There are some areas where crime and punishment presents difficulties. Does a father who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family deserve to go to prison? No? What if you’re the shopkeeper of the shop he’s stolen from a dozen times. How would you feel then? In either case, I’d reckon clapping him in chains and shipping him off to Australia for the rest of his natural life was perhaps a little harsh, and fortunately we no longer export criminals to Australia.

However, one of ours exported himself to Brazil, and that’s the chap that’s inspired this post. Look at Ronnie Biggs; he’s old, he’s frail; he can’t walk, he’s going to die soon probably (*koff* anyone else remember Ernest Saunders’ recovery from incurable dementia?) Why don’t we let him out of prison early?

In 1964, Ronnie Biggs was sentenced for his part in the Great Train Robbery of 1963. Fifteen months into his sentence, he escaped, and after five years or so, he ended up in Brazil, where he could not be extradited back to the UK. After having suffered a series of strokes, he returned to the UK for free medical treatment in 2001.

Here we move into the realm of speculation. Some people would argue that he returned to the UK simply to benefit from the UK’s healthcare. Some people would suggest that he returned to the UK because his money ran out. Some people would suggest that he returned to the UK because he didn’t think in his frail condition that he would be sent back to prison.

His son thinks he should be allowed to live out the rest of his life in peace, insisting that he is no longer a danger, he’s not actually capable of committing any crimes. I do understand the point that his son is making, and can understand that it must be awful for the son to watch his father suffering and moldering in prison but…

…and this is rather my key point. In 1964, Ronald Biggs was sentenced to thirty years in prison. By my reckoning, he has served about nine years of this. On the other hand, had he not escaped from jail, he would probably — assuming good behaviour — have been released between 1984 and 1990. The fact that he’s got to spend the rest of his life rotting in jail is a direct consequence of not only the initial crime he committed, but the second crime he committed in escaping from jail in the first place and going on the run.

It might seem like a lack of compassion, but I cannot find it anywhere in my heart to suggest that a man who escaped from prison should serve anything less than the initial tariff for which he was sentenced. Why should a man who has tried everything to avoid serving his sentence until his health fails him, be allowed to get away with it because his health has failed him?

Also, what message does this send out to others: do your time, keep your nose clean, and you’ll be out in two-thirds of your initial sentence; or you could go on the run until you’re very old and frail, and then you’ll only have to serve one third of it?

It might not be pleasant — or cheap for the taxpayer — to keep an ill, elderly man in prison, but were it not for his own actions, he would have been released from prison before he became that old, elderly man. But I’m not without compassion: once he’s served twenty-nine of the original thirty, I’m quite happy for him to be released just in time to see in his hundredth birthday as a free man.

By some rather bizarre leap of logic, Derek Barnett, vice president of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales, says about the police violence reported and the general unease with the policing methods that…

we ought to put that in some sort of context of violence and the circumstance of thousands of protesters with the sole intention of causing damage to buildings and at the worst injuring and killing police officers.

Derek Barnett on The Today Programme

Derek Barnett, without any justification, so far as I can see, has assumed that thousands of protesters went with the intention of damage and potentially of killing police officers. Again, if you ask the police protester = criminal.

They are really missing a key point here, because in the eyes of the law (you remember that, that’s the thing they are supposed to uphold) protester ≠ criminal. A protester might be a criminal, just as a policeman might be a brutal thug (a violent criminal) but the second does not automatically follow from the first.

Derek’s assumption that because some protesters caused violence, thousands must have gone with the sole intention of this sort of thing — with the possibility of it leading to killing police officers — leads me to assume that just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean he doesn’t think the intention was there. In which case it would be equally fair to assume that thousands of police officers wanted to eat the babies of protesters, but, in the end, and for whatever reason, didn’t.

It’s nonsense. You could also use his logic, with less of a leap, to infer that because some police officers used excessive force, most of them set out with that intention.

I think our police force are, for the most part, better than this. Sadly, it appears those leading them are not. That is where the trouble lies. Rather than churning out excuse after excuse after excuse, why can’t the police come out and say those particular officers were in the wrong? They were, we all know they were, and pretending otherwise only makes you look stupid — or worse, that you feel thuggish tactics are appropriate.

This sort of behaviour, this sort of sentiment is precisely why there was violence. This is the sort of person who should be drummed out of the police force just as much as those officers on the ground who decided thuggery was appropriate policing.

Compare this with David Davis MP:

Policing demos is very difficult. It is made a hundred or a thousand times more difficult by a minority of troublemakers, and let’s accept also that most police do a very good job. [...] We don’t know what the level of provocation was, but remember for a trained police officer that provocation is not justification

In fact, listen to the whole segment while it is still available. It’s worth it. (Hat-tip: Chicken Yoghurt, who have a nice selection of 2000AD pictures)

Firstly, there’s the Ian Tomlinson affair, and the way the Metropolitan Police appear to have tried to deal with this by throwing up a smokescreen to attempt to put themselves in a good light, irrespective of what actually happened.

There was no mention that he’d been struck by the Metropolitan Police, until the video evidence was shown. There was no mention that the ambulance had been delayed by the police, until evidence emerged (and on the contrary, the suggestion treatment had been delayed by protesters was allowed to surface).

