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We Need To Talk About The Police 4 – Gun Stun

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Oct 172014

In Part 4 of the series on issues with UK policing, Suzanne Kelly looks at the recent decision taken by Police Scotland to award itself the power to have armed personnel on duty as a matter of routine. The use of stun guns / tasers is said to be an effective, safe alternative – but is it? Do we really need to start arming police in Scotland routinely? We and our elected officials should have been asked, not told.

Under The Gun

Perhaps the most controversial issue in Scottish policing today was the unilateral, non-legislative supported police decisions to award themselves the power to routinely carry firearms on routine patrols.

Local councillors and other elected representatives were dismayed throughout Scotland; Kenny MacAskill is being asked to resign (over several issues including this
one).

Highlands Police were showing up to incidents in low crime areas equipped to maim or to kill. A suggestion was made that the guns should be made ‘less visible’ – hardly a suggestion that respects the rights (or intelligence) of the electorate which is demonstrably against routine armed patrols.

The police had implemented this escalation instead of asking for permission to do so. They were instead attempting to reassure officials, judges, experts and Holyrood that all was well.

This unilateral action is on a par with the clearly illegal activities of those men deep undercover who slept with and impregnated women they were spying on as per the previous article in this series. This disregard for law, procedure and basic human rights shows us how badly skewed the system is. Thankfully, the gun policy has been changed. There are calls for MacAskill to stand down.

In August, Lord McCluskey, one of Scotland’s most senior former judges, called for the resignation of Mr MacAskill over a range of issues including the routine arming of officers.

He described the policy change by Sir Stephen as an example of “secretive decision-making”, and said Mr MacAskill knew about the move but did not share the information or hold a public consultation.

“In the US, we have seen the dangers of police with guns: put simply, if police have guns, there is a greater risk of someone being shot, unintentionally or otherwise.”
– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Police-Scotland-arming-of-officers

We do know from recent polls that the public did not want regular armed police on the beat. A recent Scotsman article reports:-

“The nature of policing in this country is very important, and there is a danger that would change if we routinely equipped officers with firearms. We showed during the G8 (summit) how important it is that we don’t come out heavily armed taking a heavily defensive position” – Peter Wilson, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland”
– http://www.scotsman.com/scottish-police-do-not-need-guns-1-1110360

Police are still carrying handguns to serious crimes; many are carrying ‘taser’ type weapons as well. A taser surely must offer safety to the suspect and the police; it can be fired from a distance, and causes no lasting effects – or so we are told.

What is a taser?

A taser is a machine that delivers in the area of 5000 volts into a human body, causing temporary neurological incapacity. Tasers are for sale in the United States, where they come in a range of colours (yes really). One manufacturer/seller offers a video showing the superiority of the taser over other weapons or gas. In the video, a man is meant to be being shot by a taser.

Barbs shoot from the hand-held device into the man’s body, and he falls backwards, caught by colleagues. And all for upward of about $900. Surely this is a safe alternative to guns?

Taser dangers

We have been told that tasers are harmless, won’t cause cardiac problems, and are just temporarily debilitating. We are still being told this is the case, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.

A Guardian article warns that tasers fired at the chest can cause injury – and death. The article quotes the manufacturer’s guidance which says shooting into the chest can cause serious problems, and that a huge proportion of police taser shots are to the chest. This article followed the death in Manchester of Jordan Begley who was said to be carrying a knife. Apparently the cause of death of this young man could not be established. What is established is that he was tasered.

Tasers simply are not safe. They are not being used as the manufacturer recommends; and if any deaths are related to their use at all, a re-think is needed. They are also not being used lawfully in some instances.

Stunning

Here is a West Midlands Police video showing ‘how tasers keep our communities safe’. It explains how the police and public are safer with taser deployment. In a simulation, a (badly acted) drunk is tasered, and seconds later says he will do whatever the police say.

Supposedly this acquiescence is reassuring; it is also very frightening. If the police can inflict a brief torture – and this is an extremely painful weapon even if briefly so – and it makes people compliant, then what safeguard of rights will we have left? The video explains that a taser is used ‘only in situations of violence or threats of violence.’ A taser will not damage a pacemaker or the heart. We are also reassured that officers are intensively and rigorously trained.

They say that everything that happens in the US comes to the UK ten years later. Here is a video of a man being tasered – for a disputed driving offence – and ‘not obeying the traffic policeman’s instructions’. It is believed the man was later awarded a settlement. It is harrowing. The man asks for his rights and is threatened with another taser shot.

As well as demonstrating that tasering is painful and being used as a means for social control, it demonstrates the mental state of the people we are handing dangerous weapons – tasers and uniforms – to.

Perhaps not all UK police forces are as responsible and rigorous as the West Midlands Police claim to be. Here is a video clearly showing Nottingham police repeatedly tasering a man on the ground, and beating him.

Parting Shots

Peelian Principles (named after Sir Robert Peel, the originator of the UK’s police forces) have been virtually overlooked when it came to this recent arms escalation. Theoretically, the police cannot work without the mandate of the citizenry. But they are doing just that, as well as breaking laws, subverting human rights, and discriminating, as previous articles in this series have demonstrated.

Thankfully there was a climb down with regard to regular arming of routine police, and those responsible are being called to account (although whether any sanctions will be issued is another matter).

Perhaps rather than creating an arms race and/or using the threat of painful tasering torture to subjugate, the police might instead want to listen to experts who admit there are dangers, and take tasering-related deaths as a reason to treat tasering more seriously, and to halt repeated tasering as happened in Nottingham.

Increased gun crime is evident in England and Wales, where gang warfare is implicated in this increase. The culture in Scotland is different, and if the police used their investigative powers not to spy on and sleep with women environmentalist protestors but to try and counter gun proliferation, perhaps that might be a more constructive use of undercover operatives.

Among the many problems with weapons are lethal results, weapons being taken from civilians or officers and used against them, attempts at the use of weapons enraging suspects, and the fact that there will always be those who panic and pull the trigger first, and ask questions later. Or rather than asking questions, seek to cover up information about force incorrectly used.

Sadly, the family of Charles de Menezes, shot on a London tube train for no legal reason, can attest to the truth of this.

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Old Susannah No. 163 Selective Memories

Opinion, Satire and Humour 5 Responses »

Oct 102014

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

Hope you’re enjoying the weather. The trains Stopped running further north, streets are flooded, and it’s chaos. Thankfully, none of the building we’re doing in the remaining greenbelt will have a negative impact on the ability of the soil to soak up the rains.

A mere 3,000 new homes in Countesswells on what’s currently open land won’t make much difference to the environment and flooding; congratulations to the planners and developer (S Milne). Don’t worry about any additional road traffic either, the AWPR will have us all sailing down open roads very soon.

I wish an artist would make us a rendition of what the granite web will look like when it rains hard like it did on Tuesday. No doubt the levels of underground parking replacing the soil wouldn’t cause any flooding.

In fact, the granite web would be great fun when the ground and ramps are frozen over, and we’d all sitting outdoors watching open air theatre.

Make no mistake, as sure as it will rain again, a certain billionaire hasn’t forgotten that web, and neither has his equally kind-hearted, socially-minded altruist friends. As long as the web story continues dominating the local printed press, the web won’t be forgotten here. either.

Many other developments are afoot here in the dynamic Deen. The plan for the city’s museum to have its marble staircase hacked up, and a giant box put on the top of the building is going ahead. I guess those developers and architects who think this looks wonderful went to different art schools than I did. I’m sure it will be iconic.

Funny, London’s Tate decided not to ruin its beautiful original building; instead it renovated a disused building when it wanted to expand. If only we had some brown field land in the city centre that should be regenerated to really bring the city back to life. Can’t think of a single site though.

And it’s farewell to Victoria Road School in Torry. Councillors met in secret to vote on axing the site; so no real change in transparency there. Let’s see who buys the site, what they paid for it, and what will take its place.

The Harbour Board are so very keen on turning Torry into an extension of the industrial harbour may well have a hand in this. It will be for our own good when Nigg Bay is taken off our hands, and more lorries travel our roads. It will be a breath of fresh air. Or maybe not. But no doubt it will mean more jobs, the rallying call of all local development.

Never mind the fact we have plenty of work and low unemployment; if you want to build anything, just say you’re creating jobs, and permission arrives on a silver platter.

Some had the temerity to register to vote in the referendum

Moving vibrantly and dynamically along, it’s wonderful to see that everyone’s getting along so well after the referendum. People are respecting each other’s opinions and positions; and intelligent debate continues to dominate the social media sites.

Perhaps the only thing that Old Susannah finds more heart-warming than the post-referendum bonhomie is the riveting, electric Lib Dem party convention. And do those guys know how to party! Nick Clegg was so cool that he wore dungarees one day! I guess that sort of thing impresses most of you young people.

However, Kyle Joseph Wagner, a local writer and bon vivant had this to say:

“Nick Clegg delivering his conference speech yesterday in jeans and a navy-blue shirt with the top two buttons undone is funnier, sadder and more pathetic than any attempts I could make to take the p*ss out of him.”

I think Kyle is just jealous, but there you go. More on the wonderful work the Lib Dems did at their conference shortly, especially the important news that Clegg wore a suit on Wednesday – how dynamic is that? He can be both cool/casual and businesslike and strong. I may yet swoon.

With all the excitement – party conferences, glass office buildings and so on, a few timely definitions seem called for.

Tax Evasion: (modern English compound noun) – the use of legal or illegal means to avoid paying duty on income.

I can’t possibly express how happy I am that poll tax dodgers may yet be called to account for their crimes against humanity. Some had the temerity to register to vote in the referendum. Thankfully, this might lead to these hardened criminals being found and forced to pay their just dues to society.

Perhaps these unwashed lawbreakers could learn a thing or two by looking to our betters for a good example and moral guidance.

Sir Ian Wood is a prime example of a man who pays his fair share. The Wood Group may be saving a few million by paying some of its workers via offshore companies, but that’s just good business senses.

SIW has £50 million sitting in a charity bank account free, but that’s going to eventually help Africans, who as we know need to grow more tea (perhaps he can help clear some of that pesky rain forest in the process). We’ll wait and see what he does.

Stewart Milne still has contracts worth some £10 million with the city

Good thing there aren’t any pressing issues in the African continent that could use any of his ‘venture capital (ist)’ brand of assistance. There’s little glamour in disease or starvation, and if you feed people, you probably won’t get much of a return on your venture capital investment. – if there’s no eventual return, why donate money?

Another shining example of paying one’s fair share can be found in Stewart Milne. No word yet on whether he’s paid the city back the money he owes. Like me you’re probably thinking it’s we who should be giving Milne money, but in fact he owes us some £1.7 million.

I’m sure he had a great reason for this transfer, even if to us less wealthy people it seems like a transparent ploy to avoid paying what he owed the city. Actually, after he appealed all the way to the highest court in the land, even the law couldn’t see why he needed to do that transfer, and he was ordered to pay the city some profit and interest.

I’m sure that with this newly-found enthusiasm for cracking down on tax avoiders, the police and local government mandarins they’ll be straight onto the rich who owe us a few million pounds eventually. But let’s go for the poll tax dodgers first; there’s no sense in upsetting of our wealthy worthies.

Since we’re on the subject of how cleverly the police can find the poll tax avoiders, I thought I’d let you know that alas! They are unable to find any trace of the investigation they were meant to do when the Kate Dean administration sold parcels of land for peppercorn prices. Audit Scotland couldn’t decide if it was incompetence or fraud at work; the value was c. £5 million pounds, and the police were going to investigate.

Doubtless there were excellent reasons why our cash poor city was slashing services while doling out real estate parcels like sweeties; I’m sure it all made great commercial sense. To someone. Note: Stewart Milne still has contracts worth some £10 million with the city, awarded just around the time he was given that valuable land. Something about ‘leveraging’ comes to Old Susannah’s mind, but that can’t be right.

The courts are so stretched that we’re considering lopping off a few human rights and old legal rights that are way out of date (corroboration, evidence, little things like that).

The police claim to be so stretched they couldn’t possibly implement any form of control over air rifles, wildlife crime, burglaries and so on. Still, there is time to spy on private people’s emails and calls, and to infiltrate protest groups. I guess you have to figure out your priorities. But we’ll find time and money to go after the poll tax avoiding rabble.

of course nuclear energy is a big part of the solution

So let’s name and shame the people who didn’t chip in all those years ago. We had a fair taxation system, based on everyone paying a tax based on the value of the place they lived in.

This was also a great way to get those pesky older people out of valuable houses that they’d saved up for and bought; if they had been silly enough to buy a great home then the poll tax was going to make them pay for it.

Perhaps we should bring this tax back? Our council tax is great as far as it goes, funding all the great schemes we’ve paid for over the years – but I think that extra few drops of blood could be extracted if we went back to the poll tax. No tax payment, no vote. Now that’s democratic.

