Tuesday, February 09, 2010 

ASBO for the skirt wearer, please.

Here's one of those stories so bizarre that it could almost be taken directly from the likes of Monkey Dust:

A 60-year-old man from Northampton has denied breaching an Asbo which bans him from dressing up as a schoolgirl.

Peter Trigger, of Farndon Close, appeared before Northampton magistrates charged with breaching his Asbo three times.

Mr Trigger was given a five-year Asbo in December 2008 after waiting near a primary school dressed as a schoolgirl.

He is banned from wearing a skirt between 0830 and 1000 GMT and between 1445 and 1600 GMT on school days.

He is also banned from showing bare legs and behaving in a manner which causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to others.


One of the things that strikes you is that this is an example of an ASBO where they've decided to be at least slightly lenient: Mr Trigger only has to ensure that he isn't wearing a skirt on school days between the hours when children tend to be travelling to or from school. If he so wishes to don stated attire at weekends, then he's completely free to do so. It's not entirely clear whether he's also only banned from showing bare legs and behaving in a way which causes or is likely to cause harassment during those hours also, but you would have to hope so.

The order was originally imposed after Trigger repeatedly took walks near a primary school, which is close to where he lives, "frightening" and "confusing" children, as you might expect he would. He also allegedly bent over, showed his thighs and "indicated he was wearing no other clothes". The problem with the order though is staggeringly clear: Trigger, despite being told repeatedly before an ASBO was sought that his behaviour was disturbing the children, carried on doing it. Either doing so sexually arouses him, he simply enjoys dressing as a schoolgirl, or he's completely ignorant of how what he's doing isn't normal.

If it's the latter, how on earth is he supposed to know that what he's doing is causing harassment, alarm or distress to others? Being barred from wearing certain clothes or rather not wearing them is one thing, but how do you stop yourself from behaving in a way which others will subjectively decide either isn't or is alarming? One of these three breaches is for allegedly causing distress, although whether he was also breaking the order by wearing the uniform at the same time isn't stated, despite happening on a separate occasion. You have to appreciate the difficulty of having to deal with such a problem, and that the safety of children is paramount, even if he simply seems to be strange rather an actual threat to them, yet the order has still been structured in such a way as to make it almost impossible not to breached. It has ultimately solved nothing, as ASBOs as a whole have failed to, hitting the behaviour but not dealing with the source of it.

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2/09/2010 11:05:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 

The VIP treatment.

Here's one of those especially crass Sun articles written with the type of feigned ignorance so prevalent in the tabloids:

ILLEGAL immigrants are getting the VIP treatment when booted out of Britain - with personal security escorts costing almost £500 each.

Yes, you read that right - the VIP treatment. I don't know what VIP means to you, but I somehow doubt that those who considered themselves such would put up for long with what the average failed asylum seeker or illegal immigrant faces prior to their deportation, often provided by the same private security firms. The last report into Colnbrook (PDF) immigration removal centre, ran by Serco (glossy corporate, touchy-feely everything is wonderful page), where many are held prior to their deportation due to its location near to Heathrow, found that it was struggling to cope and that safety was a significant concern.

That though is nothing when compared to the true VIP treatment when those lucky enough to be leaving are taken to the flights to return them to their home country. The reason why "personal security escorts" are used is twofold - firstly because there are few officials and staff within the UK Border Agency who are authorised to use force and as result many first attempts to deport individuals are abandoned because those whose time has come dare to resist - and secondly as many within the UKBA are not prepared to actually see the policies which they implement put into effect.

In a way, you can't blame them - the horror stories from some of the chartered flights are visceral in their intensity. On one of the first chartered flights back to Iraq a detainee smuggled a blade on board and slashed his stomach, while another concussed himself after banging his head repeatedly against a window. Those were probably the ones which weren't restrained, with others either handcuffed or even wearing leg irons. Charter planes aren't always used though - there was the notable case of a British Airways flight to Lagos where the passengers in economy class mutinied after seeing the plight of a shackled detainee who wouldn't stop screaming, with the supposed "ringleader" arrested and charged only to be cleared over a year later of "behaving in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly manner" towards the crew.

