post.

But I would also warn them that if they have no actual evidence that this lady is doing anything wrong and they keep reporting her to the police just because they don't like her, she might well have grounds to complain of harassment herself.

Again. We are talking specifics. It is clear to me you enjoy the shit stirring. I hope you don't do this at work - but it appears to be your personality.

I think anyone who calls the police to whinge about posters and ribbons should be pointed towards therapy.

I would prefer the police to do their proper job properly.

That is all.

Also if you are a police officer HOW FUCKING DARE you mention stalking? Something which we know the police brush off with devastating regularity when women report it. How. Dare. You.

MargotBamborough
Have the person come in, take a statement, ask them to detail every single incident they are talking about, explaining in detail why they are sure that the same person is responsible for all of them.........

Yes - and we do all of this.

But the reporting person is adamant that its all connected or it the same old lady doing the same things time and time again. And its definitely target harassment. Its been going on for months and she is part of a bigger group or maybe getting the other people in the group to do things etc etc.....

They give a clear 10 point description of them, they may even name her - they give observe them from close distance in good light with no obstructions to their view. They may also bring in a witness who provides a statement confirming all of the above. So its not just a feeling.

They appreciate that taking a photo of a sticker/poster in itself is not an offence or issue - but when you add it all to the bigger picture, its just another piece of harassment.

And they continue to state that its causing their life to be miserable etc etc....

Do we still just tell them we are not taking any further action?

Brefugee
Also if you are a police officer HOW FUCKING DARE you mention stalking? Something which we know the police brush off with devastating regularity when women report it. How. Dare. You.

Not true - I do loads of cases of stalking & harassment, in fact i would hazard a guess that it possibly one of the more regular offences which our force deals with and arrests for.

SPO's and non molestation orders base most of their evidence around stalking & harassment patterns identified by investigations.

Again:if you and your force are so perfect (I don't believe it) why aren't you being benchmarked for all other forces?

We have received the message loud and clear. Women, especially I'd older or disabled, cannot rely on the police.

Assuming this is all hypothetical since as far as we know all the lady who has sparked this discussion did was take a photo of a sticker.

Is it usual for someone to contact the police about a long series of incidents which has led them to the point where they just can't take it any more, without having contacted the police previously about the earlier incidents?

If I were a police officer and someone made a complaint about a woman taking a photo of a sticker and when I didn't immediately leap up to go and arrest her, started to talk about earlier damage to their car, the first question I would ask would be, "Did you report the damage to your car at the time?"

If I were a police officer and someone made a complaint about a woman taking a photo of a sticker, I would be checking the files to see whether this person had a history of making complaints about apparently trivial matters, and if so whether there was any link between the people they had complained about.

To me, this seems to basic due diligence that the police should undertake to try and identify bullshitters before they go knocking on anyone's door over a sticker.

If you went to investigate the woman over a sticker and there turned out to be nothing in it, when the complainer had made a long litany of accusations about her, would there be any consequences for them? If not, why not?

As much as I applaud your commitment to dealing with complaints, as other PP have noted, women who complain to the police about stalking, harassment, sexual assault, rape and domestic violence (all of which I'm sure you will agree are far more serious and distressing than stickers or even cars being damaged) don't seem to be benefiting from the same rigorousness. Some of them have subsequently gone on to be murdered by the person they complained about.

Can you see why some of us are wondering why it is apparently only a very special group of people who seem to benefit from gold plated policing?

Do we still just tell them we are not taking any further action?

Why not? That is what you do when shopkeepers report low value shoplifting.

When I was mugged by a man on a motorbike who dragged me 20 metres down the pavement before I let go of my bag, the police showed up four hours after I called them and basically said, "Well he fled the scene so he'll be long gone now."

I don't think they ever actually informed me they wouldn't be taking any action, they just didn't take any action.

This was over 15 years ago so we can't even blame Tory austerity.

MargotBamborough
Of course they are all checked on the system to see if anything else has been reported. Often done and listed on the job before you even see it.