Then you have the first post-mortem on Ian Tomlinson, which said he had died of a heart attack. Now you would think that given the circumstances, effort would be made to show that everything was fair and above board. You wouldn’t expect that when the IPCC requested permission to attend the post-mortem, the coroner would refuse.

Asked why he refused, the coroner (who has, in the interests of full disclosure — even though I don’t think it’s necessarily relevant here — previously been reprimanded by the GMC) said that this was because the police had told him that there was nothing suspicious about the death.

Erm… sorry? Isn’t this missing the point somewhat? Isn’t it supposed to be his job to establish whether or not there is anything suspicious about the death? If you are simply going to take the word of the police for it, you might as well have not bothered with the post-mortem. Although since the first post-mortem revealed that Ian Tomlinson had died from a heart attack, and the second, ordered by the IPCC, suggested that he had died from abdominal bleeding, you can’t help but wonder how much the coroner actually did bother…

[Note: when I initially discussed the Tomlinson incident, I was sceptical about the IPCC's reasons for wanting a second post-mortem. I was wrong. Sorry, IPCC.]

But let’s just recall that none of this would be public knowledge if it wasn’t for photo/video. That would be the photo/video that police were trying to prevent people from taking. That would be the photo/video that police were abusing their powers to prevent people from taking photos; to accuse people taking photos/videos of being ‘involved with terrorism’ as opposed to simply documenting police brutality.

Don’t forget to sign the petition to ease restrictions on photography…

Then you had the issue of the police attempting to cover up their identity. Covering up their numbers so that they could not be identified. You have to ask why. If they are seeking to uphold the law, then why should they cover up their identification numbers? What possible reason could there be for seeking to protect their identity from scrutiny (I’m not asking for their names, merely a number that the police force could use to identify them from)? Other than the obvious — if they commit a crime, it’s more difficult to identify them.

The police seem very aware of this backlash, with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner insisting that:

…all uniformed officers must wear shoulder identification numbers so they can be easily identifiable by the public.

BBC News: Police begin G20 tactics review

Now, the IPCC have gone further:

The head of the police complaints watchdog has called for a debate over the way demonstrations are policed after the row over the G20 protests. [...] Mr Hardwick said police should remember they were “the servants not the masters” of the people.

He also said that the number of people who had filmed the protests on their mobile phones was proving a key factor in helping the IPCC determine whether complaints made against the police had any legitimacy.

Mr Hardwick also said that typical complainants of police behaviour were from middle-class backgrounds, who did not previously have a jaundiced view of the police.

BBC News: IPCC urges demo policing debate

All my emphasis. Again, note the importance of the photos/videos.

We also have new video released, showing Alex Cinnane being punched in the head with a riot shield, despite being stationary and facing away from the officer. Another riot squad officer punching a retreating protester in the face. The IPCC has so far received almost 100 complaints relating to excessive force [more detail, and the video, can be found in The Times]

We need a change in the way policing of demonstrations occur. Protester ≠ criminal. Some protesters are, and may well need to be arrested. The majority are not, are law-abiding citizens entitled to the protection of the law, simply exercising their right to peaceful protest.

Like my cousin, I have had off-the-record conversations with serving police officers about this. I too have been surprised by their reaction; what I perceive as ‘closing ranks to protect our own’ (although I can perhaps better understand the pressures they are under). Upholding the law must be what comes first, irrespective of whether or not it’s been your mate — under severe pressure — that has been the one who has broken it.

Again, I’ll re-emphasise that police do a difficult job. That it’s a job worthy of respect — generally a hell of a lot more respect than they get — precisely because it is a difficult job. It’s easy for police officers to become cynical, because they are likely to spend more time than the average citizen with law-breakers, they are likely to spend more time being abused, they are likely to see the impacts of crime somewhat more. They probably therefore have less faith in human nature than average; certainly less so than those of us who don’t get called to stabbings, domestic abuse and so on. It is not an easy job; it has impacted upon everyone I know who did/does it — making them a little harder, a little colder, a little more cynical (to varying extents of course).

They aren’t bad people; but the job is difficult, hard, and it leaves a mark. Possibly the police forces need to look at how serving in the police impacts on people and try to find a way to stop (or at least reduce) this mental toll on their officers…

However the policing of the G20 has gone a long way to diminish that respect I have: to show that to some officers at least, violence and assault are okay when it’s the police dishing it out. They need to clean up their act, and fast.

Otherwise the fact that Metropolitan PC Gary Toms died trying to stop a robbery goes virtually unreported. A man described as a dedicated professional loses his life trying to protect others, and this doesn’t really make the news. Why? Because the fact the Met have been behaving like vicious thugs is rightly bigger news.

We have a right to expect better. PC Gary Toms family have a right to expect better from the Met: their actions in the G20 protest are why he hasn’t been a bigger story. And you can’t help but wonder … was he at the protest? How did he behave? Questions that you’d not be thinking about if it wasn’t for the vicious thuggery of some Met officers…

Not only has Gary Toms been killed trying to stop a robbery, his memory has been tarnished by association with the behaviour of the Met at the G20. Although of course the top brass are adamant that none of it is their fault…

The [senior Met official] said that what really concerned him was that — as with the Menezes case — it had taken so long for the truth to filter up to higher ranks at the Yard.

