NCHI's - it's all kicking off!!

[lcakethereforeIam]

A Telegraph journalist was doorsteps by the Police on Remembrance Sunday for a year old tweet. They wouldn't tell her what the tweet was or who the complainant...sorry...victim was. I think it's may actually have been recorded as a crime now?

Murdo Fraser (autocorrupted to 'murder', add an 'ous' and that might be actually how he's feeling) has failed, so far, to get the NCHI recorded for his non-binary/cats tweet, removed. Safe to say he's not giving up.

Labour seem set on removing the ffs tone it down on the NCHIs guidance given to the Police.

The there's this article on Maya Forstater's legal troubles. Previous threads have been taken down for....no doubt excellent reasons. As it's reported in a newspaper I can't see why we can can't talk about it, within reason. I've taken the precaution of a new thread though jic.

https://archive.ph/o8yD8 none paywall click indisslink

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/13/gender-critical-maya-forstater-hate-crime-investigation/

Eta link and bad pun

It seems very 'something must be done'. I don't see how they will have prevented Stephen Lawrence's murder. Unless the intent is, in the fulness of time, to have a cowed population, too afraid to say, write or interact in anyway for fear of a NCHI. Which means they'll become so common place, they'll be like being called a transphobe or everyone will have a file and it will indeed be Stasi-like.

Starmer's getting worried about the optics.

Currently main headline on the Evening Standard's London news page.

"Police should focus on ‘crimes that matters most’ not tweets, PM says amid Telegraph writer row"

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/keir-starmer-tweets-telegraph-writer-allison-pearson-essex-police-b1194588.html

He then went on to opine that the pope is Catholic but refused to be drawn on the toilet habits of bears.

Let's remember that the police did nothing about Wayne Couzens flashing at a McDonald's (with CCTV evidence, reported to the police by employees) shortly before he abducted and murdered Sarah Everard. Clear red flags for escalation to worse behaviour, ignored.

Rape convictions at an all time low. Not turning up to burglaries and thefts commonplace. Ignoring women reporting stalking and death threats all the time.

I've got a friend whose thousand pound bike was stolen (bike lock cut) from outside his home. Even when he sent the listing the criminals created trying to sell the bike online to police they did nothing.

Then they spend time on a journalist's tweet suggesting they might be biased.

In my opinion the only possible explanation for this highly selective approach to potential offences is that they're trying to shut her up.

Who wants to target criminals when you can teach an uppity woman a lesson and bask in sanctimony too?

He probably is, but this is hardly Starmer's fault, is it? The Public Order Act, and the offence of stirring up racial hatred, dates from 1986 when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. I can't say I'm Starmer's biggest fan but you can't blame a man who's been in charge five months for police deciding to investigate a possible crime under a 38-year old law.

He's the man in charge, so obviously people will direct their criticisms to him, and perhaps Yvette Cooper. Just like they did with Rishi, Boris, Dave etc.

I get that you don't like Pearson and think she shouldn't have said what she did, but it's clearly police overreach. The "two tier Keir" perception is powerful.

How long does anyone have to be prime minister before they have to do something about what is happening now?

Well, quite.

He's being asked about an action taken within the last ten days. And he's the person who can do something about it, what with Labour having won the GE and him being the head of the current government.

I agree that it's police overreach. I just think that it's a bit rich blaming it on Starmer - in this country police forces are largely independent, and normally we don't take kindly to politicians telling police forces what they can and can't do.

Though that does raise the interesting question of how we can get the police to spend more time responding to burglary calls, mobile phone thefts and domestic violence and less time going after people who have posted stupid things on Twitter.

I just think that it's a bit rich blaming it on Starmer - in this country police forces are largely independent, and normally we don't take kindly to politicians telling police forces what they can and can't do.

The Home Office regularly publishes guidance and codes of practice for police forces.

It published a code of practice on NCHI's last year.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice/non-crime-hate-incidents-code-of-practice-on-the-recording-and-retention-of-personal-data-accessible

Which Yvette Cooper has said she will scrap:

https://afcomm.org.uk/2024/09/11/home-secretary-to-scrap-guidance-limiting-police-recording-of-non-crime-hate-incidents/

So I'm not that convinced about the government not being able to act in this area.