But if its a case that they haven't reported previous incidents, do we automatically doubt them. Most victims of domestic abuse never phone the police until the 15th incident or so. Doesn't mean to say we can automatically believe that they haven't happened.

It could be that the previous incidents have just been noted, not tried to let it affect them, tried to move on - but the last incident was the straw which broke the camels back - so they finally phoned the police.

I think its wrong to ignore previous incidents just because they are being reported later.

So - you do all the checks and there is no history to say that this reporting person has made false accusations in the past. In fact they have reported the damage to their house & car in the past but as there was insufficient evidence at the time, no further action was taken. And they still have not changed their account now they are sat in front of you at the police station.

Is there any consequence against the reporting person - it depends if you can prove that they have lied or not. So if you go and see this older lady and she denies any offences or any kind of harassment - is that enough for you to then prosecute the reporting person for making a false claim? How do you know the older lady is not lying to you? If its one word against another - where do you go from there?

Other offences are of course more serious - which is why things like this tend to just fall onto the 'as & when' queue. Offences such as rapes, sexual assaults, DV's etc etc are a priority and are investigated expeditiously - certainly in our force.

JanesLittleGirl
Do we still just tell them we are not taking any further action?
Why not? That is what you do when shopkeepers report low value shoplifting.

I agree - and we should deal with all shop thefts

But then we need more resources to do so - one theft will take an entire shift to complete properly. You will need statements from the shop staff (2-3 hours). CCTV will need seizing and processing, redacting to remove all sensitive information (another 2 hours or so). Crime reports, statements from officers, booking into custody, house searches to recover the outstanding property etc etc

You then have the problem that you have to wait for the shop staff to be made available by the managers of the shop to provide the statements or head office to email the manager the password to access the CCTV systems.

Then you need to arrange a solicitor, interview the suspect, case file completion....

So that will take me the entire shift to sort - for say a theft of a £5 jar of coffee.

Or would you prefer to keep my available for the ongoing domestics violence incidents, missing from homes, suicidal people, burglaries etc etc

So our Felix is now comparing an old(ish) woman taking a photograph of a sticker to domestic violence??

Get a grip, Felix.

And explain to us why males of a certain 'type' seem to be getting gold-plated service from the police.

Brefugee
Again:if you and your force are so perfect (I don't believe it) why aren't you being benchmarked for all other forces?
We have received the message loud and clear. Women, especially I'd older or disabled, cannot rely on the police.

Yet the sanctification surveys from police forces around the country have a high satisfaction rate from the public they serve.

oldwomanwhoruns
So our Felix is now comparing an old(ish) woman taking a photograph of a sticker to domestic violence??

Not at all - I am saying most people don't phone the police on the first occurrence. They will wait until the until a number of incidents have occurred before phoning.

I think that you have just made my point for me. You can justify blanking the shopkeepers where there is a crime because of effort/reward but you can't justify blanking somebody who complained about a photo being taken for the same effort/reward because you're afraid of a bit of bad PR.

Really?

oldwomanwhoruns
And explain to us why males of a certain 'type' seem to be getting gold-plated service from the police.

You need to explain 'males of a certain type' and 'getting a gold-plated service from the police.'

Come on Felix, you can't expect us to believe that.

Given the number of sexual assaults, burglaries, robberies and so on which aren't investigated at all, stickers should NEVER be making it off the "as and when" list.

It's also, in my view, grossly offensive to make the comparison with someone who only reports domestic abuse after the 15th incident, for reasons which ought to be obvious but I will list some anyway:

• victims of domestic abuse are reporting someone they are in an intimate relationship with or otherwise related to, not a stranger

• victims of domestic abuse know that reporting the abuse is going to turn their lives upside down, tear their family apart, and quite possibly make them homeless

• victims of domestic abuse are usually experiencing the boiled frog effect, i.e. they've started off in a seemingly happy relationship with just the odd weird moment here and there, only for it to develop into an abusive relationship over time, making it very difficult to acknowledge that they are being abused

• victims of domestic abuse are often pregnant when the abuse starts and their abuser is their child or children's other parent