Clean Energy: (Modern English compound noun) Forms of energy which have little or no elements of waste, pollution health risk or environmental damage from their extraction through to their end products and waste materials.

One thing we can all be proud of is how we’re tackling our energy problems, and of course nuclear energy is a big part of the solution. We have had great successes around the world in Russia and Japan for instance, and if the odd trace of radiation from Chernobyl wound up in the Scottish Highlands, that’s no big deal.

Here in Scotland we have our own Dounreay plant a shining example of clean energy at its finest.

Granted, at present, a ship carrying ‘intermediate level’ radioactive waste from Dounreay caught fire, and is drifting around. An oil rig has been evacuated. But no fear: Police Scotland are monitoring the situation. (I particularly like the energy efficiency in sending these concrete-encased blocks of radioactivity sailing round the world, down road networks, and over rail lines. I’m sure this is all quite green).

Some detractors might have a criticism or two of this great plant; for instance the MOD was accused of covering up information on radioactive leaks. I’m sure they’d never do such a thing; here’s an article that I find very reassuring.

And here are some further articles that are nothing to worry about from Rob Edwards. So a few trucks were carrying radioactive waste when they were meant to be decommissioned, no harm done. And if further information is being kept secret, why worry. If we needed to know, they’ll tell us.

Remember, nothing can go wrong with nuclear power. Neither the police nor the MOD would lie to you; there’s no reason to think they would. But just in case something does ever go wrong, we can always ‘duck and cover’.

A Man For All Seasons: (English Idiom) a person who is very successful in a variety of activities / situations. See also Nick Clegg.

Nick Clegg is surely our man for all seasons. This week he’s been leading his party’s conference with stirring speeches and setting the tone. He’s been making pledges for people with health problems to be seen more quickly – if only he had some power and could implement changes like that now.

But not only is he going to buy more with less tax money, he’s shown a few attractive sides to his personality that we’d not seen before.

Earlier this week, he shown us that despite his talents and position, he’s really one of us. He’s not just the unshakable, constant tough and attractive guy we all think he is. As mentioned earlier, he actually appeared wearing jeans. Some of the buttons on his casual but smart top were unbuttoned as well; he really knows how to let his hair down, and is just like us.

Then just when you think you know the man, he comes back to speak wearing a suit! It was as if he was taking control; it was a very masterful moment, and I’m glad I’ve taped his performance to watch again and again. It’s amazing someone can have such diametrically opposed sides.

Then again, it was the same Mr Clegg who promised there would be no tuition fees when he got voted in as part of the LibDem/Conservative coalition that’s steered the nation to the great place it’s in today. I guess he doesn’t like to brag too much about his past successes. Either that, or there were too many to mention.

He told his party conference in Glasgow he would not “seek to distance” the Lib Dems from the coalition’s record. Well, he wouldn’t, would he?

And then, just as you think Nick is happy to be associated with the coalition which he is in, he makes a wee remark that make you wonder if that’s true. Case in point comes courtesy of the guardian:

“Nick Clegg has instructed his leading ministers to “brutalise” the Tories …In a sign of how coalition relations have descended into trench warfare in the run-up to the election, the deputy prime minister has told senior Liberal Democrats to reach out to “soft Tories” by saying that the chancellor is taking Conservatives back a decade to the era of the nasty party.

“The instructions from Clegg, who accused the Tories of “beating up on the poor”, came as the opening of the Liberal Democrat conference was dominated by speculation about future coalition partners if voters elect another hung parliament in May’s general election.”

I’d be the last person to say that Clegg changes his positions as often as he changes his clothing, particularly as he looked so cool in those denims. Still, I sometimes wonder if the Lib Dems are every bit as consistent as they seem to be.

But all this talk of Nick is making me overheated. I’ll be off to BrewDog for some liquid refreshment to cool down a bit. But happy birthday to the Aberdeen BrewDog bar, and many more.

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We Need To Talk About The Police 3: State Sanctioned Rape

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Oct 032014

In Part 1 of this series, excessive, expensive security measures and their implications for civil rights were examined. The second part of the series looked at the problems of racism in the UK’s police forces as experienced by suspects, victims of crime (and victims of police actions), and even police officers.

This third article in the series, deals with the outrageous exploits of the so-called ‘Special Demonstration Squad’ and how it sanctioned its undercover operatives to sleep with and impregnate innocent women. What has happened to democracy, basic human rights and an accountable, law-abiding police force? Suzanne Kelly reports, concluding that the police are out of the control of the top brass, and undercover police have ruined lives when using deceit to trick women into sex and into bearing children.

Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity (?)

Police Scotland has as their motto ‘Always Vigilant’. The Metropolitan Police claim their motto is ‘Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity. None of these words seem to apply to the majority of the police these days. None of these words remotely apply to the activities of the Special Demonstration Squad.

Imagine you are a woman, interested in the environment, and involved in a protest group. Over the course of 7 long years you have met a like-minded man in your group.

You sleep with him, believing you have found someone with similar interests. You have his child. You have shared your thoughts and your body with this man you care for.

He is actually a policeman sent to spy on you, for seven long years.

You are not a criminal, but all of your rights, your privacy and your dignity have been taken away. And all the while, he has a wife and family. What is the response of the Metropolitan Police? That the two of you had a mutually agreed relationship.

You find that the police, meant to protect you and your rights have used your body as a tool and for gratification; your rights are gone, and they say you wanted it. This is not fidelity, bravery or integrity by any possible definition.

The right to protest has been escorted from the building

The Guardian’s Rob Evans reported in August of this year:

“Boyling had sexual relationships with at least three women while posing as an environmental activist, under the false name of Jim Sutton, between 1995 and 2000. He later married one of them and had two children with her before they divorced in 2008.

“Both were members of Scotland Yard’s controversial undercover unit, the Special Demonstration Squad, that infiltrated hundreds of political groups between 1968 and 2008. Last month, the Met was criticised after it was revealed that the unit had collected information on 18 grieving families who were campaigning against police.

“In a legal filing at the high court, the Met denied that Lambert and Boyling were authorised by their supervisors to form the relationships with the women or that “intimate and sexual relationships were started as a deliberate tactic” to gather intelligence about campaigners.

“The Met said that the pair “violated explicit guidance” from their managers that undercover officers should not have long-term, or “emotionally committed” relationships during their deployments.

“The Met said that the two men started the relationships “because of mutual attraction and genuine personal feelings”.

“Harvey said she was “very upset” by the Met’s stance, adding that her relationship with Lambert was “a total violation of me and my life”.

“She said: “How can a relationship be genuine when it is based on a massive web of lies? He pretended to be a man with noble ideals and political commitments, when in reality he was a police officer spying on our friendship network.

“He pretended he was committed to the future when he always knew he would go back to his real job and wife and kids. That doesn’t show genuine feelings; it is abuse and I would never have consented to such a relationship had I known.”

Public outrage continues to grow, and undoubtedly will not abate – further details are expected to emerge as the legal proceedings commence. The judiciary have insisted that the identity of these two particular policemen and their photos should be released; a photo of Boyling can be found in Evan’s article.

The police top brass seem to believe they can plead ignorance: they say they had no idea what their deep undercover police were doing.

This is as implausible as it is damning – it is as if those in charge of The Met believe they can disavow the actions of their own operatives. However, this is real life and not ‘Mission Impossible’ wherein the operatives are told that if they are captured or killed, those in power will disavow knowledge of their activities.

The police will eventually have to explain in a court what kind of logic they used which trumped basic human rights, law and the integrity they claim to uphold. For now, they are doing what they do when cornered: they have gone on a public relations offensive.

The best defence is a good PR offensive

The Daily Mail have interviewed an undercover officer recently; he was keen to paint himself as a selfless, life-risking hero, not someone subverting democracy to illegally gather intelligence and evidence, which when all is said and done is the base line of any undercover work.

This rather florid article paints ‘John’ the undercover operative as some form of saint; its description of him is hardly hard news:

“His own eyes are clever and often amused. But they also have an opaque, poker-player quality which you might associate with an assassin who sees the moment of death as business rather than pleasure.”

Remarkably this ‘John’ has suddenly been authorised by the Met to spill the beans to the world about how tough it is being an undercover police operative dealing with paedophiles, underworld figures and drug dealers. John steers well clear of admitting that women such as Harvey, an environmental activist, are the sorts of people being spied on, seduced and tricked.

John advises:

“‘At the same time you are treading that very thin line, showing enthusiasm for what they are doing but not inciting it. To show that — dare I say it — we are catching them fairly.”

“And catch them they do. Over the past 12 months, undercover operations in the Met have resulted in 1,400 charges against individuals for the full range of serious criminality. Many will go to jail.” IBID

This Mail piece asks no hard questions; it swallows the tales ‘John’ tells the Mail reporters unquestioningly – yet ‘John’s main skill in this life is to deceive. There is not any analysis of ‘John’s potential motivations for leaking these details to the press (keeping his job, making the force look better – as if that were currently possible, pleasing his superiors who while claiming ignorance of Harvey’s situation have sanctioned this interview).

Also lacking is any in-depth question as to why the Met, heading to court to explain itself over its Special Demonstration Squad, would find this piece a good piece of PR.

What’s the Problem? A Government Minister insists police should sleep with women they investigate

You might think that any person interested in upholding democracy, freedom and the most basic of human rights would be appalled at what has happened (and might still be happening). You would be wrong.

As reported in the Telegraph as concerns another sexually active undercover officer, Mark Kennedy, Nick Herbert justifies this behaviour:-

“Nick Herbert told MPs that if there was an outright ban on officers carrying out secret missions from starting relationships with those they had under surveillance, it would create a simple way for their loyalties to be tested.

“He said he did not think there needed to be set rules governing sexual relationships involving police, but that instead officers infiltrating groups and gangs needed to be managed closely.

“The police minister said in a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday: “I am not persuaded that it would be appropriate to issue specific statutory guidance under Ripa [the law that governs undercover operations] about sexual relationships.”

If the police minister thinks the policy of impregnating duped women is fine, he has given the nod to the department to carry on. It will be interesting to see what his constituents think of his stance at the next elections.

Not for Women Only – the cases of Barry George and Colin Stagg.

Police work should be based on physical evidence, motive, and verifiable facts. But if that fails, you can always send in a woman police constable to have sex with your suspect. The ‘honey trap’ method of crime detection has put men in prison after they were led to brag in response to leading questions while being sexually and mentally manipulated by women ‘law enforcement’ personnel.

In the case of Colin Stagg, the presiding judge who quashed his unsound conviction called the use of honey traps ‘reprehensible’. Further information on this and other such cases can be found here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Jill-Dando-Miscarriages-of-justice

Never Again – well, so we can hope.

Perhaps 1400 people are being charged for offensives in ‘the full range of serious criminality’ – the reporters have no interest in finding out how many people were spied on without any crime being brought to light. How many innocent people had their rights removed by a squad which we are meant to believe acted unilaterally? How many other factions within the Met are acting unilaterally that we have no idea about?

If efficient, legal policing cannot prove a crime is / will take place, then is covert evidence-gathering really legal or ethical? If the activities of Boying and crew against environmental activists are upheld as being acceptable policing, then are any of us safe to protest? We need to talk about the police, but we need to ensure that nothing like this happens again.

The court cases will be crucial in shaping the UK’s future human rights policy. Whatever the outcome, there are women who have been treated like chattel by the Met, and this can’t be undone. Imagine bringing up the child of the man who has a wife and child elsewhere, who tricked you into bed.

There is a group supporting these women; it is Police Spies Out Of Lives; and it provides details on many such cases http://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/ and donations are welcome.

But at least these women are alive. The next article in this series will look at the increasing use of guns and lethal force by the police.

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We Need To Talk About The Police Part 2: Racism

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Sep 192014

In the second article of an ongoing series, the racism permeating the UK’s police forces is examined. By Suzanne Kelly.

Justice is often depicted as blindfolded as she weighs the evidence in her scales, her sword clutched to dispense an impartial, fair sentence.

The evidence suggests a different reality, one wherein suspects, victims, even police officers who are not white males still have the cards stacked against them.

Perhaps there is a clue to race relations in the mix of police officers? If we are meant to believe that police forces in the UK have worked on their well documented ‘institutionalised racism’ over the years, there is absolutely no sign of this in the 2013 Scottish police equality mainstreaming report:

“Ethnicity

“The percentage of minority ethnic police officers was 1% at 31/03/2010 and remains static at 28/02/2013.

“The percentage of minority ethnic police staff was 1% at 31/03/2010 and remains static at 28/02/2013.

“The percentage of minority ethnic special constables was 2% in 2010 decreasing to 1% in 2013.

“Note: Minority Ethnic figures throughout the document include those who have self-classified their ethnic origin as Mixed Ethnic Group, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Other Asian Background, African, Other African Background, Caribbean, Black, Other Caribbean or Black Background, Arab, Other Ethnic Group.”