Then again, you wonder what the Sun expects. After all, according to them we roll out the red carpet in welcoming immigrants and asylum seekers in the first place, and the commenters on the piece certainly agree. Might as well extend the gesture when we forcibly throw them out as well then, surely? It does though also prove that simply the government can't do anything right - let too many come here in the first place and spends too much when it gets rid of them, regardless of the much higher cost of keeping them detained here before their deportation - why it bothers when there is simply no political benefit in keeping up such brutal but also ineffective policies remains a mystery. Perhaps, just for the Sun, we could think up something that would negate the need to deport them at all; there are after all many lessons which we can learn from history...

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1/26/2010 09:46:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 

The illusion of safety.

Amid all the predictable over-reaction to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's successful attempt to set fire to himself, the first thing to go out the window was any sort of perspective. We are now after all fast approaching the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks, which also marks the last successful attack by takfirist jihadists on a Western city. Not that al-Qaida and its franchises haven't tried to attack or haven't been plotting; it's just that all their attempts have either been spectacular failures or have been successfully prevented.

While America supposedly worries that this otherwise inconsequential island has the highest number of al-Qaida operatives in the West, they don't seem to have noted how, even if accurate, just how incompetent they are. First we had the 21/7 group, whose chapati flour bombs sadly failed to rise (surely explode? Ed), the liquid doom plotters, who needed to be tried twice before a jury was convinced that the main three were going to target aircraft, and where it has never been successfully proved that they were ever going to be capable of constructing a viable explosive, even if they had the necessary material, and then, and most humorously, we found ourselves threatened by two geniuses who thought that they could make a bomb by simply filling a car with patio gas canisters without realising that they needed either a detonator or an oxidiser to create an explosion that was going to actually hurt anyone. Instead, they, like Abdulmutalab succeeded in only harming themselves rather than anyone else.

No, instead we have politicians to do the harming for us. Admittedly, the "underpants" bomber's attempted attack was more serious than the Glasgow airport duo's failure, both for the reason that it focused attention on the deteriorating situation in Yemen, but also because he used proper military explosives, even if they also failed to detonate. It is though unclear whether even if he had created a successful detonation he would have managed to bring the plane down; he may well have killed both himself and some of those seated around him, but the plane could well have limped home, close as it was to its destination. The key fact is though that he failed, and that once such a method has been attempted, it's unlikely to be repeated. Not even the morons "who love death more than we love life" tend to repeat themselves once they've failed once; instead they somewhat innovate. Project Bojinka became the liquid bomb plot, similar but involving suicide bombers and with a different more obtainable explosive. Richard Reid's attempt led to Abdulmutalab's, and in turn will likely lead to a further attempt along the lines of the failed assassination of the Saudi prince Muhammad bin Nayef by Abdullah Hassan Al Aseery, in which the explosive might well have been inside his anal canal, although some have since suggested it was sewn into his underpants ala Abdulmutalab.

Is there any point then whatsoever to today's "package of enhanced security measures"? It seems doubtful, especially the ludicrous stopping of direct flights between Britain and Yemen, as if that'll somehow stop anyone travelling between the two countries instead of just inconveniencing them somewhat. It's also unclear just what use a "no-fly" list will be when almost all those who have attempted attacks in this country have either been British citizens, been here since childhood or here legitimately, such as the Glasgow attackers. As for the full-body scanners, Abdulmutalab went through rigorous security in both Nigeria and the Netherlands which failed to detect his explosives; as it simply isn't possible to go over everyone with a fine tooth comb there's still no guarantee that a bomber wouldn't get on a flight in similar circumstances. The only part of the proposals that might help is the further sharing of intelligence and the security services joint investigation team to be set-up.

In short, this is the same old illusion of safety that we've always had. If the intention is to do something rather than doing nothing, then the government has succeeded. If instead the intention was to increase the fear factor, then it might work amongst a few people; more likely though is that it will just further infuriate those who regularly travel. If al-Qaida in Yemen's real motive was to further discourage air travel they might have succeeded, although then again, the government seems as determined to do the job just as well for them.