The Times: Attack video has G20 police in panic

Why the surprise? They didn’t put things right after de Menezes, why should they expect anything should be different? They need to ensure that officers found to have omitted important information, or lying about the true story know that, if they are caught, there will be no further place for them in the Met. Have a ‘whistleblowing’ hotline, where whistleblowers are rewarded — and kept anonymous. The entire Met culture must change, or it must be scrapped. Public trust in the Met is virtually zero, and when I say ‘virtually’, I mean ’slightly below’.

However, I’ll just go back to the IPCC, who wanted “a debate over the way demonstrations are policed”. We are already having one. In the media, in blogs, in houses and pubs — and probably police stations — around the country. If you actually want a “debate” though, on a national scale, you need a way for people to publicly comment: and you also need those comments responded to, publicly. This isn’t too difficult online. So what about it, IPCC?

Let’s actually have that debate. Let’s discuss the law, and the way it should be policed publicly. This means by the people, not by the media. Nor does it mean ‘trial by blogger’. If you’re serious, let’s have that debate. Let those people with the best arguments — not the ones who own the most media sources, or the ones who already have a seat in parliament, or the ones who simply shout loudest — win the day.

If you’re serious about it, of course. Or is this all just lip service to the public wave of revulsion at the thuggish tactics and behaviour of the Met?

Yes, that’s right. The Metropolitan Police choose to silence dissent by clubbing people with a baton. Argumentative people, yes. Trouble-making people, yes. But non-violent people. Was there a danger of injury to anyone? Not until the policeman attacked the protester.

This was of course a protester at a vigil to mark the death of Ian Tomlinson, who had been attacked with a baton, too. You would maybe have hoped that the police would have learned that violence isn’t necessarily the right answer by that point.

If you shout and scream abuse at the Met, you are being annoying. I have no doubt whatsoever about that. Up until the point where the policeman assaulted the woman, my sympathies were with him. Under pressure for trying to keep order, having people shout at him when he personally might not have done anything worth being shouted at for. What has he done to deserve that, other than trying to do his job? But that is before he attacks someone who has not been violent…

And after that, he’s just another thug using fear and violence to crush dissent. But again the question is how many times did this occur where it wasn’t caught on film? Is the CCTV footage the IPCC previously claimed ‘didn’t exist’ being proactively scrutinised to see if any other officers were being violent? And if not, why not?

There’s policing the right way, and there’s policing the Zanu-PF way. This was the latter. And as long as the Met feel that policing the Zanu-PF way is acceptable, I will feel that the Metropolitan Police, as an organisation, isn’t. [Although again, I'd like to point out that there are no doubt many fine individual officers: it's the command structure and the culture that I feel are the majority of the problem here]

Although, to be fair, a report from this afternoon suggests that the police are responding to some of the issues:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has asked Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) to review policing tactics [...]

He also said footage of clashes with police will be reviewed to see if any other incidents need to be looked at. Sir Paul also stressed all uniformed officers must wear shoulder identification numbers so they can be easily identifiable by the public.

BBC News: Police Begin G20 Tactics Review

Let’s hope that they take the review seriously. That they improve things. That they become a police force worthy of the name, who protect the public. Who don’t lash out at innocent civilians, or even argumentative but non-violent protesters. I would also like to know what disciplinary action is deemed appropriate for officers who cover up their identification numbers…

But, until we’ve seen the result of that review, we can only go off their current visibly demonstrated policing methods.

And let’s compare that with what happens to you if you insult and swear at Northumbria Police, including individual officers.

Nothing. Well, if you insult and abuse Northumbria Police on Facebook, and you don’t breach Facebook’s terms of service by being racist or something, nothing happens, except that maybe Northumbria Police will say you are a bit juvenile.

A Facebook group which contains abusive comments about Northumbria Police has been dismissed as childish by the chairman of the Police Federation.[...]

“It is very abusive and written by people who appear not to have grown up very much.” But he added: “It’s a bit of a slippery slope if we start choosing which sites we want to close down. We could end up in a society perhaps we don’t want.

A spokesman for the force said: “Although the content of the group may be considered offensive, Northumbria Police supports the right of individuals to express their views provided they do not break the law.”

BBC News: Police Facebook abuse ‘juvenile’

That’s not quite the whole story though.

It would appear (at least according to that facebook group) that certain members were arrested and their PCs checked, before later being released without charge. However I do not think that this is unreasonable or disproportionate, given that it is alleged threats were made against police and their families. This is reasonable action taken by Northumbria Police against a perceived threat.

I would also suggest that some of the complaints on the side seem reasonable (or at least reasonably presented, whether or not they are correct), however these are for the most part drowned out by the abusive, insulting majority (and this is not helped by the name of the group, either).

It’s also worth mentioning that despite a newspaper campaign, and despite the fact that the group suggests that the police federation were apparently advised to try to take facebook to court to get the group shut down, the Federation still came out with this response.

Note in particular that last bit: Northumbria supports the right of individuals to express their views provided they do not break the law. Whether intentional or not, this only serves to highlight the difference between Northumbria Police and the Met…

Northumbria Police, I’m proud of you. You are a fine example of how a police force ought to cope with dissent, criticism, and abuse.

Update: Bloody hell. Have you seen this? More footage of the Met. More violence. If this isn’t evidence that it’s not just the occasional ‘bad apple’, it’s a bad institution with a bad culture, then I don’t know what is.