The same document reports that in 2013 there were 17,830 police officers, 7,411 police staff and 1,371 special constables. Therefore, there were 1,783 minority police officers, 741 minority background police staff and a mere 137 special constables were from minority backgrounds.

If there is reticence in certain communities to joining the police forces, perhaps the tale of former police officer Gurpal Virdi has some bearing. Virdi was accused of sending racist hate mail to himself. The police claimed that he was disgruntled at being passed over for promotion. It was demonstrated he was not around when some of this mail was sent.

This historic case in England is an interesting contrast to today’s Aberdeen story of DC Duthie, cleared of breaching data protection. Someone used his user name and his personal password, illegally looked at personal data pertaining to Duthie’s ex partner and her family. But he’s been found innocent this week; it was apparently too difficult to prove who else had his password who would have had a motive for this breach.

As the Scottish Police Federation’s website reported on 17th July of this year:

“Police Scotland is under scrutiny over how it investigates its own officers after it emerged that out of hundreds of complaints of racism against the force, fewer than 10 had been upheld. New figures reveal that, of almost 300 formal complaints of racist behaviour against police officers in the past five-and-a-half years, nine were upheld, two of which led to misconduct procedures. Since Police Scotland was established in April last year, one of 78 complaints of racist behaviour has been upheld, with the matter “concluded by explanation”. In the same period, 47 of the complaints were not upheld, with the remainder abandoned, withdrawn or still being investigated.”

This is a damning indictment of the system.

Since the UK police forces demonstrably tolerate internal racism (and certainly seem keen to cover it up, as the SPF’s website reports), then how are the police behaving towards citizens?

Stop and Search operations – a Black and White situation.

If you are not white, you are more likely to be stopped and searched by police in the UK than if you’re white. In some parts of the UK, the figures are staggering:

“Black and Asian people are still far more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police in England and Wales, a report has said.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said in some areas black people were 29 times more likely to be stopped and searched.

Overall, black people were six times as likely as white people to be stopped.

The commission said the disproportion between different ethnic groups remained “stubbornly high. … The figure for these searches fell to 1,137,551 in 2011-12 from 1,222,378 the previous year.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24902389

These alarmingly high figures demonstrate that some police officers are arbitrarily using the controversial stop and search policies in a racist way – this sad fact is undeniable. Scotland is also searching young children – but the way in which the system treats children will be the focus of a future article.

The high profile cases of the recent past make it clear that racism can have fatal consequences.

Jean Charles de Menezes.

The police shot dead Mr de Menezes as he sat on a tube train. The excuse seems to be that:

a. it was shortly after the London tube bombings and
b. he had a backpack. (It is frightening that the police thought shooting someone on a crowded tube who might have had a bag loaded with explosives was wise – they risked hundreds of lives had the pack been a bomb).

We know the police testimony about the surveillance, the log, and what happened on the tube train was deeply flawed; the log was altered, according to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The Commission give a chronology in their finding report which opens with the dates of the tube bombing and the failed bombing.

This, in the eyes of many, taints the entire report: millions of people used the tube the day de Menezes was executed by multiple police gunshots – he and his murder had absolutely nothing to do with the bombings except in the overactive imagination of police, who decided that the detection of potential crime meant to kill the suspect.

As the BBC reported:

“The report says 17 witnesses said they had not heard officers shout a clear warning before opening fire.

“The report makes 16 recommendations for change, and says the Met has already begun acting upon them.

“It also says police radios deployed on the day did not work underground, a problem that was first identified in the 1987 King’s Cross fire.

“It also reveals that investigators had asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to look at possible charges against the two officers who shot Mr de Menezes, and the commander on the day, Cressida Dick. The CPS decided not to bring charges against the individuals.

“The IPCC said the Met had to rethink policies around deploying firearms officers and critical language governing the manner in which they stopped a suspect.

Mr Hardwick said the IPCC’s investigators believed that Sir Ian Blair played a key role in delaying their work.

“The commissioner attempted to prevent us carrying out an investigation. In my view much of the avoidable difficulty of the Stockwell incident has caused the Met Police arose from the delay in referral [to the IPCC].”
Stockwell One – Investigation into the shootingof Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell underground station on 22 July 2005.

The jury were not allowed to put in an ‘unlawful killing’ verdict. Sir Ian Blair refused to resign his police position at the time. No police officers were in any disciplined, although one was to be ‘spoken to’.

The policy behind this man’s death is Operation Kratos policy – a shoot to kill policy meant to deal with terrorists. With more and more police routinely carrying weapons (even in the usually peaceful Scottish Highlands), and with most stop and search policy targets being from minority backgrounds, we may well be on a hiding to a volatile future where race trumps rights.

It’s bad enough that de Menezes was killed. The Institute of Race Relations keeps a list of those who have died in police custody – it is a heady mixture of unexplained serious (sometimes fatal) injuries, lack of medical care, apparent suicides.

The Ballad of Stephen Lawrence.

The sad story of Stephen Lawrence, a bright young black teenager killed by a gang of racist white youths in 1993, is widely known. It was widely reported at the time too that the police were less than meticulous and thorough in their investigation of the suspects:

“Met detective Paul Steed, 49, tampered with key times and dates on an evidence log, it was confirmed. A Met spokesman said a misconduct board demoted a detective from the rank of sergeant to constable and fined him. …A Kent Police inquiry took place into the case in 1997, followed by the Macpherson Report in 1999, which found evidence of “pernicious and institutionalised racism” in the Metropolitan Police.”

Insult to Injury, and Rights go out the window.

Imagine your son had been held in a tube seat and shot multiple times by police – when 17 witnesses say he had not been warned and had done nothing wrong. Or imagine your teenage son had been killed by racist thugs, and evidence was tampered with. Things couldn’t get much worse. But they did.

Police spies tried to discredit witnesses, and police spied on the de Menezes and Lawrence families and friends. This was done using our tax money, in the name of keeping us safe. Enter the unilaterally acting ‘Special Demonstration Squad’.

This unit allegedly is so important and so secret it answers to no one – not even the most highly placed Met officers, who we are being led to believe didn’t know what was going on. This convenient ignorance might remind you of the famous scene in Casablanca. Rick (Humphrey Bogart) is being chastised by the chief of police for allowing gambling at the bar.

A casino staff member interrupts the conversation to give the police chief his winnings. If we are to believe that the top brass have no clue what is going on, then:

a. they are incompetent from the top downwards,
b. they are not in control, and
c. we have a police force that is unaccountable, anarchic, and as demonstrated – racist.

In an excerpt from a Mirror article:

“Yard chiefs were potentially negligent in their “astonishing” failure to monitor the activities of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

“A report published today found the SDS [which] had gathered intelligence on 18 campaign groups.

They included those set up by friends and family of Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered in a racist attack, and Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian shot dead in error by police in the wake of the July 7 bombings.

“The family of Ricky Reel, who drowned shortly after being racially abused in London in 1997, were also targeted.

“Relatives of Mr de Menezes said in a statement: “It is shameful that the Met spied on the legitimate activities of a grieving family who were trying to get the answers they deserved.”

“… Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon said … “What is surprising to me is the number of people, the most senior levels in the Met working in covert policing, working in public order command, who did not know about the unit at all.”

“One reference was to an unnamed person planning to go to a funeral, even though “there was no intelligence to indicate that the funeral would have been anything other than a dignified event”, the report said, and Mr Creedon confirmed that there were “more personal examples”

Summing Up

The police acknowledge their racism, but it seems far from being remedied, going by cases such as Virdi’s and the small number of minorities represented on the force. The police virtually executed a helpless Jean Charles de Menezes, and tampered with evidence which might have helped bring the killers of Stephen Lawrence to a swift justice.

The police have had virtually no comeback from any of this. The police do however want more powers and want to carry guns routinely.

We need to talk about the police.

The next article will delve into the world of the SDS and other covert operations, and cases which have removed any pretense the police might make to operating within the law or respecting basic human rights.

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We Need To Talk About The Police – Part 1: Over-Policing

Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion 2 Responses »

Sep 122014

Policing in Britain is changing, and not for the better. Almost every newspaper seems to carry a new tale of corruption, custody death, wrongful arrest, over-policing, wrongful stop and search, ignoring reports of crimes, criminalising young children and/or institutionalised racism within the police are some of the worrying developments. When police are caught in misdeeds, sometimes of enormous magnitude, there seems to be immunity – they are the police after all.

The suggestion is not that all police are corrupt. The questions that need to be addressed include the increased powers the police have been given, often under the sweeping broad brush of ‘preventing terrorism’, how they are doing their job, and what the scope of investigation should be. Additionally, Police Scotland seems to be granting itself the right to carry guns on routine patrols.

This has happened in the Highlands without recourse to elected officials and institutions, let alone seeking a mandate from the people who are largely against this change. There are far too many problems for them to go unanswered or the situation to go unchecked. ‘Protect and Serve’ is becoming a thing of the past. We need to talk about the police. By Suzanne Kelly.

Introduction.

This series will look at some recent police scandals, both high and low
profile.

Police decisions, police powers (and the misuse of same), institutionalised racism, custody, cover-ups and illegal activities will be addressed.

This first in the series will look at what should have been a simple, brief (less than a few hours in duration) bright and breezy event in Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens: the Queen’s Baton Commonwealth function.

This is on the one hand a very minor chapter in the problems we have with the police. On the other hand, it illustrates what some of the underlying serious issues are.

A walk in the park?

On 30th June 2014 Aberdeen was filled with police and private security. If you tried to go about your lawful business on Union Terrace such as going into your hotel or a restaurant, you were prevented from doing so before your ID and your story was checked out by private security or police. High steel partitions blocked anyone from looking into Union Terrace Gardens.

If you wanted to see into the gardens, you may as well have tried to look over the Berlin Wall. If you wanted to go in the gardens – which are common good land, owned by the people and merely managed by the city on the day? If you had a pet, a drink, or heaven forbid a plastic folding chair, you would not even have been allowed to queue in the serpentine crowd barrier maze at the only entrance that hadn’t been blocked off.

I witnessed people turning away in disgust and disappointment. What was going on?

This level of security was laid on to protect the Queen’s baton, a former commonwealth winner, some musicians and local dancers for a two hour concert. Some would say this was slight overkill. On another level, this was a display of police power over the law abiding individual, a removal of basic rights without sufficient cause, and an expenditure that was far from justified.

Fun for all the Family?

Aberdeen City Council’s press announcement started out cheerfully enough:

“An exciting programme of dance, music and song will showcase the cultural vibrancy of Aberdeen as the Queen’s Baton Relay’s journey across the city culminates with an end-of-day celebration in Union Terrace Gardens, on Monday 30 June.” http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/CouncilNews/ci_cns/pr_QBReveningcelebration_250614.asp

The press release soon gets ‘round to the details of what you are going to give up, like it or not, for this brief event and other concurrent events such as an international market and a parade or two (my comments in square brackets):

“To support the safe management and delivery of this event, a secure event arena will be constructed in and around Union Terrace Gardens from Sunday 29 June. On Sunday [29 June] the east side footway on Union Terrace will be closed to pedestrians to allow the construction of temporary fencing to ensure public safety, to protect the balustrade surrounding the gardens and to create a corridor for emergency services.

[This temporary fencing/secure arena was a steel curtain over 6’ high – cost: unknown at present. Why does a little local event need a secure arena? In the event, it was clear that it didn’t. The city made a meal out of claims the balustrades around the park are unsafe during a referendum on building a horrendous giant, purposeless granite ‘web’ over the gardens. Thankfully this £140 million pound plan eventually met its match. The city finds the balustrades dangerous when it suits them; they are otherwise unguarded, repair specifics remain unknown, and the city happily allows market stalls in the arches directly under the deadly balustrades.]

“…In the interests of public safety, the pavement on Union Terrace will be available for through foot traffic only – no viewing will be allowed from this area. [First of all this was untrue: No one was allowed to walk down Union Terrace: it was completely shut off for free access. I witnessed people being asked to explain why they wanted to walk down this hotel and restaurant lined street. It had been turned into an ‘overflow area’ – which proved to be wholly unneeded. ]

“Union Terrace Gardens will be closed to the public on Monday 30 June to allow preparation work including the construction of a stage. It will re-open at 5pm. [it is a large park; there would have been every chance to have people use the park, but avoid the stage-construction area. But that is far from the worst unnecessary use of muscle in this poorly managed event].

“To ensure public safety the following temporary road closures will be in place [a host of road closures were done for some parades on Union Street lasting a few hours, the baton ‘celebration’ caused closures spanning at least two days for an event which lasted a few hours, and for a market. How public safety would have been jeopardised is unclear. What is clear is that ‘to ensure public safety’ is now a stock phrase used whenever the police want carte blanche to carry out any operations, big or small.]