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1/20/2010 11:41:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, December 22, 2009 

Season's greetings from the UK Border Agency redux.

Martin Edge provides his version of the UK Border Agency's highly compassionate Christmas card:

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12/22/2009 10:27:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, December 11, 2009 

Season's greetings from the UK Border Agency.

Sort of following on from yesterday's post, via OurKingdom and Jamie, this is the UK Border Agency's quite delightful Christmas card:


Nothing about locking up innocent children until their hair falls out, but perhaps that's on the back.

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12/11/2009 09:47:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, December 10, 2009 

The continuing scandal of child detention.

When Labour's best political boast is now more or less that they won't be as brutal as the Conservatives will, it's well worth remembering how the government treats some of the most vulnerable in society. Not content with having expanded the prison population to such an extent that as soon as a new wing or establishment is built it is almost immediately filled, it also seems hell-bent on continuing with the detention of those whose only crime is to be the children of asylum seekers who have had their application for refugee status rejected.

Not that the government itself has the guts to be personally responsible for their detention. Probably the most notorious detention centre in the country, Yarl's Wood in Bedfordshire, is run by SERCO. We used to have this strange notion that establishments like prisons shouldn't be run with a view to a profit being made, and that surely applies all the more to those where the "guests" have not committed any offence, but going by yesterday's pre-budget report, with the funding for prisons due to be slashed, it's one we're going to have get even more used to. In the last report on Yarl's Wood, the chief inspector of prisons Anne Owers noted (PDF) while Yarl's Wood should seek to improve the "plight of children" who were being held in the centre, they were "ultimately issues" for the UK Border Agency. That would be the same UK Border Agency where bonuses are being paid out, something defended by Phil Woolas, who claimed they were "risking their lives" in what they did.

It's doubtful though that the most recent initiative at Yarl's Wood took place on the orders of the UK Border Agency. The latest Private Eye (1251) reports on the opening of new classrooms for the detained children, which "local bigwigs" had been invited to attended. They were treated to the kind of welcome that royalty might have been, with one happy child detainee prompted to sing "Happy Birthday" to his mother, older prisoners dressed in blue gowns who sang "My Sweet Lord" and were given a complimentary mug and coaster set which was emblazoned with a logo featuring two smiling parents, two happy children and the legend "compassion, commitment and respect for all". While few dispute that the centre has improved significantly since SERCO took over the contract from Group 4, the prisons inspectorate's last report still criticised the healthcare available, the lack of activities provided and most of all the insufficient provision for children, one wonders if SERCO would do better to focus on the motif inscribed on the cups rather than just presenting it when the influential come to visit.

SERCO can't however be blamed for children being detained in the first place. Report after report and expert after expert has now condemned the continuing snatching of families at dawn and months of waiting in what are very slightly more friendly prisons. The children's commissioner Sir Al Aynsley-Green called for the "inhumane practice to end" a few months back; the home affairs select committee found that no one was able to give an exact figure on the number of children held in a year, while an overview of their welfare was also not available; and most damningly, the journal Child Abuse and Neglect, in a study which featured 24 children from Yarl's Wood itself (PDF), found, unsurprisingly, that some were so stressed they had regressed to bedwetting and soiling during the day. Anxiety and depression had developed or re-developed in others, as had post-traumatic stress disorder, while most worryingly sexualised behaviour had come to the fore in others. The Royal Colleges of General Practitioners, Paediatrics and Child Health, and Psychiatrists, and the UK Faculty of Public Health are now all calling for the practice to end.

The case of Child M is an extreme one, but illustrates the system at its very worst. An 9-year-old from Iran, he was first imprisoned along with the rest of his family in the summer of 2008, being held for 52 days before being released. During his incarceration he had recurring nightmares, suffered from ringworm and his hair started to fall out. His family was detained again on the 17th of November, spending another three weeks in Yarl's Wood under the threat of imminent deportation, with Child M again suffering from a deterioration in his mental health, before finally being released again on Tuesday. It's impossible to know whether this again is just a temporary reprieve, but for Child M to undergo such a traumatic experience at the hands of the state twice, when such detention is hardly ever truly necessary (asylum seekers generally don't abscond, especially those with families) is unforgivable. No one it seems however is prepared to stand up for children who have committed no crime; as Mike Power suggested on Chicken Yogurt's post on Child M back in March, it seems to take a place where "socialism is entrenched" like Haringey for anyone other than the usual suspects to care.