It’s going to be difficult for a government with authoritarian tendencies to push back on this sort of thing. If anything Labour would like to see things moving in the opposite direction. They have prevented HEFSA from becoming law and are considering making it easier for the police to record NCHIs. Not to mention the conversation therapy bans which could potentially criminalise therapists and parents or at the very least create a chilling affect on speech.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/08/27/hate-crime-measures-back-agenda-despite-fears-free-speech/

Archive…

https://archive.ph/oYOxC

In it, an officer told her: “It’s gone down as an incident or offence of potentially inciting racial hatred online. That would be the offence.”
They then added: “It’s what’s been alleged and if there’s an offence we need to ask questions about then we need to do that.”

Ffs. Is it or not? How long does it fucking take to decide if it's a crime or not?

Though that does raise the interesting question of how we can get the police to spend more time responding to burglary calls, mobile phone thefts and domestic violence and less time going after people who have posted stupid things on Twitter.

Yes. That's definitely a political issue.

That's a fair point (nauticant's too). I think what I'm saying is that this specific incident can't be blamed on Starmer or the Labour government, and if the Conservatives had won the election, the police would still have visited Pearson. It's not something you're going to be able to put right straight away when there are 100 other issues to be dealing with.

Yvette Cooper is awful.

No one is saying it wouldn't have happened under the conservatives. It did, and it was just a wrong as it is now. The point is that its happening at all. When a party is in charge, they have the responsibility to either support it, or make changes.

It doesnt matter if they've been in power months or years, or there are other things to do as well. There's always plenty for a government to do. They cant put something like this on a to do list.

Two police officers took the time to visit a woman because of something she tweeted. Was she someone with a history of violence? Does anyone think that was proportional? Was it the best use of police time?

The government set the law, the police have to work to that law. If something is wrong its up to the current government to act.

There is something peculiar going on with it though.

We depend on police officers being able to sort out what the appropriate course of action is in a lot of cases. You stop some young kid doing something, do you arrest him, take him home to his mum, link him up with services, scare the shit out of him....

Of course they don't always get it right, no one could, but most of the police I have dealt with try hard to do the right thing and are also pretty pragmatic. They are trying to see the big picture, what will improve things vs making them worse.

With this stuff, it's like all ability to understand the purpose of certain practices had gone out the window. And it's not just one guy who is a doofus, presumably the supervisors and others up the line are allowing it.

I assume the problem is that the less senior police are required to do these thought crime/ tweet visits. Some will embrace the job with vigour and others less so. I’m guessing our old friend EDI is at work here with senior policemen’s bonuses dependent on enough boxes ticked for cracking down on expressions of wrongthink.

Police will enforce whatever legislation is given to them (or legal obligation that is placed on them, although rape/sexual assault seems to be an exception) so a former government gave the Police the ability to investigate and punish behaviour that isn’t criminal and they are going to do that, especially if they can do it easily and record nice high numbers in a spreadsheet that shows they’re meeting this particular category’s target.

As with some other subjects we discuss, (GRA 2004 and EQ 2010) legislation that is ill-considered by Parliament (and falls under the category of ‘something must be done to make us look less bad as a government’ doesn’t produce satisfactory results in practice.

Our free speech is violence, their violence is free speech.

there is no healing this divide.

The current DPP (wasn't that Starmer's old job?) had to look NCHIs up and isn't sure how they became a thing!

https://archive.ph/nbGMh

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/top-prosecutor-i-had-no-idea-what-non-crime-hate-incidents-were-bclqwm2pf

Despite his position, Parkinson said that he was not certain how investigations of NCHIs were started.

Pleased to know it's not just me.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that the Blair/Brown government that gave us all 3 of them

The police will continue to use NCHIs as it makes their figures look good and can be concluded without messy evidence and court cases.
An analogy was with the zeal they used to prosecute gay people for public order offences even using entrapment. As opinions changed the police were told to back off a bit but they ignored the advice. In the end it had to be legalised to the same age as hetrosexuals for the persecution to end.
Until NCHIs are abolished the police will use them no matter how many cases they lose or what guidance is issued. It's that simple.