And little by little, the ‘truth’ has dripped out about Ian Tomlinson, the man who died after being struck by police during the G20 riots. He was (wait for it) wearing a Millwall shirt. He was (now steady yourselves) smoking a cigarette. He appeared to be (and I’m sorry but you may need to lie down after this) drunk. Well, stone me guv, he had it coming to him. [...]

It is not a criminal offence to have a few sherbets on your way home. Such an activity is, in fact, precisely the mundane, innocent existence the police are in place to protect. There’s a dangerous misconception about the law enforcement agencies. They are increasingly being perceived as being on the streets to serve the State. They are not. They are there for us. To protect us. To look after us.[...]

Scruffy, potless or a season ticket holder at the New Den, he was the sort of person the police are meant to safeguard: an ordinary guy going about his day. Instead, I would suggest they pretty much killed him.

Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail online

Contrast this with, say, The Sun, who maintained the Tomlinson was drunk approach and then managed to censor their own discussion boards by pulling a thread entitled THE MURDER OF IAN TOMLINSON BY THE LEGALISED THUGS. Of course, not before much of it was cached by Google (if you look hard enough, you can resurrect most of the thread — I found 21 cached pages).

The Sun, fighting for the British public. Or at least that section of the public who are prepared to go along with what they want you to think. But I am encouraged by the Mail, who seem to be lashing back at the police, after realising that if you trust what the Met tell you, you could well end up with egg on your face.

But one of the things that Tomlinson has become is effectively a figurehead; a single person representing the police brutality at the G20 protest. What I am most concerned about are the police lies and the fact that the law serves to protect officers from this misconduct.

Tim from Bloggerheads tells us (as well as showing the video of police blocking the ambulances to Tomlinson — remember: we were initially led to believe that it was the protesters who held up the ambulance. More pro-police lies) that two of the things that specifically concern him were the attempts at a cover up both of police actions and of police identities.

For example, did you know that the ‘Independent’ IPCC called, with the police, and asked The Guardian to remove the video of Tomlinson being shoved to the ground from their website? Yes, the so-called independent police complaints commission seeking to prevent evidence about potential police abuses reaching the public eye. Precisely how independent is this? Can we really have any faith in their investigation?

Secondly, he points out that the police were masked with their badge numbers obscured. That’s why we didn’t know who had struck and shoved Ian Tomlinson until they came forward. Why do the police need to be anonymous, and unidentifiable even to their superiors? In order to protect them from accusations of law-breaking. This should not be allowed.

I am concerned that the righteous indignation about Ian Tomlinson’s death (police brutality, lies, lies, coverup — crap coverup, admittedly — lies, lies, attempted suppression of evidence) is distracting from other elements of police brutality. Was this brutality? Was this? What about this…

Suddenly, a policeman threw a punch at the face of a male man, who raised his right arm to try and block the punch (NO retaliation, merely a block). Immediately, 3 officers threw him up against the scaffolding, knocked him to the ground and beat him with their batons.

Indymedia

We need anyone who feels that they were assaulted by the police, or who witnessed an assault by the police to come forward and report it to the IPCC. I don’t really have any sympathy for anyone who was themselves being violent, but anyone else assaulted needs to report this. Someone with the time and inclination couuld even set up a database to track these reports.

Let’s not allow the police to get away with one scapegoat who was unfortunate enough to strike someone with a heart condition. Let’s ensure that every officer who assaulted someone faces the consequences. Let’s ensure that every officer knows that if they break the law — even if a superior tells them to — that they may face prosecution.

And let’s make it clear that if the officer is not showing their badge number, they aren’t in uniform. And therefore you should not be expected to follow their instructions.

While I’ve mentioned this before, the G20 protest has brought back to the fore exactly where the law stands on taking photos of the police. Graham Linehan demonstrated why they want to make it a crime to take photographs of the police.

There’s a comment on ChickYog which suggests that the legislation isn’t meant to be interpreted this way:

It is clear that it does not prevent people taking photos of the police, and to suggest that it does will either promote paranoia, or make people fearful of taking photos. Neither of which is a good outcome.

‘Tom’

However, and this is rather a crucial point, irrespective of what it is supposed to mean, it is quite clear that police are using their authority (whether legally or otherwise) to prevent photos being taken.

people are told to delete photos of officers from their cameras, under the threat of seizure.

Indymedia

The Metropolitan Police is apologising to press photographers covering last week’s G20 protests after BJP questioned why they had been prevented from covering a key incident during clashes outside the Bank of England.

British Journal of Photography

It is irrelevant whether or not the police are supposed to prevent people taking photos. The actuality of it is that they do prevent people taking photos. Apologising after the event is no good — what would have happened if there had been no footage of the police with Ian Tomlinson? They would have got away with it.

That’s why the law on this issue needs to be clearer. Again, kudos to another newspaper I wouldn’t normally recommend…

Campaigners say the fact that the footage is at the centre of the investigation into Mr Tomlinson’s death shows that the public must be free to photograph or film officers on duty. The Government installed the ban in February under a strengthening of the Counter-terrorism Act.

It made it an offence to take photographs of police officers, military personnel or members of the intelligence services “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”. Anyone found guilty faces up to 10 years in prison and a heavy fine.

Telegraph

…for not only highlighting the petition to allow people to photo the police on duty (although I think that given the policing at the G20, photographing them on duty shouldn’t just be allowed, it should be mandatory — people seeking to prevent photos of police action being taken should be the ones criminalised) but also pointing out how the official account of events changed over time.