• victims of domestic abuse often feel a sense of shame in being abused and do not want to admit that they were taken in and made a catastrophic error of judgement (middle class professional women in particular tend to feel that they are not the sort of person who should be capable of being abused)

• victims of domestic abuse have often been gaslit by their abuser into believing that the abuse is their own fault and that they could stop it simply by changing their own behaviour

• victims of domestic abuse know that if they report the abuse to the police and they are not believed or nothing is done, the abuse will escalate and they will be in even greater danger than they were before

• victims of domestic abuse have probably heard a lot of stories about other victims who reported abuse to the police and nothing was done, so they lack faith in the system

• victims of domestic abuse often can't afford to leave their abuser because they have no independent access to money.

All of these are reasons why a victim of domestic abuse might not come forward until the abuse has been going on for a while and has reached crisis point.

None of these circumstances apply to the victims of transphobic stickering, or victims of members of the public having the temerity to look at or photograph transphobic stickers.

I assume she means males who believe they are in a vulnerable minority group due to their personal identity, and the police questioning women who have committed no crimes about stickers and what books they have on their bookshelves at the behest of that group, when there are actual crimes which need investigating.

Are you really using the word "incident" to describe both "my husband tried to strangle me" and "I saw a woman taking a picture of a sticker"?

Felix, you well know which males we are talking about. And you have been on this board long enough to know that most of our descriptions will result in a deletion.

Males who wave pink and blue flags?

You definitely get a better class of alternative facts on MN. 👏

MargotBamborough
Come on Felix, you can't expect us to believe that.

You don't believe that people attend police stations and provide statements saying that they are being harassed by a series of events which is now starting to turn their life upside down?

That they will make out that it is much more serious than just a sticker incident? That it is ongoing harassment and targeted at them?

DV's are of course a lot more serious - but the point is that a lot of people don't phone the police at the fist instance of harassment - be it by a partner, ex-partner, a friend, a colleague, a stranger.....

Are you really using the word "incident" to describe both "my husband tried to strangle me" and "I saw a woman taking a picture of a sticker"?

They both get called into police as 'incidents'. They are then assessed and graded as to threat, harm, risk.

So a husband trying to strangle his partner would be graded as an emergency and officers sent. The sticker one will be classed as a minor 'incident' unless something else is attached to it.

Most of these sticker type incidents will be written off at the call taker stage. We will get loads of calls to the police which do not need any police action and are written off bu the call taker. Even if it get passed them, the dispatchers can write it off. But every now and then, something is mentioned which makes it progress further. It will be graded as low priority, but still need to be looked at further.

oldwomanwhoruns
Males who wave pink and blue flags?

So what 'gold plated service' are they getting?

OK, I've been racking my brains and I have managed to think of one circumstance in which the police paying a visit to sticker photo lady might be justified.

On 12th July, Samantha Price, an AMAB woman, is walking back from the shops when she sees a woman in her 70s deliberately damaging her car. The woman realises she is being observed and runs away. Samantha reports the incident to the police but as there was no CCTV in the area and no other witnesses, they don't have enough information to investigate and inform Samantha that they are unable to take the matter further at this time. On 30th July Samantha is exiting the tube station when she sees the same woman taking a photograph of a transphobic sticker which has been placed on a trans rights poster. Samantha informs the police, who obtain CCTV from TfL and are thus able to identify the woman taking the photo of the sticker and attend her home to question her about the earlier damage to the car.

However, given that the only thing they have evidence of this woman actually doing is taking a photo of a sticker, which is not a crime, and they only have Samantha's word for it that it is the same woman who damaged her car, and assuming that the woman is likely to say, "Huh? What's wrong with taking a photo of a sticker? And what's that got to do with someone damaging a car? I didn't damage anyone's car and I have never even met the person who has complained about me!" it's difficult to see how even this would be a good use of police time.

JanesLittleGirl
Its not about bad PR - its about doing the job properly and investigating what has been reported.

I have no problem dealing with the shop theft all day - its straight forward if lengthy. But if you want all thefts to be investigated, you lose your resources.