“The public is advised that:

there will be no disabled parking in the gardens but disabled spaces will be available at the Denburn car park on a first come, first served basis; [it is just as well the event was so very poorly attended]
there will be a disabled viewing area near the front of the stage on a first come, first served basis;
both auditoriums in the gardens and on Union Terrace are standing only – no chairs or picnic style furniture will be allowed; [a great boon to the infirm; did the police fear a plastic chair fight? Was the performance of a local choir going to be so inflammatory that rioting would break out?]
No animals including dogs except guide dogs will be allowed in Union Terrace Gardens or on Union Terrace during the event; [People were turned away who had dogs with them, they hadn’t seen the city’s press release and sought to use the gardens as per normal. They were in violation of now law, but this arbitrary whim stopped them exercising their rights. I do like this phrase though ‘no animals including dogs’: one might think it was given that ‘no animals’ included dogs. One might also wonder if someone had planned to take their Shetland pony, cats or goldfish.]
the public drinking byelaw in Scotland has not been relaxed for the purposes of this outdoor, family event so no alcohol will be permitted within the event arena;
keep your belongings safe and close to you and ensure handbags are fastened securely;
the weather is changeable so remember to wear appropriate clothing; [for those Aberdonians who need nannying for a two hour event in the city centre]
there are no catering facilities at the evening celebration; [off topic, but this was hardly festive, was it?]
Aberdeen City Council, Police Scotland and event stewards reserve the right to refuse entry to anyone deemed unfit to participate safely in the event. [no explanations needed; the police and private stewards could have refused anyone entry for any reason at will.]”

The business of security.

It would seem these days that no event in Aberdeen can take place without crowd barriers, private security stewards and a host of police on foot, in cars and vans, and on horseback – and a stack of rules. It is the same in some other cities as well, but this over-policing is very much an Aberdeen phenomenon.

It is no surprise that the International Festivals for literature, film and performing arts thrive in Edinburgh, not Aberdeen: you would be hard put to have our police allow swarms of tourists to wander vast areas, drink at tables outside pubs and restaurants in busy streets, crowd small public squares and in general allow crowds to freely move.

Local residents may remember the enjoyable Jubilee Tea Party (thanks to the Bothwell family) in Union Terrace
Gardens.

There was a good deal of rain, but lots of music, food and fun: over 3,000 people attended – more than this brief event by all accounts, as the Union Terrace overflow area went virtually unused. There have been other recent events that went off smoothly without as much security.

What entities were responsible for agreeing to the level of security hired in, the police man-hours approved, the steel barrier erected the night before, the decision to turn Union Terrace into an overflow area for 8000 people? Who approve the budget, and how much was actually spent?

One thing is certain, whether on policing, police overtime, and/or private security steward costs: some stakeholders must have made a fair bit of money for this overly-secured event.

Private security firms are gaining more and more foothold in the public policing sector – running prisons, providing security, escorting prisoners to trial and running young offenders homes: there are millions to be made in the larger arena of private security, and the outcomes are often not good ones. More on that in a future piece.

Another Freedom of Information Failure.

Not a single entity involved in planning the baton event is willing to put its hands up and say how the security arrangements grew so gargantuan, how much of the taxpayer’s money was wasted, how it was agreed to temporarily take away our rights to go about our business and walk our streets or use our gardens.

The City Council, Police Scotland, and the Games organisers were all asked to supply their answers to straightforward questions about budget, numbers of police and private security used, how the private firm was chosen, and so on. Not one of these entities is letting the requested information out.

What correspondence took place to allow this event to be blown out of all proportion? Aberdeen City Council at present finds it far too wide a question to answer. They were asked questions in mid-July, and there has been no movement from their 24 July position:-

“Under our duty to advise and assist, we would like to take this opportunity to advise you that the following question will likely be refused by ACC under Section 12 – Excessive Cost of Compliance – of the FOISA, as the relevant services are concerned that the scope of this question would likely exceed the £600 limit.” (Email from ACC to S Kelly)

The City has recently admitted in a separate FOI request that it has NO document management policy in place, despite there being a statutory duty to have one. Lack of suitable procedure in place notwithstanding, precisely how a half-day event would have generated so much paperwork that in this electronic age it is not possible to supply the relevant correspondence for less than £600 is hard to understand.

Still, my group and I saw at least 20 police of different ranks, several cars and vans, and at least 20 private security guards. If the lowest-paid police officer is on £ 23,493 pa , the lowest-band for sergeants is £ 36,885 (£768/week), and the lowest pay for an inspector is £ 47,256 (£984/week), we can do some estimations. If that lowest paid officer was on an hourly rate it would be c. £13.97 (£489/week).

Even assuming no overtime rate was paid, then if 20 police spent say 2 hours before the event, 2 hours at the actual event, and one hour after the event (and that’s being rather conservative), then 20 officers at £13.97 per hour for 5 hours equates to £1397 in salary.

If they had one sergeant and one inspector, at 5 hours that would be £105 for the sergeant and £140 for the inspector. This minimum total salary figure would then be £1642. The odds are that the real cost will be far, far higher for the police – once we’re finally told what it is.

The police were once forced to disclose that it cost the taxpayer thousands when Donald Trump cancelled a visit to Aberdeen: the actual cost of police escort from the airport to a hotel or his Menie Estate therefore must be considerably more. However, the police have never had to explain this further. How the police manage to skirt many Freedom of Information Requests will be looked at in a future article in this series.

Aside from the cost, it is undeniable that police were milling about to ensure the safety of a stick and some performers from threats such as pet dogs and plastic chairs, while elsewhere in the city crimes go uninvestigated, and people are told ‘there is nothing we can do’ by police when it comes to investigating thefts. Something is wrong. We do need to talk about the police.

Attendance estimates? An 8,000 over-estimate

On the day, people were harassed for trying to get into restaurants and the hotel on Union Terrace. The police had set up an arbitrary no-go zone.

This was, one has to assume, based on the bizarre projection (god knows made by whom) that some 10,000 people would want to listen to Giz Giz, and see the stick.

Apparently the gardens would close after hitting 2,000 attendees, and up to 8,000 people would be so eager with anticipation for this event that they would want to fit into the giant metal fence enclosure created on Union Terrace with a giant screen on which they could see that baton, or listen to those singers.

It would be interesting to know how those claiming their desire was ‘to ensure the public safety’ thought corralling up to 8,000 people in a giant outdoor wire pen with only one access point was a great idea, or that having only one entrance to the garden open was clever.

One might have thought that some of the dozens of under employed police and guards near HMT could have manned an extra entrance or two rather than standing around idly.

It would be interesting to know how much the giant screen [which Orwell would have shaken his head at] cost the taxpayer as well.

The group I was with on the perimeter of this circus peered down into that veritable cage, and didn’t see a single person. We asked one of the private stewards (who seemed as bemused as we were and agreed it was overstaffed as events go) about it; they had a counter in their hand. When asked how many people had gone into the overflow area, by the time the event was more than half finished, the steward replied: 15.

Fifteen people in the overflow area; and all around it probably as many more were trying to exercise the freedoms the police had decided to take from them to stage this non-event. Even those who enjoyed the event would have to admit this was a hugely over-policed, vastly overly regulated waste of resources, namely taxpayer money.

But it served its purpose. Police Scotland had succeeded in:

* demonstrating their absolute power over the legitimate rights of ordinary citizens trying to go about their normal, legal business;
* overestimating greatly the crowd size and security needed – and getting the stakeholders (ACC, games organisers) to allow them to run the show, serving to increase their perceived power and importance;
* making decisions impacting on the public purse without the need to explain or justify their obvious overestimation of any possible rational risk assessment;
* having a hand in recommending private security stewards which were vastly overstaffed on the day;
* making those who did want to attend the event comply with unnecessary, draconian demands and ingraining obedience above freedoms;
* having a hand in unnecessary road closures and having their advice taken, seemingly without question by the local organisers;
* exercising an apparent desire to take more control than necessary from the public, and having this go unquestioned.

Are the police seeking to get more and more control over our movements, or did they genuinely think that terrorists were going to come to Aberdeen to make a show of power at an event of nearly no significance? If so, what was the evidence?

If security was their one and only goal, which I am sure is the argument they would make, then you have to wonder about the wisdom of corralling people into enclosed spaces with only one access point.

If anything like 4,000 people had gone into the Union Terrace enclosure, and a problem had erupted, it would have resulted in serious injury from any panic as people sought to get out of the space: this is a very basic safety observation, backed up by past events – and yet not one the police identified. Safety? To some it might seem more like exerting control for the sake of it.

As someone put it to me on the night, ‘they do take the jolly out of everything.’

This has been a brief look at excessive use of muscle and expenditure at our expense. In fact, some of it might seem comical in a way. The following articles in this series will seem far less so.

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Old Susannah No.161 Physicians, Police & Parents

Opinion, Satire and Humour 2 Responses »

Sep 052014

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

Tally ho! It’s all happening in the Deen and Shire. The Fyvie Festival was last weekend, offering a nice day out including the chance to look at the priceless Tiffany window in Fyvie Kirk. Celebrate Aberdeen took place, rain and shine, across the city. Acts such as Youse Dancin’, The Black Gold Bandits, Iron Broo and The Gerry Jablonski Band entertained the soggy crowds.

Anthony Baxter’s film will open in cinemas across Scotland on Friday the 5th. Alex Salmond has been invited to the premier in Aberdeen with a Q&A session and panel.

He’s also been invited to visit the Menie Estate residents; it’s a shame he’s been too busy to visit his constituents there, but give him another few years to fit it in, and I’m sure he will. No word on whether Sarah Malone of Trump will attend.
This week I had planned to write about the menace the city is bravely tackling. Drunk Driving? The few slightly tipsy people occasionally seen in the city centre on weekend nights? Fuel or food poverty?

No, the problem we have all been afraid to face is finally in the spotlight: the sandwich board. These dangerous, frightening health menaces lurk outside sandwich shops (appropriately enough), restaurants, pubs and more: it’s a wonder anyone’s still alive.

The council is taking decisive action against these horrendous trip hazards, you’ll be delighted to know. Of course, the sign draws attention to itself (that’s its purpose you see), and you’d have to be as drunk as an ex-councillor not to see the signs.

A hardened cynic might ask the city why it’s going after sandwich board signs, given that one or two other cities round the world somehow manage to co-exist with these signs. I propose we sent our officers and provosts off on a round-the-world fact-finding mission; they are good at that sort of thing.

I suppose that since the city has smoothed every square inch of pavement and street that it is responsible for, it’s now time to turn its attention to the scourge of society, the sandwich board. I for one feel safer knowing that something will be done about the sandwich board plague. Chalk up another one for ACC; the writing’s on the wall for signs.

However, there is something nearly as important as the city’s challenge to the sign menace. This isn’t an Aberdeen or even a Scottish story, so we really should pay it no attention at all. However, I thought looking at the story of little Ashya King and how the police and Southampton Hospital had nobly gone to his rescue would be of interest this week.

A brain tumour landed this child in Southampton General Hospital; which would not fund a particular treatment his parents decided they wanted to try. It could prove life-saving. The hospital were certainly not able to guarantee that the treatment they offered would be the best or the only option.

The parents did their own research (kind of like those meddling parents who invented Lorenzo’s Oil when their child was ill ), and wanted their son to be treated at a clinic abroad, which said they would do the treatment now and worry about payment later (which in itself is rather a strange concept, almost as if treatment and medicine should be available to those who need it regardless of money concerns.I wonder if this might catch on in the UK?).

The parents had a crazy idea, and decided to get their son treated at this clinic, and moved to take Ashya there.

Well, Southampton General Hospital reacted in the only manner open to it: they instantly moved to take Ashya into custody, issued press releases saying that Ashya was in grave danger, called in the police and demanded Ashya’s return so they could get custody of him and continue to deny him the desired treatment. Sounds perfectly reasonable and measured to me.

Obviously the hospital and its staff know best, just like they do up and down the UK. There might not be a specific law that says you have to keep your child in a hospital which refuses to pay for a treatment which might well help him. However, the police were only too happy to go on a Spanish vacation – sorry – suffer the hardship of going to Spain — to have the sick child put in isolation and his parents locked up, unable to visit.

(You might think that the Spanish police assisted by the dashing, intelligent, sensitive UK police force would be sufficient to stop two distraught parents from absconding from a hospital visit to their cancer-stricken son, but you would of course be wrong).

For some reason (perhaps the outcry of one or two people in the UK) the parents have been released from custody, an extradition order to the UK has been lifted, and if the hospital agrees, he may get treatment after all. We’ll see what happens next in due course; perhaps some related definitions will shed some light on the goings-on to date.

Neglect: (English Noun) to treat an individual or an animal in such a way their needs are not met; to ignore, fail to assist.