Remember that people want us to carry ID cards. Why should the police not show ID? Remember that when people complain about lots of CCTV, or surveillance, we are told, “those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear”.

So, as the Register points out…

privacy activists will feel that the cops have been hoisted by their own petard this time, with professional and amateur snappers deploying video technology exposing allegedly heavy handed policing. “Cops with nothing to hide will have nothing to fear,” they might argue.

The Register

So take a moment out of your day to sign this petition. If you witnessed unwarranted police violence, take a moment out of your day to make a complaint. And remember, we can no longer believe anything just because the police say so.

For example, the big ‘terrorist threat’ with arrests in the north-west. This may well have been a genuine threat (indeed, I am prepared to actually assume that the intelligence acted on was good, and work from the starting point that it was), but the information fed into the media would seeming have us believe that they simply must be terrorists because…

• many of them are students,
• many of them are Pakistani nationals, and
• they were taking photographs of Manchester locations

And this despite…

Police are not thought to have recovered any explosive devices during their searches and BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said his understanding was that the alleged plot had been at the “aspirational, not operational” stage.

BBC News: Anti terror searches continuing

Sorry? Hadn’t we just been told that…

One Whitehall source said the police feared attacks were planned for the Easter weekend.

The Guardian: student visa terror arrests link

So which is it? Was the intelligence wrong? Heh, it’s a good job we don’t go to war on that sort of basis…

Whether there was, or there was not a terror plot, I don’t know. What I do know is that the story has changed, again. What I do know is that the information which has been put in the public domain was that these people were taking photos of Manchester landmarks. This, so far as I am aware, is not proof that they were engaged in terrorist activity.

In this case I would obviously rather that the police erred on the side of caution; better to temporarily hold a few innocents (assuming you can quickly establish innocence or otherwise) than risk deaths and injuries to hundreds of people. So I’d like to make it clear I’m not critical of the police action, I’m just critical of this continuance of the ‘they must be terrorists because they were taking photographs’ line.

After all, there is no need for any potential terrorists to take photographs in public. They could just use Google Street View…

A Metropolitan police officer appears to strike him with a baton, hitting him from behind on his upper thigh.

Moments later, the same policeman rushes forward and, using both hands, pushes Tomlinson in the back and sends him flying to the ground.

The Guardian

You can see the video for yourself.

The video goes on to state that “in a statement after his death, police initially said that protesters had impeded medics from treating Tomlinson”. They lied. Although if you see Indymedia’s photo of a police medic you might consider that keeping him away from anyone (whether already injured or not) might be better for their health. Paul Canning also provides some other witness statements contradicting the police story lies.

There are also suggestions that other footage exists which more clearly shows the officer striking the unarmed, innocent man with a baton (and that said footage with be shown at 7pm on Channel 4 news).

newsflash : We have new ITN exclusive video of Ian Tomlinson – shows police clearly striking out at him with a baton.Krishnan Guru-Murthy tweet (Channel 4 News presenter)

Yes, the Metropolitan Police lied about the protesters actions relating to a man whose death might very well have been caused by their actions. Nor did they seem to feel it was relevant that they the man who had died had been hurled to the ground and possibly struck by a police baton when he wasn’t doing anything wrong. No, they were too busy trying to cover their own backs.

Should we be surprised? No, they’ve lied before. It was of course illegal to take photos or videos of serving officers carrying out their duties, as if there wasn’t any evidence proving the police to be liars, people might take their word for it (indeed, many newspapers did).

Tim Ireland over at Bloggerheads has already talked about this (read it; tweet it; blog it; keep the message going), and he drew precisely the same parallel that I’m about to…

When the police murdered Jean Charles de Menezes (okay, that wasn’t the official verdict, but the jurors were not allowed by the coronor to return a verdict of unlawful killing, whatever their opinions may have been), the police initially said that he had run from the police.

Lie. He had walked to the tube station.

That he was wearing a bulky padded jacket, suitable for hiding a bomb.

Lie. He was wearing a light denim jacket, not suitable for hiding a bomb.

That he had suspiciously vaulted the barriers at the tube station.

Lie. He had used his pass to enter the barriers.

That they had shouted a warning.

Lie. None of the passengers on the train heard a warning. Only the firearms officers did, apparently. This is rather more worrying as it suggests to me that not only did the police lie about initially giving a warning, but they then lied again to the inquest, impugning the reliability of independent witnesses, in order to cover up the fact that they had shot and killed an entirely innocent man.

And the parallels here are striking.

Here, police omitted to mention that they had struck the man and hurled him to the ground. They lied and said protesters had impeded his medical treatment, which they had not.

These eyewitness statements make the point that the protester who provided the medical aid to Tomlinson which was lacking from his ‘protectors’ was “very brave” in the face of police charges.

Paul Canning

In other words, they lied again, to cover their own backs again.

