police -

What Does The Following Tell Us?

1. The Angiolini Report on how Wayne Couzens became – and remained – a police officer, despite numerous reports of criminal behaviour & other red flags, has been published – https://iipcv-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/E02740018_Angiolini-Inquiry.pdf

There is much of interest in its 316 pages, not least the following: Couzens had a long history of sexual offending, “a predilection for extreme pornography and a vile sexualised expression of his sense of humour”. Despite this and many opportunities to investigate him, no action was taken and the Metropolitan Police admitted in 2022 that faced with a similar candidate they would have made the same hiring decision.

The Foreword states: “…wider debates have raged about public trust and confidence in the police and women’s safety in public places. Neither of these problems have been resolved. In fact, public trust and confidence in policing has deteriorated further. It also remains the case that women in public spaces are at risk from those men who choose to predate upon them.” (emphasis added)

The Report hopes that those in authority in all police forces (not just the Met) will read the Report.

2. The issues around the hiring and vetting of police officers do not just relate to exceptionally awful cases such as David Carrick and Wayne Couzens. See, for instance, Jeff Mitchell: a police officer convicted of kidnap, 10 counts of rape and 3 counts of rape of a child under 13 – https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/24134622.met-police-officer-convicted-kidnap-rape-rape-child/. Like Couzens there was an earlier opportunity to catch him, which was missed. These are not isolated rare cases. Nor are they limited to the Met.

3. The Angiolini Report comes 11 months after the Casey Report into the Met, also commissioned after the Everard murder. It found that the Met had failed and was failing women, among many other serious criticisms. One will suffice: “The Met’s VAWG strategy rings hollow since its claim to be prioritising ‘serious violence’ has really not included the crimes that most affect women and girls. In practice, this has meant it has not been taken as seriously in terms of resourcing and prioritisation.”

4. Earlier last month there was the HMIC Report on the Met’s handling of child sexual exploitation, described as ineffective and leaving children – overwhelmingly girls – vulnerable to sexual exploitation. This was not the first such report. In 2016 there had been a report on the same topic, described as “the most severely critical that HMIC has published about any force, on any subject, ever.” Despite that, in 2023 Casey described its handling of such cases as having “major inadequacies”. The position has not improved a year later. https://hmicfrs.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/news/news-feed/metropolitan-police-leaving-vulnerable-children-at-risk-of-exploitation/.

5. Yesterday in Parliament the debate for International Women’s Day was brought forward because of next week’s Budget. Jess Phillips MP read out the names of the 98 women murdered in the UK by a man in 2023. Their names are collected by the Femicide Census: on average since the end of 2009, 140 women have been killed by men every year. That’s an average of two women dead at the hands of a man, every 5 days. Most occur in a domestic setting.

So it’s not just “public spaces” then.

6. Staffordshire Police have done some “hate crime” training in which they were told that “Women who take measures to protect themselves against unfamiliar men are subject to flawed unconscious bias and, therefore, similar to racists.”

Memo to Staffs Police: please read the Angiolini Report. Teaching the police this puts women and girls at risk and puts the police on the side of those who “choose to predate on them.”

7. The Angiolini Report makes a number of recommendations, some of them relating to how non-contact sexual offences, such as indecent exposure, should be taken seriously by the police and the criminal justice system. It says that: “Ministers should launch a public campaign to raise awareness about the criminality of any type of indecent exposure.”

8. Diana Johnson MP raised in Parliament yesterday the case of her constituent, Libby Squire, murdered by a man with a history of such offending. She was interviewed by the Today programme last March (after Couzens was convicted on three counts of indecent exposure), as was Wera Hobhouse MP, who had successfully piloted through Parliament a Bill banning upskirting. 3 women who had been the victims of indecent exposure were also interviewed. (1)

The three women all said their priority was to get away to somewhere safe. This is not an option available to women in prisons housing male prisoners claiming a female gender, something the Scottish Prison Service might like to consider as it implements a policy which allows men identifying as women to be housed in female only jails in certain circumstances. Will it take the Angiolini Report into account in making its decisions?