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12/10/2009 11:15:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, December 08, 2009 

The revisionism of Sir Ian Blair.

In general, once our great leaders and other betters resign from their positions of power, a strange thing tends to happen. Stripped of their main claim to fame, as it were, they become once again reasonable, even likeable human beings. This doesn't apply to the most controversial or divisive figures, such as Thatcher or Blair, who will doubtless continue to be either lionised or loathed until the day they die, but Major certainly, Michael Howard more recently and I confidently predict, Gordon Brown, will all eventually become mere mortals again that don't immediately invoke an almost atavistic sense of hatred.

Another person to whom this doesn't apply is Tony's namesake, Sir Ian Blair. At one point in the distant past I wondered whether Blair wasn't actually the best we were likely to get, despite being such an utter scaremongering tit; as it turns out, I was completely wrong, and Sir Paul Stephenson has, despite the G20 police riots, been the archetypal safe pair of hands. Blair though, despite having been forcibly retired, is determined that he shouldn't be remembered as the man in charge when a Brazilian was shot by his officers and who didn't learn of the fact he wasn't the man they thought he was until the following day despite even his secretary knowing, and is instead attempting to put together a revisionist account of his own time as chief commissioner at the Met. Not about Jean Charles de Menezes - he's clearly lost that battle - but rather of his role in cheerleading for up to 90 days detention without charge for terrorist suspects.

First, he attempts to draw a hardly conclusive historical parallel:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both," said Benjamin Franklin. Nearly a century later, Abraham Lincoln would disagree: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew." That essential conflict remains alive today.

This is hardly comparing like with like. Lincoln faced the biggest catastrophe a nation state can - a civil war. In such circumstances, when the life of the nation can be conclusively said to be under threat, emergency procedures and laws which would never otherwise be considered as proportionate may well be vital. We at the moment face a tiny band of extremists who can be more than successfully contained using the normal powers of the criminal justice system, who pose no threat to life as we know it whatsoever. New threats do pose new problems, but while the threat may be new, the actual danger posed is relatively limited compared to those we have come through in the past.

After the fall of communism, the west believed it had won. Despite what we now know to be al-Qaida-inspired attacks in the US, East Africa and the Gulf, many supported Francis Fukuyama's theory that history had ended. The 2001 attacks on the twin towers suddenly revealed it had not. As the Balkan conflict had indicated, older conflicts were resuming, not with the left-right mutually assured destruction of the cold war but an asymmetric struggle in an age of global communication.

It would be unfair to suggest that this is Blair attempting to be the intellectual. When he says "many" supported Fukuyama's much quoted but rarely examined in detail treatise that history had ended, it's unclear whether he realises that Fukuyama was one of the original neo-conservatives who believed that the end of the Soviet Union was the perfect opportunity to massively extend US influence and power without anyone having the temerity or power to interfere. History had only ended, in Fukuyama's view, in that both democracy and neo-liberal economics had triumphed and were now the only realistic options for mankind. That nations which disagreed with this view could then have democracy and neo-liberal economics imposed on them by force already suggested that this was hardly the end of history, but then Fukuyama himself has since changed his mind, and is even now espousing "realistic Wilsonianism" as an alternative to the less benign neo-conservative he once identified with.

What we do not know is what happens next: whether the last decade will prove an aberration; whether or not al-Qaida will be marginalised and fade into history. There is no doubt that the centre of al-Qaida has suffered many setbacks: those of its leaders who survive are in hiding. However, the group's inspiration and its message remain vibrant, resonating across continents and borders. It can reach not only its adherents but also the lonely and the unbalanced, using new methods of communication, trumpeting the many causes of anger and despair in the world, suggesting new dreams of fulfilment, offering new tools of attack and searching for more, including radiological and chemical weaponry.