Of course, hospitals will only ever care about the patient’s welfare. Money, targets, shutting up whistle blowers and defending lawsuits never enter into it. If Southampton moved to take a boy with cancer away from his parents, it was only for his own health and happiness. I’m sure it consulted its best child psychologists in advance, and confirmed that no mental or emotional harm would come from their actions.

That’s why hospitals call the police on anyone who would disobey them, and that’s why the police and hospitals turn involved families into criminals – all for the patient’s welfare.

Southampton accused the parents of ‘suspected neglect’ for taking their son to get treated.

It may seem strange that in one part of the UK suspected neglect of one child results in police jetting off to Spain, and in another part of the UK like Rotherham it results in 1400 or more young people being sexually abused and absolutely nothing being done about it despite people coming forward, abuse accusations being swept under the carpet and victims discredited, but there you go. I guess you have to expect these minor regional variations in policing.

But let’s look at the august, professional men and women who run things at Southampton General Hospital, and why they have the right to accuse the King parents of neglect.

In 2010 a boy named Matthew Kenway, of Fareham, Hampshire, died at Southampton General Hospital ; he was going to have a routine kidney operation. No one checked his heart was still working; they didn’t hook up a heart monitor. Eventually they realised there was a problem, and still there seems to have been a delay in getting him help. A fatal delay, but it could have happened to anyone really. So, no negligence there then.

With the tiny amount of things that go wrong in the medical profession, and with the support and encouragement given to whistle-blowers (on the rare occasion they are needed), you wouldn’t think there would be such a thing as a website called www.clinical-medical-negligence.com – yet somehow there is. According to it:

“The family’s solicitor Patricia Wakeford, of Blake Lapthorn, said: “Evidence heard at the inquest raised grave concerns about the quality of care that Matthew received and the processes that were in place at Southampton General Hospital at the time of Matthew’s death. Shortly after 3am, the oxygen monitor probe appeared not to be recording his oxygen levels. The nurse initially thought the machine might be faulty, but it transpired that Matthew’s heart had stopped.

“Eventually, a cardiac arrest call was put out and the arrest team then attempted, for 40 minutes until 4.20am, to resuscitate Matthew but they were unsuccessful and he died. During the course of the two-day inquest, a series of key findings emerged suggesting there were serious shortcomings in the care Matthew received. At post-mortem it emerged that the stent placed in the left kidney was not in the correct place.”
http://www.clinical-medical-negligence.com/2014_02_01_archive.html#.VATNj8J0zIU

These are just the sort of people you want wresting legal control of your son away from you.

I guess anyone can make a mistake. Except Southampton General. This might not be neglect, but there was a wee matter of apparent experimenting on patients. Southampton seems to have been involved in a trial of a new antibiotic made by Bayer; it must have been very exciting for the patients who got this drug.

Doubtless they were all made perfectly aware of the risks of this trial taking place in the hallowed surgical wards of Southampton; to do otherwise might have looked like neglect. Alas, one website isn’t that happy about it:

“This information [about the experimental drug] was not revealed to the hospitals before up to 650 people had undergone surgery, violating their human rights. The trials resulted in nearly half of the people at one test centre in Southampton developing potentially life-threatening infections. At least one patient died, and another developed an infection so severe that his relatives were initially told he would not survive. Nearly half the patients at Southampton Hospitals Trust developed post-operative wound infections requiring emergency therapy. Infection and mortality rates at the five other trial sites were never revealed on grounds of “confidentiality”

“Stephen Karran, a retired consultant surgeon from Southhampton, was concerned about the trial. He pointed out the flaw in the earliest possible stage, and contacted the press after the trial went ahead unaltered anyway. Bayer has confirmed that it knew of absorption problems with the drug before the study began. However, they still used the dangerous drug for two years, are still keeping trial results secret, and have not paid compensation to the relatives of patients injured or killed in the course of its unapproved trials.” http://www.corporatewatch.org/company-profiles/corporate-crimes-3

It might have been Bayer’s drug trial, but Southampton Hospitals Trust ran with it. I’d not want to be thought cynical, but often these drug trials involve a wee bit of money going to the institutions involved. The mega international pharmaceutical sector is every bit as benevolent as you would think.

I’m sure Southampton will be happy to explain more about people being experimented on, how informed consent was obtained, when they stopped the trials and how many people were at risk – oh, and how much money they got for this and other experimentations. Keeping people from risk and preventing neglect: that’s what Southampton is all about, as the King family will tell you.

It will be interesting to see what evidence there is that taking the little boy to be treated at a different hospital is tantamount to neglect.

If this ever reaches a courtroom, I hope no serpentine defence lawyer will ask the hospital any questions about neglect past and present. After all, the hospital wasn’t to know the boy was gone for 6 hours, despite his supposedly needing constant care and attention. You and I are of course laypeople, but to some that 6 hour gap in a young child’s cancer nursing might seem ever so slightly neglectful on the part of Southampton.

Communication Breakdown: (English compound noun) A deterioration or cessation of dialogue (also an excellent Led Zeppelin song)

According to the BBC:

“Dr Michael Marsh, medical director at University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, said he regretted that their communication and relationship with the King family had ‘broken down’.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-29009883

The hospital was great at communicating. They communicated to the police and other authorities that they wanted custody of this boy, that he was possibly neglected, and that he was at great risk because a battery in a feeding tube system might die.

What a pity then that their paid in-house media people never noticed the video which spread like c-difficile across facebook showing a happy Ashya and his parents abroad, with no feeding or other problems. They would of course have backed off.

Old Susannah was trying to find out a few things about this feeding tube at the centre of the hospital’s attempt to get custody of the boy: what kind of battery did it have, how often did it need to be replaced, were the parents aware the battery had to be changed, did they try to call or text the parents to tell them about the battery?

Obviously they did all that and didn’t just run to the media and the police, complaining that communication had broken down. I will be very reassured to know how much effort the hospital made to tell the family about the feeding system when they had left.

I also was going ask other questions (What did the hospital think Ashya would be going through stress wise because of the hospital and police actions and how would that affect his emotions and health? Why was there a 6 hour gap between anyone visiting this ill child before they realised he was gone? – and a few other minor points).

Alas! There is indeed a communication breakdown. The hospital’s media team has failed to answer its phone on any of the many times I phone it. I left 3 messages on 2nd September with my email and my mobile number. Yes, a communication breakdown is a serious problem.It’s very good of Southampton to regret having one.

Obviously they don’t regret criminialising a family, adding to their anxiety, having people arrested, refusing to fund treatment, and trying to take custody of someone’s sick child. If they did, they’d have apologised for it. They are sorry however for the communication breakdown. Old Susannah can almost hear that familiar refrain so often given to the media: “we don’t discuss individual cases.”

Except when it suits them.

They told the world the age, sex, condition name of Ashya; they shared his and his parents’ images. It will be a breeze for them to prove in court that they only breached the data protection act after taking every other step possible. The phone log of their calls to the Kings will be a very reassuring document indeed.

Heroic: (English adjective) Having qualities of braveness, courage fearlessness and strength.

In this whole saga, the shining heroic actions of a few people show through. Not only was Southampton brave enough to issue press releases claiming the child was in grave danger and take custody away from the parents to the state, the police showed heroism as well.

They bravely lept to conclusions; they bravely got on a plane to Spain, they courageously raided Ashya’s grandmother’s house for a much-needed intensive search. A Belfast Telegraph article reports:

“Assistant Chief Constable Chris Shead said last night: “We have been told by medical experts that the battery life on the machine that administers his food is now likely to have expired. We don’t know whether the King family have any spares, the knowledge or any way of recharging the battery. If they don’t without properly administered food, Ashya’s condition will deteriorate very quickly. With each hour that passes our concern for him grows.””

If I didn’t know better, I’d start to wonder if the UK’s police have a shoot/arrest/taser/search/criminalise first and don’t ask questions later approach.

How come the hospital couldn’t tell the police whether or not the family knew how to work the apparatus? When it was shown that the boy was fine and happy wasn’t that the end of it? Thank goodness other such breaches in the Inspector Morse-like investigation techniques of the police are once in a lifetime.

Old Susannah also guesses that, like the hospital, no one at the police was quite heroic enough to call the family or leave them a message about the battery; doubtless we’ll find out what they did about the battery in due course. It would be cynical to suggest this was all a witch hunt. Much better it turned out the way it did. Let this be a lesson to other parents (or to people in the past who have tried to interfere with hospitals, like these people ).

Mrs King, the grandmother had this to say after her flat was searched (perhaps they would have found the family hiding in the chiller cabinet or under a bed?):

“They (the authorities) are the ones who are cruel because they have taken poor little Ashya who is dying of a brain tumour and they won’t let the parents, my son and daughter-in-law, they won’t let them see him at all.

“It’s terrible, it is so cruel it is unbelievable.”

She added:

“To try and make out that he has been neglected… Why haven’t we got any human rights? They keep on, the EU, about human rights. Where are our human rights? We have got none.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ashya-king-brother-of-fiveyearold-boy-defends-parents-actions-in-new-video-9702977.html

Before ending this definition of heroics, the police and hospital might well have got away with it, if it weren’t for some meddling kids. Naveed King, elder brother to Ashya has been spending his time campaigning, raising awareness, looking after his other siblings, dealing with the media, raising funds, posting updates on Facebook and other such activities.

Surely he should have been doing his homework instead or playing video games? The other King children held fast as well. Let’s see whether there isn’t some bureauocrat out there ready to criticise Naveed’s impertinence. We can’t have young people running around criticising authorities and sticking up for their families now, can we?

Next week: don’t expect answers from Souuthampton, but I’ll keep asking.

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Siege Of Heathryfold Update: Still No Justice For George

Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, Information 3 Responses »

Apr 252014

Serious questions need to be answered about how Grampian Police – now Police Scotland handled an incident last June. It’s time for a reminder of what happened during the Siege of Heathryfold, and to let people know that the search for answers is far from over. By Suzanne Kelly.

The man who wasn’t there.

George Copland’s home which was at the centre of an armed seige on June 7 2013

In June of last year, witnesses claimed a man with a gun was inside a flat in Heathryfold, Aberdeen.
This was however an empty flat – a flat far from the main road and at the end of a row of two houses accessible by a gate – you would have had to be very close to the windows to have seen anything inside, and no explanation has yet been offered as to what the witnesses were doing and how they conceivably came to the conclusion a man with a gun was inside.

Even though there are many legal reasons for people to have guns (hunting is legal, so are pellet guns), the police decided the answer was to surround the building, cordon off streets, bring in specialist teams, and lay siege to an empty property. [Those of you with hunting rifles, shooting range pistols, starter’s guns had best take note].

They entered, and finding no one home, clearly giving the gunman story the lie, the police decided to ransack the flat from top to bottom. Perhaps the gunman was hiding in the medicine chest or in the CD rack. This search seems to have happened before they finally spoke to George Copland, the property owner, on the telephone.

Seeing his flat on television surrounded by armed men, and getting a call telling him to meet the police (and not saying he could bring a friend, adviser or lawyer) George, who has a history known to the police of physical and mental health issues, was quite understandably frightened, and he declined to meet them.

He says the police were already inside his building; they say they only entered after he refused to meet them. This is one of at least half a dozen questions that need to be answered. But clearly as Copland wasn’t in his home, he couldn’t have been the hunted gunman.

The man with the feather duster gun.

Still, the police were not content with the search results (could it be they didn’t want to look silly for deploying a fair bit of back up at what must have been considerable expense for a hoax?). Days later they burst Copland’s girlfriend’s door down in a dawn raid, and took Copland into custody (whether or not this was a formal arrest is unknown to this day).

Searched, put into a boiler suit, possibly with medication withheld from him (another issue requiring clarification), he was allegedly asked to say that a feather duster he owned could have looked like a gun (the Sun newspaper ran a story on this).

the police have so far refused to release any information on the case

George’s account of seeing a doctor at the time differs with what the police said happened. It is certain they knew he had mental health issues before the siege; it is certain they didn’t let him have an adviser, friend or lawyer during the long hours of his detention.

Copland also says that before his release from custody, one of the police named one of the witnesses – an interesting move on their part, and one which like so many issues needs to be examined. Aberdeen Voice knows the identity of the person allegedly named to Copland, and it is debatable whether they would have made a credible witness.

The Right to Remain Silent – well, for Police Scotland anyway

Left with several eggs on their face, the police have so far refused to release any information on the case. A Freedom of Information request was lodged but information, as well as a reasonable request for compensation, was denied.

Copland was not up to the stress or the challenge of dealing with the FOI process; he asked for assistance. He authorised an Aberdeen Voice reporter to make enquiries of the police on his behalf. Two different signed, detailed permission letters from George bearing his address and signature were submitted to the police by email, and one original letter was delivered as well.

The police still refused to release information or contemplate compensation, and several different correspondents from the police side got involved. Some correspondence was done by email; some via the police’s online comments form. A paralegal refused to use email; and correspondence flew back and forth for months.