9. In that interview Diana Johnson said “the male body can be used to intimidate, as an act of violence against women and girls”. Wera Hobhouse wanted a complete culture change: “The traumatising effect that any of these offences have on women has been completely underestimated…. It’s a proper offence. It leads to ultimately the feeling in women that they’re very vulnerable, that they’re not being listened to,… that what they feel is a proper attack on them, their freedom, their liberty, their way of life is not seen as such.”

Dare one hope that there might be some joined up thinking – not just by Ministers or the police or MPs but by all organisations – about the consequences of policies or actions enabling men to have access to women’s spaces?

10. Abuse of women MPs has become worse and is driving women away from Parliament. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/misogyny-in-westminster-is-driving-women-out-of-politics-mps-warn-q0wf9b96q

“The irony is that the more women you get, the more it triggers some men who whilst they can blot out of their ears a couple of women, somehow it feels like an assault on them to actually have to listen to a number of women in authority talking confidently, and they then do a backlash. So really it’s part of fighting back against the backlash that comes when you make progress …”

Not just In Westminster.

11. Last month we also learnt why it had taken the Scottish authorities so long to arrest Iain Packer, the murderer of Emma Caldwell. They had ignored numerous reports made by other women who had been subjected to attacks by him.

It’s not just women MPs who are not listened to.

12. Thames Valley Police say that the law requires them to record the crimes committed by Scarlet Blake, a man who claims to have a female gender but who does not have a GRC – the murder of a man and the killing and dissection of a cat – as crimes committed by a woman. Scarlet Blake has been detained in a man’s prison. The Thames Valley Police Commissioner has cited Annex L to Code C of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 as requiring this. But this Annex is headed “Establishing gender of persons for the purpose of searching and certain other procedures”. It does not require what the police say it requires. In law Scarlet Blake is a man. See here for a helpful analysis of the effect of incorrect recording of the offenders’ sex on crime statistics.

13. In the by-election in Rochdale (a town usually in the news either for grooming gangs or because of the personal misconduct of its MPs), the winner is George Galloway, a man who said that you don’t need consent for every “insertion” (his words) – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19323783 – because a lack of consent is merely bad sexual etiquette not rape. This was criticised by the Charity Rape Crisis: “Sex without consent is rape. Mr Galloway’s description of such sexual violence as ‘really bad manners’ is offensive and deeply concerning.

Perhaps these are just coincidences. Or one of those “moral panics” or “culture wars” used to dismiss those – usually women – raising such concerns. Or maybe Occam’s razor applies: women and girls don’t matter.

(1) A detailed analysis of that interview can be found here.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Guest Blog by Cyclefree, a lawyer/investigator specialising in financial services and whistleblowing investigations.

A thought experiment

Take a religious group – something like Opus Dei, for instance. What might it do if determined enough? Let’s imagine.

It successfully presents itself as the only valid representative of all Catholics, indeed, all Christians in the UK – at least as far as the press and politicians are concerned.
It attracts support from popular celebrities.
It speaks regularly about discrimination against Catholics, how marginalised a minority and about their human rights (“Catholic rights are human rights”).
It says anyone raising concerns about child abuse by Catholic clergy shows hatred.
It describes those who criticize it or Catholics generally as “heretics” and “hate groups” or phobic.
It runs schemes whereby, for money, it audits organizations for how pro-Catholic – as determined by Opus Dei – they are.
It advises organizations and trains their employees on language, facilities, policies, the steps they must take – both internally and externally – to promote the faith as promulgated by Opus Dei and earn those points.
It requires organizations to teach all its staff (not simply Catholic ones) to talk about their souls, use religious language in their communications and remove any language or expressions which might offend Catholics.
It publishes league tables identifying which organizations are the most pro-Catholic, as decided by it.
It campaigns for changes in legislation to promote its religious ideals, changes which significantly alter existing equality legislation, especially for those opposed to religion having a say in legislation or affected by the changes it lobbies for.
It lobbies for the abolition of civil and same sex marriage so that marriage will be based on Opus Dei’s understanding of the Sacraments.
It advises organizations on equality law based on what it would like the law to be.
It provides training and information packs to be used by schools.
It has a flag, special days to celebrate what it stands for and regular public events at which employees from its members dress up in its religious habits and use its symbols, on vehicles, buildings and elsewhere.