The police are not, and can never be above the law. If a man who caused the death of another by punching him in a supermarket queue can be found guilty of manslaughter, then is being assaulted by a police officer any different? (Indeed, it seems up North, the police may actually be held to account — in Newcastle today a police officer has been found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, despite claiming that he was driving ’safely’ at 94mph in a 30mph zone without lights or sirens)

It has also been announced today that the IPCC have requested a second post-mortem on Ian Tomlinson. I am not sure why — presumably they were seeking to determine that he was already ill. This is to miss the point. If I were to punch some guy with an existing heart condition, and he died, I would still be liable presumably at least for manslaughter, even if that condition was likely to kill him within a couple of years. The more important point is that the police should not be assaulting innocent citizens in the first place. Although the IPCC may have some other reason as yet unknown for wanting a second post-mortem…

The police tactics in managing the protest were abhorrent in themselves — the kettling tactics used to prevent perfectly legitimate protesters from leaving the protest are likely to ratchet up tensions, not defuse them. They make it impossible for protesters to leave, which could mean anyone with pre-existing medical conditions gets stuck behind a police cordon.

Not only that, there were reports of police taking photos of and asking the names of innocent demonstrators before they were allowed to leave. It seems that false imprisonment, harassment and threatening behaviour is seen as perfectly legitimate by the Metropolitan Police.

Now I know that some protestors were violent. But the whole point of having a police force is that they are supposed to be able to determine a difference between those people who are innocent, and those people who are guilty. Simply lashing out and attacking whoever is near you at the time is not ‘policing’, it’s, well… assault.

A police officer incapable of discriminating between criminals and innocent people (whether protesting or not) should be sacked. A police force incapable of doing this has failed it’s entire raison d’être, and should be replaced. Immediately, and before there are any more victims.

But more than anything else, the words of the Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, have proved to me that the Met Police aren’t actually capable of policing.

“On a day like that, where there are some protesters who are quite clearly hell-bent on causing as much trouble as they can, there is inevitably going to be some physical confrontation. Sometimes it isn’t clear, as a police officer, who is a protester and who is not. I know it’s a generalisation but anybody in that part of the town at that time, the assumption would be that they are part of the protest.”Peter Smyth, quoted on BBC News

Peter here quite rightly identifies that some protesters were causing trouble. He then suggests that the police mis-identified Ian Tomlinson as a protester, and that’s why they struck him. What? Peter Smyth’s quote would lead me to believe that he thinks it is okay for the police to baton-strike any protester and hurl him to the ground, whether or not he is actually breaking the law. In the views of the Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, protester = criminal, and striking Ian, had he been protesting, would have been perfectly legitimate.

That flagrant disregard for the rights of peaceful protesters sums up the Met’s actions.

Jean Charles de Menezes. Ian Tomlinson. That could have been you. That could have been your brother, your father, your friend. Next time it might very well be you or someone you care about, unless we take action to prevent a ‘next time’. Justice must be done, as opposed to the usual response of ‘covering up for police brutality’.

So I’d like to propose my solution.

1. Firstly, any member of any police force found to have lied about police action (or protester action) to be sacked. If this person can demonstrate that they were given incorrect information, then that will be a reasonable defence — provided they can identify who gave them that information, so they can be sacked.
2. Secondly, any member of any police force found to have used violence on an innocent (or violence otherwise inappropriate for the situation) to be charged with the appropriate criminal offense. Being a serving police officer is no defense; if anything this makes it worse as I think we have a right to expect higher standards from our police officers
3. Thirdly, kettling and similar tactics to be deemed illegal, and any police officer who recommends or allows such a tactic to be charged with “behaviour likely to incite a riot” (or whatever the nearest equivalent is) by the Crown Prosecution Service.
4. Fourth, the Metropolitan Police Service to be disbanded. They have proved, more than once, that we cannot trust what they say. They have proved, more than once, that they have caused the death of an innocent man. It’s no good simply replacing the man at the top: the entire root and branch of the organisation needs to be replaced. That isn’t to say every officer needs to automatically be replaced, but the existing command structure has proved not to work, and needs to be replaced. We need a police service in London, but we need a far better one than the Met.

Update: after a personal conversation and reading some comments elsewhere, I must make it explicitly clear I am not anti-police. Indeed at one stage in my life I considered joining the police force, and still think that ’serving the public good’ in this manner is a noble and frequently thankless task. However I expect anyone who does this to be even more law-abiding than everyone else, particularly when on duty, and to respect the rights of others. Even if — as was certainly the case at the G20 — missiles are being thrown, that does not give the police the right to lash out indiscriminately. I would expect those throwing missiles, those being violent, those committing vandalism to be specifically targetted by the police and arrested (with the minimum necessary force). I would expect those exercising their right to protest peacefully to be treated with the respect that the police would afford any other citizen that is not breaking the law. Failure to do this is a failure of policing.

Sex offenders will be made to take lie detector tests as part of probation conditions when they are freed from prison, the Ministry of Justice says.

BBC News: Lie tests tried on sex offenders

Firstly, before I explain, I will qualify. I am not against people on probation having checks to reduce the chance of them re-offending. This is even more relevant when it comes to sex offenders as some of these groups can be very likely to re-offend.

Anything which makes them less likely to re-offend and/or enable the probation service to keep a closer eye on them should be considered very seriously. Indeed, the BBC noted that in 2003, voluntary tests had prompted admissions in 80% of cases. The very idea that someone is to take a a polygraph test makes them less likely to lie.

However, it’s the creeping introduction of polygraph testing into our society, and particularly our justice system, which worries me.

