On the 23rd August 2021 ‘Jamesy’ found himself horrified by some ‘disgusting’ stickers stating a biological fact and a protected belief. These stickers appeared to be very easily removable. On 28th August, Lancashire Police replied to Jamesy to say they took this ‘extremely seriously’ and had recorded it as a ‘hate incident’.
Given that the stickers asserted a biological fact AND a protected belief - confirmed by the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Forstater - I was intrigued by Lancashire’s eagerness to record. .
In 2017 for example Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) conducted a crime data integrity inspection of Lancashire Constabulary and found the force was ‘inadequate’ in its crime recording.
To be fair, it had improved by 2019, albeit with some work to do
It recognises that it still does not record some reports of crime and that it must work to make sure it records:
all reports of rape;
crimes associated with domestic abuse; and
crimes committed against vulnerable people which third party professionals report.
So its good to know that Lancashire must consider itself now on top of reports and investigation into rape given that it now has time to take stickers stating a biological fact ‘extremely seriously’.
I agree with what was said on the stickers. I don’t think what was said was ‘hateful’. I don’t think what was said should be a police matter. But clearly the police disagree and think it very important to record this. So it was nothing less than my civic duty to highlight the need to make a careful record of my offending.
Given that I am repeatedly told that it is ‘vital’ for the police to record ‘hate incidents’ in order to acquire important intelligence about those who may be ‘escalating’ into ‘genocide’ I thought it was my civic duty to point out that I - already recorded three times by Wiltshire police and possibly once by either South Yorkshire or Greater Manchester (although neither seems keen to own this) - was clearly escalating and it was probably high time for the police to take some serious operational decisions about how to deal with me.
Sadly, I was simply ignored by Lancashire police. So I reported myself via True Vision at 8.45pm on Monday 31st August 2021
I will let you know what happens. My application in judicial review against the College of Policing and hopefully also now Wiltshire police, given that I have just exhausted their appeals process, remains stayed while we wait for the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Harry Miller’s case.
That appeal was heard on 8th and 9th March 2021 and there is as yet no indication as to when we might know what the Court of Appeal thinks about the legality of the Hate Crimes guidance. I am getting not merely bored with waiting but increasingly angry that protected political speech about a matter of considerable importance, is being treated by the police as ‘hateful’. So I will be very interested to see what is said about my attempts to report myself.
I love this! Look forward to seeing what the fuzz say.
Well done, Sarah. Can't wait to hear their reply, but I suspect a deafening silence might continue.