Finally, when Police Scotland refused the FOI request, a request for a review of how they handled the FOI request was made. This was submitted on their online form as no email address was given to make an appeal to.

The first time the request for a review was sent, it somehow was never received by the police.

It’s almost as if they had something to hide

The online form was used a second time to request the review. The request for the review advised the police to ask if they needed further information.

This second request via the online form was received, and in due course a letter came, saying a review found they had handled the FOI request perfectly.

The police said among other things that they did not have sufficient permission from George Copland for Aberdeen Voice to be given information. Did they email him, write to him or phone him to corroborate that all the submitted permission forms were genuine? No.

Does it then seem as if Police Scotland are implying that Aberdeen Voice were seeking personal data without authorisation? Yes.

After months of trying to get information and jumping through various hoops, the police refused to explain what they did and why. (It’s almost as if they had something to hide).

At that stage of the labyrinthine process, it was time to bring the entire matter to the Information Commissioner for them to consider. If the previous correspondence with the police had been confusing, the eventual Information Commissioner’s outcome was something else altogether.

It could be called Kafkaesque, but the bizarre decision, possibly unprecedented, also has a Catch 22 element.

Kafka steps in

All the correspondence was summarised, and the important items were sent to the Information Commissioner’s office – this included the request for the review and the letter giving the review outcome. So far, so good.

On 18 April Aberdeen Voice’s reporter received a letter in the post saying the Information Commissioner would not look into this case. The reason? The request sent to the police was not specific enough.

The police had the request to review how they handled this Freedom of Information request. They were told to revert if they needed more specifics. They didn’t. They went ahead and held a review upholding their actions in withholding the facts from George Copland and Aberdeen Voice.

that dialogue aspect of FOI requests doesn’t seem to exist now

Now, months later, someone has decided that the request for the review which was held wasn’t quite good enough. Kafka might have come up with this.

Information Commissioner – has the rulebook changed?

When Aberdeen Voice was involved in a FOI commission investigation into property dealings between Stewart Milne and Aberdeen City Council, we were informed every step of the way as to what the council was claiming and what they were telling the information commissioner’s office.

AV was able to counter points successfully and in the end the City had to release information.

Somehow that dialogue aspect of FOI requests doesn’t seem to exist now. Any first year law student would be making good points as to how holding a review pretty much gives validation to the request for a review.

AV had no such opportunity to put up the case for law, logic and common sense. We will be asking how often this defence is used when refusing to investigate FOI matters. It certainly seems the rules have changed.

Carte Blanche

The police are no strangers to requests for information which wind up going to the Information Commissioner. However, the police do not have to release any info which may make the public lose confidence in them.

This is basically giving the police carte blanche to do as they please with complete immunity and no fear of accountability getting in their way. With public confidence in the police already low, surely this aspect of how the Information Commissioner operates must be reviewed and changed.

It would be interesting to know how many times this public confidence exemption has been used by the police in past FOI appeals to the Commissioner.

More questions likely to remain unanswered.

Whose idea was it to claim the request for a review was invalid – the Police, the Information Commissioner’s office – or both?

Why did they hold a review if they didn’t need to?

Why did it take until 15 April for anyone to claim that the review which was held didn’t need to be held?

If the request was not valid, why did Police Scotland hold the review in the first place?

Since the request for review, as submitted online (no documents could be attached,) offered to supply further details for the review request if needed, why didn’t anyone point out that there wasn’t sufficient grounds given for a review?

How could the police possibly claim they didn’t have enough valid permission to release the requested information at the review stage when they could have had clarification at any time?

Does holding a review validate the request for a review?

Was the way the Siege of Heathryfold handled reasonable? Was the way George Copland was treated legal, fair and suitable for someone with known health issues?

To come back months after the review was held, and claim that the request for the review was invalid makes police Scotland appear either to be disingenuous, or disorganised. Why did they hold a review if they didn’t need to? It’s almost as if someone higher up got wind of this, and decided to try and derail it.

Surely not.

It ain’t over til it’s over.

Perhaps the police involved in this incident may not want to breathe that sigh of relief just yet. Information will indeed still be sought by various other avenues.

Oh, and if the police are interested, the Police Complaints Commission has been formally asked to look into this entire incident as well. Time will tell what comes of that.

More info – previous Voice articles.

seige-a-hoax-but-the-damage-all-too-real/
siege-of-heathryfold-and-george-copland-arrest-latest/
benefit-concert-for-heathryfold-siege-man/
siege-heathryfold-update/
siege-heathryfold-devastation-no-compensation/

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Old Susannah No 145 ½ – Law Enfarcement part 2

Opinion, Satire and Humour 3 Responses »

Mar 062014

Voice’s Old Susannah gets to grips with grippy politicians, law bending bankers, lawless American builders and law enforcement officers who are selective in selecting what laws they enforce, in the second half of a look at how the law works – or doesn’t work – and who laws do and don’t apply to. By Suzanne Kelly.

Alas! There was no time for any BrewDog as I was in London for a few days this past week. They too have a river, but as well as having industrial harbouring and factories on it, they seem to think people should enjoy the waterside.

There was magical acoustic music on the Battersea Barge from Dave Sharp (who opened for Big Country at the Lemon Tree at the end of last year) and the unequalled Kirk Brandon (who you can see in the Moorings on Sunday 9 March; N.B . the Moorings have a new Putin-inspired cocktail as well which I look forward to trying).

Back in the Granite web city, the unaptly named Carpe Diem Trust failed to do anything with the Bon Accord Baths, which are now possibly going back on the market. Perhaps we’ll get something useful like a shopping mall, parking and/or office space. I’m hoping for a nice big glass box of a building to make us look really really modern.

This week saw Martin Ford acquitted of using Shire council property for interviews with the BBC about dear Mr Trump without getting a permission slip in advance; naughty naughty.

At the time I asked Hall Monitor and Chief Executive Colin MacKenzie what the policy was for holding interviews on council property, where it was written, and where a record of requests to do interviews was held. You will be shocked to hear that there was no such policy, so in short they had no business asking Ford to comply with some unwritten rules. I do hope they write the rules up. I also asked MacKenzie whether giving someone the right to allow or deny interviews could lead to abuses of power; he disagreed, you will be surprised to hear. Or not.

It’s clear that some laws apply to some people and not others. You couldn’t make it up. Unless you are MacKenzie of course.

On a related note, don’t you miss Tony Blair’s rule-making regime? He made more rules to keep us safe than almost anyone else and I know you feel as free as you ever did before, just safer.

According to the Independent, Blair had a law-making frenzy. It seems he also had a very good frenzy in Mrs Wendy Deng Murdoch. Tally ho indeed.

Here’s two examples of the much needed legislation we got under Blair (and with Mrs Murdoch also under Blair and a dossier to sex up for war, I guess didn’t leave much time for considering a bill of rights, whatever that is):-

Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004
No person shall, in the course of business, import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes. [keep an eye peeled for suspicious spuds, won’t you?]

Vehicles (Crime) Act 2001
Knowingly etc selling plates which are not vehicle registration plates. [I may be getting nicked on this; I sold a lovely set of Royal Doulton dinnerware the other week]

So sleep soundly tonight knowing the world is safe from democracy – sorry safe for democracy.

This is also the week that Labour considered banning Alex Salmond from attending any events in Aberdeen’s civic properties.

So sleep soundly tonight knowing the world is safe from democracy

This is apparently going back to the by-election some months ago when Alex showed up, apparently without permission, and did a bit of meet and greet at a local school. It may also be a bit of tit for tat at how COSLA is cutting our funding.

Then again there is an apparent £7 million quid Willie Young allegedly turned away. Confused you will be.

But everyone is impressed with the speed of this proposed ban. Some might say the Horse (or salmon) long since bolted back to Edinburgh, and the stable door (or school door in this case ) has been long closed. The world has moved on.

But is this possibly an attempt to stifle debate on the Independence Referendum? I for one can’t get enough of the scant Facebook posts, letters in the P&J, and tiny bits of fleeting news coverage the debate is getting. If only we had a few more years to hold our quiet, polite conversations.

Some people behind the scenes tell me Salmond wanted the Union Terrace Gardens to be a test of how a referendum would work. Well, we were split down the middle on that one, and friends and families found themselves in bitter arguments. Thankfully the lessons were learnt, and we’re all having a jolly civilised time talking sensibly about the pros and cons of Scotland’s independence.

Oh, and Old Susannah is staying well out of choosing sides. Then again, if there is a side that will stop making big business pay tax, stop feeding struggling families, get lazy scroungers out of hospitals and back to work, build over the remaining greenbelt, stop immigrants coming, then I’ll be backing them.

Just let me know what ACSEF wants to have happen, and I’ll go along with them.

Anyway, it’s past time for a continuation of last week’s legal definitions defining our legal system. If you suspect that the blindfold has fallen off of justice, and she wields her sword while someone has their finger on the scales, you might be onto something.

Data Protection Act 1998: (Modern English legislation) Legislation protecting your personal details. In brief personal data is to only be collected and stored if essential, and which are to only be used for the purposes such data was initially collected for.

Well, we’ve got to keep the wheels of government rolling, and oiling the machine costs money. Therefore forget about how the Data Protection Act makes this latest wheeze by Heath Secretary Jeremy Hunt (no sniggering about the cockney rhyming slang, thank you) totally illegal. Some would say it’s immoral as well, but this is the ConDems, and they’re far more moral than you or I, or so they keep telling us.

Your personal medical history and your loved ones’ details will all be sold to private companies, for important medical research of course. These will be kept confidential. Mostly. Well maybe a little.

There will be stringent safeguards in place should the police (or MI6, MI7, MI8, etc.) wish to access your records, too: they’ll have to ask permission of someone first.

I wouldn’t worry too much about your private details; they’ve probably long since been secretly accessed by that policeman you used to date, sold without your consent, or more likely left in a disused computer forgotten on a train.

As to the police misusing information, remember, these are legal professionals we’re talking about. And if on the odd occasion they want to find out how their ex partner is doing medically, I’m sure it will just be because of a genuine loving concern.

It’s not as if police go raking through supposedly confidential, legally protected files for their own ends, is it. If you want some comfort on the point, here you go with an article about a mere 200 police being done – in one area – for illegally accessing private information. Considering this was in 2011, I’m certain once we found out hundreds of police were perusing our private records, it would have been stopped then and there.

But if you think Big Brother is watching; if you feel like you’re being observed when you’re skyping or sending saucy shots on Yahoo!, you may be right. And I’m sure you’ll agree what a comforting thought it is that the authorities care so deeply for our welfare.

Optic Nerve: 1. (English Modern Medical – noun) the pathway for images to the brain; 2. (English Modern Spying – noun) the pathway for images to the government

The left wingers at the Guardian seem a bit put out that the government is routinely collecting pictures from your Yahoo! account because you could be a terrorist.

if you have nothing to hide, then you have no real reason to object to being spied on

Edward Snowden, who’s clearly endangered many civil servants (who could be done for spying), was for some reason upset to know how deeply the government cares for you and keeps close watch. A few people, some 1.8 million Yahoo! users, had the government store a wee bit of data from their personal communications.

Just remember, if you have nothing to hide, then you have no real reason to object to being spied on. Old Susannah for one obviously lives the life of a cloistered nun who does nothing more exotic than collecting postage stamps, and therefore is happy to be monitored.

As Oscar Wilde would have said: ‘the only thing worse than being spied on is not being spied on’.

Unfortunately, millions of these images contain nudity. Did you know that some people send their lovers intimate photos? Well, you do now – and so does the government. So be safe in the knowledge that if you ever lose your computer files, some man in a trench coat in a government cubicle will possibly be pouring over them.

Scottish Planning Law: (Scottish legal) Legislation which controls how construction work is carried out.

Before I run out of space, I’d just like to take a moment on behalf of the Menie Estate residents, to thank the men and mice – sorry women – of Aberdeenshire’s planning department for so bravely standing up to Donald Trump, and ensuring that his many works on the world’s greatest golf course stuck to the original plan and followed the law.

Susan Munro and her family look paler every time I see them. Could this have anything to be with a giant mound of earth covered with dead and dying trees Trump had built blocking their view of the sea and the vista to the south? I doubt it.

Any day now, the planning department will think about the ‘bund’ of earth, and do something about it. Probably the sort of thing an ostrich is wrongly supposed to do – stick its head in the sand. And what better place for ostriches and planning officials to bury their heads than in the world’s largest sandunes (says Mr Trump) on the Menie Estate.

For the record, here’s what the Shire’s website has to say as it proudly proclaims planning law:-

“In the case of dwelling houses, if the height of any fence or other ‘means of enclosure’ (including a gate or wall) exceeds 2 metres in height, or 1 metre where it fronts a road ; is within a Conservation area or the curtilage of a Listed Building, then planning permission is required. For flatted properties, permission is required if the fence exceeds 1 metre in height within 20 metres of a road. For a property specific answer, please contact us.”