I was recently reading a book called Would I Lie to You?: Deception Detection in Relationships at Work and in Life, which tells you about the ‘tells’ that people make when they are lying. Interestingly, I discovered that, for the most part, these were the sorts of things I was looking for anyway, which possibly means that I am good at telling when someone is lying, or possibly also that I am more likely to be a good liar myself.

However, there was a section about polygraphs and similar ‘tests’, where it discussed the accuracy of them, problems with them and so on. The suggestion was made that they can be accurate in no more than around 70% of cases — not the 97% rates claimed on the human bear-pit of places like the Jeremy bleeding Kyle show — and, perhaps more worryingly, that they will, more than 10% of the time, give the impression someone is lying when they are in fact telling the truth. It also suggests that wherever these are referred to as ‘lie detectors’, whoever has written that story does not understand them well enough.

Now in the case of the sex offenders, this is simply one of a measure of packages.

Pam Hibbert, assistant director of policy at children’s charity Barnardos, said the tests would “increase public confidence” that sex offenders were complying with supervision, staying away from schools and playgrounds and living and sleeping where they are supposed to.

“It is important however that this is used as part of a package of measures including greater use of satellite tracking.”

BBC News: Lie tests tried on sex offenders

So maybe in this particular instance, it’s not a bad thing. But I don’t like the idea of something being introduced into the criminal justice system, which 10% of the time will imply people are lying when they were actually telling the truth. I’d certainly not like to see it used for people who have not yet been found guilty of anything — if one in ten people interviewed in relation to a crime sound “guilty” to the polygraph, then there will be a tendency for the police to assume that they are guilty, instead of continuing to check for other suspects, particularly if the actual perpetrator is one of the 30% who falsely passes the polygraph test.

A 1997 survey of 421 psychologists estimated the test’s average accuracy at about 61%, a little better than chance

Wikipedia: Polygraph Reliability

We’ve seen this before — “Benefit cheats face lie detector”. I particularly liked the assumption of guilt for this headline. Presumably if they already knew that people were benefit cheats there would be no need to run the polygraph test in the first place, so “benefit claimants face lie detector” test is more accurate.

And the voice-stress analysis test isn’t ideal either (it’s not as reliable as the polygraph as it’s over the phone, and you have far less opportunity to get a ‘balance’ reading). In fact…

Lie detector technology to identify false benefits claims will no longer be used at job centre branches, after a Nottingham office pilot reported just 37% of those initially identified as lying actually were.

Personnel Today

I think this is referring to Tony McNulty MP’s statement in the House of Commons about Voice Risk Analysis trials by local authorities and JobCentre plus. These make quite alarming reading.

Firstly, the trial has cost at least £1.5 million to operate. Secondly, if you look at people identified as “high risk” by the JobCentre plus voice risk analysis (not quite the same as stating they were lying, but the implication is there), only 37% of them had their benefits changed as a result of the investigation. In other words, 63% of the people — almost two thirds — identified as ‘high risk’ by the VRA were giving correct information, and the cost of all of these extra investigations found nothing.

On the other hand, 29% of people identified as ‘low risk’ by the machine did have their benefits changed upon investigation. In other words, the VRA was next to useless. If it just picked 30% of the people at random and said that they were “high risk”, you would expect the results to differ little from this statistic.

In fairness, some of the Local Authority results were better than the JobCentre plus ones (Birmingham, Derwentside and Edinburgh showed a 30% differential between ‘low risk’ fails and ‘high risk’ fails, as opposed to the measly 8% in JobCentre plus). However, it is important to understand that even where these results were used, they were not being used to definitively state that benefits claimants were lying; merely that a higher proportion of these cases would be investigated in more detail, just to be sure…

However, as the Guardian points out, none of these trials give any actual numbers, just the percentages, so you can’t tell whether greater percentage differences could be anomalies with a small sample size, and nor do they use any control group (how many would have been identified as “high risk” or “low risk” by job centre operators on their own without VRA? would they have in fact done better?)

In other words, if something claims to be an accurate lie detector, particularly if they don’t give you any accurate statistics to measure it with, you might want to check that your bullshit detector is not going off.

So I am quite happy for polygraphs and VRA to be used to make the people taking them feel that they might well get caught in lying, and encourage them to be more likely to tell the truth, but considering that they are relatively ineffective, I wouldn’t want to see much credence given to the results of these tests in the benefits or criminal justice fields…

…although for the purposes of the Jeremy Kyle show, I really couldn’t care less.

Why? Well it appears to me that with Google Street View, Google have not only taken photos of sewer drains, but also of the positions of various magistrates courts and police stations (see street view of NE8 1DT); but also of the positions of CCTV cameras nearby (scroll around a bit and look).

I would have thought that this information would have been of significantly more use to someone wishing to commit a terrorist act than, say, someone in the street taking a photograph of a sewer drain. I would therefore like to suggest that the Government seize all of Google’s assets in the UK under the appropriate Prevention of Terrorism / Counter-Terrorism legislation that the police use to arrest and take DNA samples of people who have simply taken a photograph of a sewer.

Unless of course the Government wish to clarify that wandering around in public taking photos is not illegal, it would be logical to assume that the police would treat this as an offence similar to the first, only obviously considerably more severe, since there appear to have been many incidents of Google taking photos of this nature.