Finally, imagine that many of the organizations where Opus Dei do this are state or state-funded organizations – the police, local authorities, government departments, grant-giving bodies and health authorities. They sign up to its creed, use its language, promote its symbols and congratulate themselves not just on not being anti-Catholic but on being proudly pro-Catholic, pro-Opus Dei.

Reasons for worry?

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that this is a bit odd. You’d be concerned at how a particular ideology was being spread without anyone else having a say. You’d be concerned that this seems to put the rights, interests and views of one group above those of others. You’d worry that it appears to be distorting or misinterpreting equality legislation. You might even wonder at the number of law firms signing up, thinking they’d be well placed to understand the law without the need to rely on non-legal lobbyists. You’d worry that the normal space for disagreement about aims and means was being squeezed out if any disagreement or challenge or questioning was described as “hate” and those expressing such concerns as “hate groups”. Above all, you’d worry that this creates a conflict of interest between what such organizations are legally required to do for all citizens and what they have agreed to do to satisfy Opus Dei and maintain their position in its league tables.

You don’t, of course, need to imagine any of this because it is happening now. Substitute Stonewall for Opus Dei and it pretty much describes how Stonewall currently operates.

The consequences

Those state organizations which sign up to Stonewall’s schemes have created multiple conflicts of interest: between themselves as employers and different groups of employees and between their public duties and their legal obligations to all citizens. They have blurred the distinction between a body carrying out public functions under existing laws and campaigning lobbyists. They have failed to recognise that such conflicts of interest exist. They have failed to consider the creation of a perception of such conflicts of interest, even if that was not their intention. They appear not to understand the problems arising when a body implementing the law acts as if changes desired by a lobby group advising it had already happened. Since they have not understood any of this, they have taken no steps to eliminate or mitigate such conflicts of interest.

This is why we get the usual cycle of some unacceptable action or comment, protest, panic by the organization concerned, withdrawal of the original comment/action accompanied by an apology blaming it all on an underling/a mistake and assurance that whatever happened was not in line with their “values”. The fundamental underlying problem and how to address it seems to pass them by entirely.

The police

Nowhere is the existence of such conflicts of interest more troubling than in the police. The police enforce the criminal law. They have significant powers over us. They have a duty to police “without fear or favour”. They need not just do this but be seen to do this. The reality of bias, the perception of a bias are damaging to proper policing. Such conflicts of interest risk damaging the rule of law and citizens’ faith in it.

This has been made more acute by three factors:

(1) Police misunderstanding their obligations as employers under equalities legislation.

(2) Confusing their obligations as an employer with their outward-facing public service obligations.

(3) The police’s approach to non-crime hate incidents.

Equalities laws and discrimination

Discrimination against police officers from minorities has understandably led to counter-measures. But what the police appear to have forgotten is that the obligation not to discriminate applies to all its staff. It does not simply apply to one group with a strong lobby behind it. In following the diktats of one lobby group, the police risk behaving in a way which discriminates, whether directly or indirectly, against others. For an excellent, detailed explanation of why – and the risks involved -, see Naomi Cunningham’s blog – https://wwww.legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/02/01/submission-and-compliance/.

Public duties

This approach has extended to its public-facing duties, as a direct result of the reach of Stonewall’s schemes. The training of staff according to Stonewall’s views will inevitably affect how they carry out their duties towards the public. More explicitly, Stonewall’s schemes expressly cover “service users”. For public bodies, this means us. It is astonishing and worrying that any public body – let alone the police – should think it appropriate to allow a lobby group to dictate, influence or advise on the performance of its public functions. The police’s sole purpose is to enforce the criminal law. When it needs advice, it should obtain this from expert criminal lawyers. If it needs advice on complying with equality law, it should obtain this from expert equality lawyers. What it should not do is obtain advice or training from – or be influenced by – a lobby group primarily acting for only one of the groups it polices. What is even more worrying is that in all the time the police have been part of Stonewall’s schemes, it appears not to have obtained legal advice on whether doing so creates a conflict of interest or the perception of one and whether, if so, this creates a risk in how it carries out its public duties.