I’m sure the above paragraph from the shire’s website doesn’t apply to what Donald Trump wants. If I had world enough and time, I’d mention the possibly illegal sign at the entrance, the parking lot’s beautiful, subtle lighting system, and the charming aluminium-clad shed where a historic steading once stood – all of which seem to have come into existence without our planners batting an eyelid. But I haven’t time, so I’ll move on.

I was also going to thank the medical mandarins at ATOS for upholding the principles of the Hippocratic Oath “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.”

I was also going to tell you how the University of Florida is using a technique favoured by Mr Trump and is suing some unwashed rabble hippies who object to the University tearing primates to pieces for science; the law is there to protect the powerful of course, and if it comes in conflict with the rights to protest and of free speech, then there you go.

I was also going to tell you how the banks we the taxpayer bailed out have sidestepped plans to have their annual, deserved bonuses capped, but alas! No time for that, either.

Alas! That’s all the time I’ve got. Next week – more of the same (if they’ve not come for me yet)

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Old Susannah No. 145 Law Enfarcement

Opinion, Satire and Humour 1 Response »

Feb 272014

Voice’s Old Susannah takes a look over the past week’s events in the ‘Deen and beyond. By Suzanne Kelly.

Another exciting week passes in Aberdeen; our very own Prime Minister Cameron came up for a nice wee chat, something about independence or other.

I haven’t been able to find much about this topic on the net, but if anything turns up, I’ll keep you posted.

A very huge thanks to a very kind stranger who lent me £5 for bus fare (a long story). Your cheque should be with you, nice to know there are a few kind people still out there.

In my ongoing quest for vegetarian food, I’ve been eating at Café 52 a bit (yes, I know the owners), and am getting used to eating lots of quorn stuff as well. To each his own, but I’m glad I’m doing this. I’m also off to the gym at the Thistle Altens, where there are few fashion victims, and lots of nice people.

I’m still trying to get good at running, something Ben Hukins inspired me to do. I achieved a personal best last week, and didn’t fall off the treadmill while watching the Winter Olympics. As far as I can tell, some people with red and blue flags have faster individuals than some other people with yellow or green flags. And of course, Pussy Riot got playfully teased (i.e. hit) by Cossacks. Good times.

Necessity forced me into a Morrisons recently for some cat food; I don’t usually shop there after an event some years ago. I saw one of their staff members walking around in their street shoes in one of the chiller areas, using the food storage area, filled with food, as a kind of step ladder.

‘How inventive’ I thought at the time, but wondered whether it was the most hygienic way to treat the chilled food I was going to bring home. Somehow the idea of someone walking around the streets of Aberdeen and then walking around on the food (even though packaged, I’d still have to touch it) I was going to prepare didn’t thrill me.

I complained at the time, but was assured nothing like what I’d seen had actually happened. Fair enough. Old Susannah isn’t getting any younger, and you can’t argue with Morrisons, so I forgot about it.

Still, here is a little photo take from my recent visit to a Morrisons, of me imagining something that doesn’t happen in their stores.

You might wonder if there is some kind of guidelines or even laws about how food should be hygienically treated. Well, there are.

The thing is, whether it comes to food, childcare, animal welfare, or journalism, what laws and rules are actually enforced might on occasion be a subjective thing. You can’t expect important, busy and rich people to have to follow rules, and the same holds true of elected officials, governments, and of course private companies.

Here are a few relevant definitions to guide you through the legal minefield.

Ignorantia juris non excusat (Ignorance of the Law is no Excuse): (Latin phrase) – in law, not knowing a practice or act was illegal is not considered grounds for innocence. Or is it?
Applies to: you and me
Probably doesn’t apply to: Rebekah Brooks

Aside from a few bereaved parents, politicians and celebrities whose lives have been blighted, there is one standout victim of the ongoing Old Bailey trial into hacking, and that is poor Mrs Rebekah Brooks, former editor of News of the World, and husband-beater.

According to the BBC:

“Mrs Brooks said she “didn’t think anybody, me included, knew it was illegal”.

“She told the Old Bailey she felt “shock and horror” after she discovered murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked…. She said she was never asked to sanction the accessing of voicemails for a story during her time as editor of the newspaper.”

“’No journalist ever came to me and said ‘We’re working on so and so a story but we need to access their voicemail and we need to ask for my sanction to do it’, she said.”

“Even though I didn’t know it was illegal, I absolutely felt it was in the category of a serious breach of privacy’.”

That’s fair enough; I mean how could anyone have known or suspected it would be illegal to secretly spy on people? It’s not as if there is some kind of skill level you’d need to get the top job on such an illustrious, responsible, value-orientated newspaper. There’s not really time to get your nails done as well as to get up to speed on publishing laws.

Of course, her shock and horror at learning Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked was translated into direct action; it is impressive how she called those involved to account and dealt with them. By doing virtually nothing.

Brooks was a very busy woman, as Private Eye once reported, sometimes so busy she needed two or more hairdressers to attend to her curly red locks at work, much in the same way she needed her husband and a bit on the side in the form of Andy Coulson.

You might have expected Coulson’s high standard of ethics to rub off on Rebekah at some point, but alas, they didn’t. Coulson brought some of his other skills to bear in his role as David Cameron’s spin doctor. More on the sad demise of these media demi-gods can be found here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2480886/Rebekah-Brooks-Andy-Coulson-6-year-affair-phone-hacking-trial-hears.html.

If only there were some way Brooks could have known there was a law against hacking into private telephone conversations and messages. If only News International had say a legal department. I hear that such things exist.Of course Brooks could always turn to the police if she needed advice on what was legal and what wasn’t – the police were indeed in touch with the newspaper’s staff. Then again, the police were probably too busy selling secrets about the Royal Family to News International to dispense any legal advice.

There is also an obscure website – she couldn’t have known about it – which gives advice to professional editors and news professionals; it is called The Press Complaints Commission, and my sources say that News International may have had one or two dealings with them over the years. The code dates from 1991 and has recently been updated, though I can’t imagine why. Details can be found here, should you ever find yourself wondering if you should be writing stories based on information taken from the phones of missing children.

But it is the violation of family privacy that is most upsetting in this sorry tale. In times of trauma and crisis, you don’t want your secrets splashed out in lurid detail in the papers. If only the rest of the press had been as respectful of people as the News of the World had, then a lot of unnecessary shame and embarrassment could have been avoided.

Mrs Brooks is getting the best advice in the world.

When it emerged that Charlie Brooks, Rebekah’s husband, was found carrying some porno around with him, we all realised that the press needed to be reined in. Poor Charlie!

Of course, Old Susannah is just a little confused as to how, if you didn’t think something was illegal, you tried to hide the evidence of doing it by getting rid of black bin liners full of evidence. Anyone who can give me an explanation of that one is welcome to weigh in.

On a final note, rest your minds – Mrs Brooks is getting the best advice in the world. None other than Tony Blair, our former PM, and apparent co-author of the famous ‘dodgy dossier’ which led to our little foray into Iraq, is on the case. He’s kindly offered to advise Rupert Murdoch and Brooks.

How should Rebekah cope? ‘Tough up’, take sleeping pills, and go to the gym says Blair (who may or may not have been having a fling with Rupert’s then wife, Wendy Deng. It must be rather difficult at the office Christmas party for some of these couples). Now we know how he sleeps at night, which had proved something of a mystery.

Old Fashioned Discipline: (English phrase) – to ensure good behaviour by threatening, intimidating, injuring, terrorising.

Applies to: you and me
Doesn’t apply to: tough guys who think they’re doing the right thing, the armed forces.

Children need to know their place and who’s boss. Start them out right – like sending them to the Hamilton school, where as babies they will be taught how to be bored and ignored. Crying infants were left to their own devices as part of the school’s discipline ethics, according to recent reports. That’ll learn ‘em. And then we have those belligerent teens, who need some extra special discipline.

So their basic dignity and human rights may get a bit dented in the process, but discipline comes first. If you can’t find some highlands police to take them to a farm and terrorise them then you can always engage the child-rearing and fitness specialist, Norman McConnachie.

This poor man is in court accused of just doing what he thought was right – helping kids get off to a good start in life. He is accused of just doing the right thing by using a mix of a little ridicule, sexual abuse, torture and fear – all of which can go a long way to getting someone to be a useful member of society.

The Aberdeen high court has heard how in his own words he was just using ‘a little old-fashioned discipline’ and sees nothing wrong with calling teens fat and lazy. He’s no doubt doing the right thing by trying to make a 17 year old girl into a man.

I’m sure he’s the action-man hero he claims he is, but what’s this? A Facebook page called ‘Walter Mitty Hunters’ questions whether this ‘be all you can be’ guy can be all he says he is. For that matter, a few people have been in touch to share very curious observations about his behaviour. We’ll see if the courts uphold this macho fitness instructor, or if they’ll believe some fat, lazy teenage girls.

Intellectual Property: (Eng. legal compound noun) The right of the creator of a piece of work, art, music, film over the use of their work.
Applies to: you and me
Doesn’t apply to: SHMU (see related articles in Aberdeen Voice Public Image? Unauthorised Photos Published By SHMU), Aberdeen City Council (which used artwork on line without permission on at least one occasion).

Wildlife protection laws / Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981: (Modern English ) – laws set to protect wildlife from poaching, cruelty, trade
Applies to: virtually no one

Another day, another rare bird of prey is killed in the highlands (http://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/wildlife-protection-laws-have-had-little-impact-on-driven-grouse-moors/ ). Poisoned bait, illegal, cruel traps, shooting, it’s all the rage. After all, these birds eat other animals, and we can’t have that.

Thankfully, there are laws protecting our wildlife. Pity no one seems to have told the police these laws are to be enforced. Likewise, no one seems to have troubled the judicial system with any need for penalising the few people who do get caught.

I am proud to say that in Aberdeen, the police are as on the case as you would expect. When the severed limbs of deer were discovered on Tullos Hill (and on Kincorth hill by a city warden – but that doesn’t somehow count), the police sprang into action. They decided not to go to the press. They decided not to trouble the Scottish SPCA – there were no suspicious circumstances apparently – just the usual collection of butchered body parts.

They swiftly ensured no signs were posted to warn poachers their actions were illegal. They swiftly, well after a month, answered some of my questions about animal crimes. I can now – as a world exclusive – reveal that the police cannot confirm or deny that dogfighting is taking place in Aberdeen. Remember, you heard this bold, brave police statement here first.

What about all the incidents we know of from the press and Facebook of people attempting to steal dogs and cats?

They are busy behind the scenes, cracking the criminal rings

What about the person who got in touch with me to say they gave the police a description of someone who tried to make off with their dog and that the police dissuaded them from taking the matter further. Well, Police Scotland has come forward to say that there was one reported case in 2013 of an animal theft.

You could start to wonder whether there is a conspiracy of silence. Do the police and our local government want to keep unsavoury crime under wraps so as not to upset potential incoming businesses and residents? Are we keen to deny evidence, such as the nearly starved dog found last year in the north of the city which showed signs of dogfighting abuse?

Are the authorities keeping info back from the Scottish SPCA when they failed to pass on the dismembered deer details? Of course not. They are busy behind the scenes, cracking the criminal rings involved in organised animal crime, and those behind bird of prey poisonings. If we got too much info, that would clearly tip the gangs off, and they might cut their activities down. Since we’ve had such a successful police response to our tiny local car crime problem, let’s just leave them to it on animal issues as well.

So, the next time you forget you’ve let your tax disc expire or the next time you park in the wrong place at the wrong time, just tell the authorities you didn’t realise you were doing wrong. It seems to work for everyone else.

And now, time for a BrewDog.

Next Week: More legal definitions , courtesy of Trump, the University of Florida, Atos, and the government’s plans to sell your NHS files to private companies. Sleep well.

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Menie Police FOI Update: Little Info, No Confidence

Aberdeenshire, Featured, Opinion 5 Responses »

Dec 132013

You might think that if someone came onto your land, damaged goods and removed property – and you had a video which could hold vital evidence, the police would want to look at the tape. You would be wrong, if you were called David Milne and living on the Menie Estate. On behalf of David Milne, Suzanne Kelly tried to find out why there was no follow up and why no one would so much as touch the videotape.

After waiting several months for information requests and a Scottish Information Commissioner review, all we know is the information is too sensitive and too secret to reveal.

Put yourself in David Milne’s place. You’re living in a beautiful, protected environment; a sparsely populated coastal area north of Aberdeen. Then, Donald Trump arrives, with plans for a massive development (two golf courses, hundreds of homes, a clubhouse and hotel), and includes the homes and property of you and your neighbours in his development plan.

The national and local governments welcome Trump, and his promises, with open arms.