I would presume that the executives of Google would be held directly accountable, to be held in police custody for 48 hours at least and have their DNA places on file. After all, not only do the laws apply equally to them, not only have they been responsible for the publication of a lot of photographs of this nature, but they have also actively been promoting this activity.

And of course our government will ensure that the same laws which are used to harrass and lock up our citizens will be used equally against companies and organisations. Won’t they?

I presume someone like Mark Thomas will be planning some sort of organised civil disobedience for this, but I’ve not heard or seen anything yet. What am I upset about?

The issue at hand is the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, section 76. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for countering terrorism, which I see as a bad thing, but I think that legislation which allows people to be imprisoned for up to 10 years for taking photographs of the police or the armed forces is a little off.

According to one journalist:

They will now be able to arrest you if a photograph could potentially incite or provoke disorder.Marc Vallee, quoted in Guardian Online

And I hate to be a party pooper about this, but if you could just imagine a hypothetical situation where some police officers were filmed using excessive force on a gentleman they were arresting. Let’s just say that the beating of this gentleman — let’s give him the purely hypothetical name “Rodney King” — was captured on film by someone.

Under British law, as that person was filming serving police officers, and something which might well potentially incite or provoke disorder, could find themselves staring down the barrel of a 10 year stretch. Hence the latin title of this post, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (who guards/watches the guards/watchers)

The thing about taking the pictures is whether or not they are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”. Only in practice, the police on the ground are the ones who decide this…

The British Journal of Photography recently reported an incident involving a photographer in Cleveland who was stopped by a police officer while taking pictures of ships.

He was asked if he was connected to terrorism, which he wasn’t, and told his details would be kept on file.[...]

“The problems that we can see arising are with junior officers using the legislation to overcome situations that they find uncomfortable or where they make judgements about photography and don’t know how to apply the legislation on the ground” [Neil Turner]

BBC News: Is It A Crime To Take Pictures?

Taking a photograph at a football match is likely to include police officers. It may conceivably be of use to someone wishing to commmit a terrorist act — Arsène Wenger fears terrorists could prey on football — so anyone taking a photo at a football match could conceivably face 10 years inside under anti-terrorism legislation.

It would also appear that a chap called Stephen Clarke was arrested last year in Manchester under anti-terrorism legislation for allegedly taking a photograph of a sewer drain. It later emerged that the police couldn’t find any photographs of sewer drains on his phone, nor did they explain how what a sewer drain looks like was specialist information that would specifically benefit terrorism and would not be available elsewhere. Still, this didn’t stop the police from arresting him and holding him for two days while the police searched his home and computer. When they finally found nothing to charge him with, he was released but his DNA kept on file as a potential terrorist suspect — which, according to the European Court of Human Rights, is a violation of his human rights.

As someone who wanders around regularly with a camera taking photos of stuff for my blog, I obviously think this is wrong. But then again, when police think it’s appropriate to store the DNA profile of a one-year old, what can we expect?

Or maybe there’s the issue that the Police have been breaching the Human Rights Act on a huge scale by:

…targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal [...]

Corinna Ferguson, Liberty’s legal officer, said: “A searchable database containing photographs of people who are not even suspected of criminal activity may well violate privacy rights under article 8 of the Human Rights Act. It is particularly worrying if peaceful protesters are being singled out for surveillance.”Revealed: police databank on thousands of protesters

So, let’s get this straight.

• If you take a photograph of a sewer, the police will arrest you, search your house and computer and lock you up for two days. Finally, you will be released without charge, but your details remain on file as a potential suspect, despite the European Court of Human Rights saying they can’t do this
• If you take a photo of a policeman that someone wanting to incite violence against them might find useful — such as a policeman beating someone up — you could be done under counter-terrorism legislation, and face 10 years inside
• Meanwhile, the police have been routinely breaching your human rights by subjecting you to surveillance and keeping your details on file even if you’ve only been involved in legal political protest and have never even been suspected of a crime.

In answer to Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, it would appear the answer is no-one. Of course, as someone who’s objecting to this, it would appear that there is every chance you’ll never hear from me again…

Is it not time to take a stand while we still have some civil liberties remaining? Don’t think there’s nothing we can do about it. We can, and should, tell our MPs in sufficiently large numbers that we object to this. Simply find your MP using They Work For You (after all, they do work for you), and send them a message, letting them know how you feel. Tell your friends: get them to contact their MPs if they feel the same… actually bloody do something!

And actually look to see what your prospective electoral candidates stand for: what they would support or protest against, instead of just voting that party ticket once more…

THE severed head of what might be a British tourist has been found hanging in a plastic bag from a bridge in Bangkok. The grim package was accompanied by a clumsily written suicide not hinting the victim was a man who had been jilted in love [...]

Police said the stilted English suggested it was written by a Thai speaker and claimed the message was an attempt to make the killing look like suicide.

Metro Newspaper p12, Tuesday February 24 2009

A slightly different version of the article is also available online.

Now, I do not wish to be disparaging to the Thai police, who I am sure are working hard to find the killer(s), but it does not fill me with confidence that it took a badly-written suicide note to tip the police off that foul play may have been involved.

I would have hoped that the police would realise that someone committing suicide by beheading themselves would then experience at least moderate difficulty in placing their head inside a plastic bag and hanging it from a bridge, along with the suicide note. In this case, we were perhaps fortunate that the police carefully investigated how well the “suicide” note was written, otherwise the truth may never have been unearthed…