Non-crime “hate”

The final point relates to the police’s approach to non-crime hate incidents. One might ask why the police are involved at all in matters which are not crimes. Whatever the reason, they have got themselves involved in what Lord Moulton described some 90 years ago as the “realm of manners” – that space between the law at one end and free choice at the other.

They have allied themselves closely with one lobby group and adopted its view on matters where there are both differences of opinion, a changing scientific context and legislation and case law different to what the lobby group believes or wants. In so doing, the police have put themselves in a position where those who disagree with Stonewall’s position can have little

confidence that in any incident involving such matters the police will be – and be seen as – compliant with the law, not overreaching their powers and impartial.

This last point was seen in the Miller case where the Court of Appeal held that police guidance to record non-crime hate incidents –

“is plainly an interference with freedom of expression and knowledge that such matters are being recorded and stored in a police database is likely to have a serious ‘chilling effect’ on public debate”.

A year later, the College of Policing is proposing (apparently on legal advice) guidance allowing transgender officers to search those of the opposite sex to that of the transgender officer. This appears to be a breach of the relevant PACE provisions. It is, however, consistent with Stonewall’s view that a man who believes he is a woman is one and so should be allowed to carry out an intimate search of a woman. According to reports, the guidance also appears to suggest that a refusal by a woman or request for a female officer could be classed as a hate crime. The underlying assumption appears to be that intimate searches of the public are a service which, say, women should not deny to trans-identified male officers. This is a topsy turvy approach to police compliance with a law, one brought in after miscarriages of justice and police misbehaviour to ensure that evidence is properly collected without a sexual assault being committed and with proper regard for the dignity of the person being searched who is, it should be remembered, innocent.

We’ve been here before

The police being beholden to groups with an agenda is not a new problem. In Northern Ireland ever since its establishment, the RUC was seen as the explicitly anti-Catholic enforcement arm of a “Protestant Parliament for a Protestant people”. The bias was real and ultimately fatal to the rule of law there. More recently, the issue of Freemasonry raised similar concerns. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, concerns about corruption in police forces arose because of a perception that Masonic officers were putting the interests of fellow Masons above those of the force as a whole or their obligation to obey the law. Membership of a secret organization was eventually seen as creating a conflict of interest between a police officer’s duties and his obligations as a Mason. There is an echo of this in the way that Stonewall’s agreements with members of its schemes are not made public on the grounds of commercial confidentiality, despite the obligations they place on public servants.

Now

This time it is not whether individual officers may have a conflict of interest. Rather it is that police forces – by making themselves beholden to Stonewall’s agenda through its schemes – are explicitly putting themselves in a position where one cannot be confident that police decisions aren’t distorted by their membership of those schemes. For instance, how can women arguing for single sex spaces facing a demonstration by those demanding they include transwomen have confidence in policing of such a demo by police trained by those arguing the latter and turning up in a car painted in Stonewall colours? How can someone objecting to a potential breach of PACE be confident that they won’t be unfairly charged with a hate crime or have a non-crime hate incident recorded against their name if the police force has signed up to guidance permitting this?

How can one have confidence that the police – or other public authorities (see, for instance, the latest furore over the withdrawal of an Arts Council grant to a lesbian organisation opposed by Stonewall) – will not, in part (maybe unconsciously), be influenced by their desire to please Stonewall? One can’t. There is a clear conflict of interest. There is certainly a perception of one. The police should never have allowed this to arise. Nor should other public authorities. Or private bodies, for that matter. But at least there we have a choice. We do not with state bodies.

It is long past the time for them to stop outsourcing their thinking to – and seeking to comply with the requirements of – lobby groups. If such bodies won’t act, the government should intervene. Conflicts of interest are the sine qua non of all scandals. This one is no longer even hiding in plain sight.