Urgent - clarity over hate crime laws

[CaptainCarrotsBigSword]

Hi all. DD has an external training provider coming into school tomorrow to do a workshop on hate crime with her year (6) and the year below.

There was v v v little info on the original comms from school, even though we do need to give permission for her to attend. Naff all on the website of the provider.

Asked school to give me details of the people delivering the workshop and sight of the materials. Fair play to school they have sent me a copy of the PowerPoint, although no details on who is giving the session.

Most of the info looks ok but I am a bit concerned about the inclusion of "transgender identity" in this slide.

Is this accurate? I know this is a very messy area of the law and I know there have been examples of JKR being threatened with investigation/ charging of a hate crime for naming as men, certain individuals who identify as transwomen.

I don't have an issue with DD being taught about hate crime in general (although I think it's a flawed law) but seeing as the police don't seem to be able to get this right I'm not feeling a whole lot of trust on this topic right now.

I suppose as well, there would be a potential problem around how they define "criminal offence". Are they going to state that naming a transwoman as a man is a criminal offence? Refusing to affirm a non-binary or gender fluid identity? Obviously a very different kettle of fish from beating up a transwoman or trans man because of their being trans, which would clearly meet the criteria of a hate crime.

'The law recognises five types of hate crime on the basis of:

• Race
• Religion
• Disability
• Sexual orientation
• Transgender identity

Any crime can be prosecuted as a hate crime if the offender has either:

• demonstrated hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity

Or

• been motivated by hostility based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity'

Copied and pasted from cps

https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime

I was ready to jump in and say this cant be right as I thought / assumed it was based on the protected characteristic in the EA (and both sex and disability are NOT covered by hate crime).

But it turns out the published law uses "gender identity" so there's another one that was slipped through.

see
https://lawcom.gov.uk/project/hate-crime/
https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime

A hate crime is a sentencing issue. It's added to a crime as an 'aggravator'. It's not a crime in itself.

So the basic issue is that it has to be a crime before it can be a hate crime?

I guess that's why non crime hate incident was invented, to find a way to criminalise non criminal behaviour.

Ah that's helpful, thanks.

So, there could be a crime of, say, GBH and that could have an aggravator added if the person used slurs or showed hostility to the victim based on their protected characteristic.

Yep.

So assaulting a trans woman is considered a more serious offence than assaulting a woman.

Potentially, yes.

If the crime was motivated by hostility toward the protected characteristic.

Or if it was perceived by the victim as having been motivated by that.

This is a video from the presentation. This to me seems to be blurring the boundaries between hate incidents and hate crime.

Being made to feel bad about your gender identity, instead of being accepted for being you, is not a hate crime - I feel like this video is suggesting it is.

My understanding of this is that it is because women aren't protected by hate crime legislation - misogyny apparently can't be made a hate crime because there is too much of it / too many of us. It would be unmanageable on a logistical level.

Which is totally shit for us.

It would be an aggravating factor if the reason for the assault was the fact that the victim was trans. And not just, for example, that they had pushed in front of the perpetrator in a bar.

Except that the legislation takes into account the victim's perception rather than the perpetrator's intention.

I was ready to jump in and say this cant be right as I thought / assumed it was based on the protected characteristic in the EA (and both sex and disability are NOT covered by hate crime).

The Equality Act relates to civil law. This is criminal law and "transgender identity" is one of the "monitored strands". Disability is covered in this.

Sex is not. As you observe.

Except that the legislation takes into account the victim's perception rather than the perpetrator's intention.

Exactly.

So the basic issue is that it has to be a crime before it can be a hate crime?

It's a bit of a grey area in practice because there are several wide ranging laws that they can prosecute you under which would be less likely to result in a prosecution without the aggravator.

Malicious communications (nasty tweets etc)

Public order offence (wearing a transphobic badge or t shirt or displaying a poster)

Harassment (deliberate misgendering)

I've heard of 2 tier policing, but now we have 2 tier legal rights.

How can civil law not be enforced via criminal law.

Who decides what is "monitored" by criminal law and decide to ignore civil law.

How more stupid can this country become.

It's been the case for a long time. It predates the Equality Act.

.

Find it hard to believe anyone was using the phrase "gender identity" pre the EA 2010!

Especially as the EA specifically says "gender recognition".

Are they expecting many of their year 5s and year 6s to commit crimes?
I mean, I know there were 12 year olds in the riots but is speaking to a primary school really going to make them say "hey, I'd better not throw eggs at a mosque".

Hate Crime consultation was 2010 to bring together vaious other laws regarding "aggravated" offences. Totally contradictory to have the EA legislation saying one thing and Hate Crimes another.

But suspect the well place infiltrators were hard at work and nobody thought that would go against the wording of the EA being debated at the same time.

Though this comment as to just how important those who write the law think women's rights are:

The Law Commission has recommended that “sex or gender” should not be added to the protected characteristics for aggravated offences and enhanced sentencing as it would be ineffective at protecting women and girls and in some cases, counterproductive.

For example, if applied in the context of rape and domestic abuse it could make it more difficult to secure prosecutions and create unhelpful hierarchies of victims. However, if these contexts are excluded, it would make sex or gender very much the poor relation of hate crime characteristics, applicable only in certain, limited contexts.

However, the Commission has made a number of recommendations to provide greater protection:

• Extending the offence of stirring up hatred to cover stirring up hatred on the grounds of sex or gender. This would help to tackle the growing threat of extremist misogynist “incel” ideology, and its potential to lead to serious criminal offending.
• A government review of the need for a specific offence to tackle public sexual harassment, which would likely be more effective than adding sex or gender to hate crime laws.

As to the stupid comment about making it harder to get convictions for rape is just bogus. Rape is already defined by law. The point of hate crime is to say whether an act of violence or whatever is aggravated by "hate".

Did anyone scrutinise this?