Next, the police create a special policy for policing the area; they claim to want to deter and detect crime at Menie. Security Guards then appear, randomly demanding identification from fellow residents. They spy on properties from their vans, and signs warning of CCTV recording go up.

Gates are erected and locked shut. One of your main access roads, formerly a well maintained dirt road is turned into an impassable rutted mess, undoubtedly due in part to construction vehicles. Months go by before it is repaired.

Next, Trump claims in the press that his property is being vandalised (which makes you wonder just why his security guards are watching the residents while vandals caused damage).

Police start to visit your neighbours, the Forbes Family, and eventually arrest Michael Forbes for taking property markers from land he is using and believes to be his – he is charged, but the case is later dropped.

Journalists you’ve met and have talked with are arrested and charged with ‘breach of the peace’. Their offence seems to have been asking the site manager when the residents can expect their water back on – it had been off for 7 days.

Photographer Alicia Bruce is dissuaded from making a police complaint although a violent-tempered Trump groundskeeper has threatened her and threatened to smash her camera.

In October 2010 someone has gone onto your property, caused damage, and removed property; someone who just might be linked to the Trump development – which soon erects a cheap fence and sends you the bill for it. You have a video which shows some, or part of, the potentially criminal activity.

You report the matter to the police. Surely, given their area policing policy, they will be swiftly investigating, and bringing someone to justice.

Only, the police are letting the matter drop.

Who decided the incident wasn’t worth following up? Why wouldn’t the police look at a video showing the possible criminal activity, if they were willing to charge Forbes with theft and journalists with breach of the peace? How can a petty removal and return of border flags be worth an arrest, and actual damage to your property not be important?

You want answers, and a freedom of information request is launched with Grampian Police. The police then decide to answer some, but far from all of your questions.

You ask them to reconsider; you ask them for an internal review. You still don’t get the answers.

The next step is to approach the Scottish Information Commissioner’s office. Months go by, and one or two emails ask further clarifications of you. Then the decision comes out.

There is some good news – information will (eventually) be released concerning correspondence on area incidents. But the reasoning and procedures used to stop the police investigation are not forthcoming. This is pretty much the end of the line for most of your questions, and back to square one for other questions.

What the Commissioner Found (or didn’t find)

The decision the Information Commissioner came to can be found here. It is appreciated the law says that no information can be released which might reveal police procedure or might undermine public confidence in the police. However, several points arise when reading the decision.

1. Right to reply while the investigation was live

Should there have been a right to comment on the Police Scotland representations when the decision was still in the draft stage? In an investigation made by the Scottish Information Commissioner regarding Stewart Milne, there were regular updates, and opportunities to comment on Aberdeen City Council’s representations to the Commissioner.

If there hadn’t been this opportunity, the city’s claim the information was too expensive to get would have been allowed to stand – this claim was disproved by keeping the petitioner informed of the council’s claims, and allowing the petitioner to comment on them.

Other opportunities for involvement in the Commissioner’s investigation were reflected in passages such as:

“If you would like to make any further comment regarding the Council’s reliance on section 33(1)(b) of FOISA for this information then please feel free to. Any comments you make will be taken into consideration in reaching a decision on this case”.
http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/ApplicationsandDecisions/Decisions/2011/201100822.aspx

and

“In order for me to thoroughly investigate your case I would appreciate it if you could provide me with a submission as to why you consider that there is a public interest in disclosure of information.” (IBID)

2. No info blackout?

Relevant information was found exempt from disclosure because it contained third party data. Surely some form of redaction of this personal third party data might have been possible – local and national governments issue ‘redacted’ documents (documents with passages blocked out) all the time.

This suggestion could have been made to the Commissioner during the investigation. It might or might not have been acted on, but the case for redacting the ‘sensitive’ information could have been made.

3. Public Image: Limited

With regard to the need to maintain ‘public confidence’, is it possible that the lack of transparency is exactly what is eroding confidence. When it seems, in cases such as this one, that laws are being applied unevenly – particularly where there is a specified local policing strategy in place, you might think the police would be eager to explain apparent disparity.

4. Investigation? What investigation?

There are parts of the decision which call for almost line for line comment; below are some points (marked with letters in square brackets) and relevant comments.

In Points 19 through 25 of the Decision, it is established that the

[a]“…withheld information was held in files of investigations into allegations of criminal conduct which were carried out under the statutory obligations of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967″ and that the Commissioner accepts that the police

[b] “held the withheld information for the purpose of an investigation…” and therefore she

[c] “must conclude that the exemptions apply.” The police claimed that:

[d] “disclosure of the requested information would entail releasing information gathered for the purposes of an investigation, which would involve details of investigatory processes and other issues considered as a matter of course during an investigation” and they also claimed

[e] “disclosure of the information would reveal processes showing how allegations are investigated which could prove useful to criminals and those intending committing a crime.”

[a,b] Had there been the opportunity to comment during the investigation, it would have been pointed out that no investigation took place – how could there have been an investigation when potentially crucial videotape evidence was not examined? Therefore Police Scotland’s claim its data was “.. for the purposes of an investigation” looks just a bit shaky.

As they had written on 29 March 2013:-

“The solicitor gave advice to the officers dealing with the matter and based on his advice, they made the decision that the incident was not a criminal matter.”

[c] Perhaps the Information Commissioner would have still sided with the police, but there should have been a chance to throw reasonable doubt on their reason for withholding the information.

[d] It can be argued that the information the police had was not gathered for the purposes of an investigation; the evidence they have must be largely what David Milne gave to them directly. This refusing potential evidence is a move which hopefully is without precedent.

The refusal leads to the question: Was a decision taken that the special policing policy invented expressly for the Menie Estate did not apply to David Milne but only to the developer? The policy was to:-

“Maximise safety; minimise disruption; facilitate lawful protest; deter, detect, detain and report those responsible for unlawful behaviour.”

Disclosure of the thinking behind the lack of investigation seems clearly to be in the public’s interest – if laws are not being enforced and/or criminal activity is not being investigated, the public would have serious concern. At present, it certainly looks as if Justice decided to peek out from under her blindfold and engage in a bit of favouritism.

[e] It seems a bit of a stretch to claim that telling Milne why his vandalised property didn’t warrant proper investigation would jeopardise Police Scotland’s secret investigative procedures and help criminals.

At present, there are dozens of police documentaries and docu-dramas, from Crimewatch UK to several specific programmes which give a great deal of information on how the UK and Scottish police investigate (or do not investigate in this instance) criminal activity.

As well as a sizable list of crime documentary/procedural shows, there are books such as ‘The Police Procedural’ by George N Dove – which leaves little left to be revealed on points of police procedure.

Stating at Point 30 of the Commissioner’s decision that:

“it will not be in the public interest to disclose information if this would undermine the confidence of the public in that part of the justice system or the confidence of police officers gathering information for such investigations”

There was no investigation, so it is hard to see how this point of law is applicable in this situation. With all due respect, withholding information as to why this incident was not fully investigated is precisely what might erode public confidence in the police.

5. Whodunnit?

At Point 36 of the Commissioner’s Decision it again becomes regrettable that there was no opportunity to comment on the draft decision before its release. This point states

“… the decision not to pursue a prosecution was not made by their solicitor, but by the officers investigating the matter who considered that the incident was not a criminal matter.”

This brings up two important issues.

Firstly, there is a large contradiction in what was originally released by the police and the Information Commissioner’s conclusion. The Commissioner has been advised at some point in her investigation that it was police officers who decided the matter was not a criminal one. However, on 29 March the police wrote in a letter:-

“ The solicitor gave advice to the officers dealing with the matter and based on his advice, they made the decision that the incident was not a criminal matter.”

This again reinforces that there was no investigation – so the reasons given for not releasing the desired information because it was the subject of an investigation is something of a Catch 22. It would be very interesting to know if it was on the solicitor’s advice or on the police’s own judgment that the video was refused.

6. Policy

As previously raised, the police invented a specific, Menie-based strategy. The following question had been put to Police Scotland in the original request:-

“…in Spring 2009, following the announcement of a number of strategic economic and infrastructure developments, Grampian Police established a short life Critical Incident Preparation Group (CIPG).

“… a generic, local strategy, relevant to Menie Estate (was) developed. This has been determined as; Maximise safety; minimise disruption; facilitate lawful protest; deter, detect, detain and report those responsible for unlawful behaviour.”

In light of this stated policy, do the police consider that its handling of the incident at the Milne property in October 2010 fits in with the strategy of ‘…detect, detain, and report those responsible for unlawful behaviour’? If the policy was not applied to the trespass, theft and damage at the Milne property, then whose decision was it that the policy did not apply?

In any event, it seems clear that the police do not want to explain why this policy was not used to protect Mr Milne.

Later on, as Trump operatives moved onto land that was subject of a civil dispute, police enabled Trump’s employees to take the law into their own hands, enter disputed areas and even cause property damage, while helpless Forbes was told he couldn’t do anything to stop it.

In that case it is possible the police were not correctly applying law and arguably going against their own invented local code for most of these incidents. As the saying goes, “there is one law for the rich, and another for the poor”.

8. Of No Interest (?)

At Point 24 the Decision notes the Police claim “there was no significant wider public interest”. This is simply untrue, not least because of the outcry at the treatment meted out to Menie resident Michael Forbes, who was initially charged with theft for taking marker flags out of his field, which he then handed over.

The arrests of journalists Anthony Baxter and Richard Phinney also throw light on what confidence in the police the public may have, and certainly these incidents show there is local, national and international interest in policing at Menie. Point 24 should not have been allowed to stand without my right to reply as applicant.

9. Contradiction?

David Milne had also accomplished the impressive feat of getting some 19,500 people to sign a petition to Holyrood asking for a public inquiry into the goings-on at Menie. This was, unsurprisingly, turned down: the Petitions Committee’s procedure was to ask the agencies in the firing line if they wanted to be investigated. To a one, they said no.

This lack of transparency regarding the Milne property vandalism brings back the spectre of the aborted public inquiry: at present we’re being told information can’t be released, but at the time the inquiry was possible, the police wrote that there was nothing left to disclose.

Despite that claim to the Petitions Committee, there certainly seems to be fair amount of information regarding Mr Milne’s case which the police haven’t, and won’t disclose after all.

This rather raises some interesting questions about the accuracy of the police representation to the Petitions Committee, which reads in part:-

“Police Scotland remain completely neutral on all matters concerning the development of the Menie Project with our focus remaining on ensuring that officers approach their duties with integrity, fairness and respect for all parties involved, and only taking action where appropriate to address behaviour which breaches the criminal law.

“It is our position that all officers involved in the policing response connected with this development have carried out their duties in an impartial and transparent manner.”

Some people beg to differ.

Flaw and Order

At the heart of the refusal to supply information there is the carte blanche, the all-encompassing get out clause for FOI requests put to the police: it seems releasing this kind of information just might “undermine the confidence of the public in that part of the justice system.”

Recent restructuring of Scotland’s regional police forces into Police Scotland spelled the end of Grampian Police. This had to be a good thing; the local police force didn’t exactly have an untarnished recent past. Its former top policeman Ian Patterson is going to prison for sex offences.

Two officers of what was the Northern Constabulary were recently convicted of a bizarre, wholly unlawful abuse of two troubled teenage girls, taken from their care home to a remote farm, frightened and forced to walk without shoes through horse manure.

But it was a new low for the police force of Grampian and Scotland when the documentary ‘you’ve been trumped’ captured the moment that Baxter and Phinney were abruptly, roughly – and to any rational person’s judgment – unjustly arrested at the Menie Estate. The arrest shocked the world, and the documentary showing life at Menie has travelled the world, winning awards.

The Police Scotland reorganisation was meant to improve the police’s operations and public image, but scepticism continues.

Judging from the response David Milne had to a freedom of information request, this scepticism, if not mistrust and lack of confidence in Police Scotland, may be around for a good long while yet.

In an article on 23 November 2013, the Herald raises some doubts:-

“One national force, it was argued, would not just save on costs, but would also improve accountability. This has not transpired, at least on the evidence of a refusal by Police Scotland and the Scottish Government to release details of the KPIs being used by the new force. As we reported this week, both bodies rejected our Freedom of Information request on the topic.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/herald-view/police-accountability-at-important-junction.22755317

The Herald wasn’t able to obtain information on how the police operate, and so largely it proved for Milne.

Yet the Information Commissioner has partially sided with Milne. He will not be getting all of the information (or indeed much of the facts sought), but he will be receiving – in January – further details about police cautions issued at Menie.

The police decided that when asked for information ‘since 2010’ they could merely give information from 2011, even though the original information request told the police to ask questions if they were not sure what was meant. This information will be of some use, but it won’t really address the big picture.

If the idea is to maintain confidence in Police Scotland, perhaps accountability and transparency (as the Sunday Herald article suggests) would be a good start.

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