So the question is whether, echoing Lincoln, "our case is new". If it is, then it may be better to risk being at the mercy of the state than at the mercy of the murderously inclined. At the very least, it would be useful to hear the arguments of those who believe or believed that we must "think anew and act anew".

Except none of what Blair lists is new, nor are we unable to adapt to it. He also presents the classic false dichotomy: we need neither be at the mercy of murderously inclined or at the mercy of the state. The current limits on detention without charge, which is what Blair is leading to discussing, do not put us at the mercy of the murderously inclined, but extending the limit further may well be putting the innocent at the mercy of the state.

By 2006, Britain had twice been attacked by suicide bombers and the plot to blow up airliners had been uncovered – a plot described by the trial judge as "the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction". We believed that we could not properly investigate these crimes within the period then available for detention.

Strange that Blair doesn't additionally list the case of Dhiren Barot, which he formerly described as a "true horror". Barot planned to construct a dirty bomb using smoke alarms, a crime so terrible that his handlers decided not to bother funding his fantasies. It's also instructive that Blair uses "believed" rather than "knew" or "expected", as those crimes were indeed investigated within the period then available for detention. The 21/7 attackers were dealt with successfully under the 14 days then available, while the "liquid bombers" were charged on the 28th day. Since then, anything longer than two weeks has not been needed in any terrorist investigation.

We proposed an equivalent of the system of "investigative detention" used in Europe – a rolling series of detention periods of up to seven days at a time, granted by increasingly senior members of the judiciary, with prisoners legally represented at each judicial hearing and throughout police interviews. This was necessary, we said, owing to the growing need to intervene in internationally constructed plots at a very early stage, given the scale of al-Qaida ambitions. At such early stages it was difficult to distinguish main conspirators from lesser players, there were language barriers and problems with encryption. We suggested an outer limit of 90 days.

Now this really is open revisionism - the up to 90 day period was never once described as the equivalent of the system of "investigative detention" used in Europe, probably because it isn't an apposite comparison, as the legal systems in which investigative detention is used differ from our own. The judicial nature was only ever used as a fig leaf - only the boldest judges are ever going to openly disagree with the police when they say they need more time to potentially prevent a terrorist attack. Even with the extra time, the police have still consistently failed to distinguish main conspirators from lesser players, with at least three men involved in the liquid bomb plot released without charge after the full 28 days. One of those tried in that case was cleared of any involvement after the second jury trial. Problems with encryption could have been got round used already applicable laws. Even in retrospect, Blair fails to conjure up anything approaching a convincing case.

It seemed to us that this was like bird flu: when that threatened, the public were entitled to hear from the chief veterinary officer, now they should hear from the police. But no: commentators of all stripes said this was the police being political. It was not. It was the police being the police, talking about policing. We should not be seen as street butlers, silent until spoken to.

Except this doesn't even begin to reflect what Ian Blair was doing when it came to discussion of 90 days. He wasn't just suggesting what was needed, or telling the government what he thought was necessary, leaving it to them to make the case, he himself was actively campaigning for the change, as did other officers. The Tories told at the time of the 90 day vote of MPs being contacted by their local chief constables urging them to rebel against the Tory whip and support the government. Again, it's also not an apposite comparison: the chief veterinary officer acts directly as an adviser; the chief commissioner of the Met is in charge of the police, who uphold the law, not actively attempt to make it up as they go along, a very good reason for them to be directly separate from it. It's also the case that the police will always claim that they need new powers regardless of whether they do or not; anything that makes their job easier and which gives them more authority is to be welcomed. It is the politician's job to resist it. The connect between the two Blairs became so close that the dividing line became indistinct. Neither saw this as a problem, and that in itself was worrying.

Still, much of this now feels like the ghost of Christmas past. Gone is the unrelenting paranoia of the terrorist threat; now we instead have the economic threat, much more real and much more damaging than the terrorist threat ever was. Whether we will feel the same way about our upcoming overlords as we now do about our previous ones may well depend on what happens tomorrow.

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12/08/2009 09:52:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, December 04, 2009 

Apologies and junk.

Have to apologise for the utterly piss-poor blogging this week, for which there's no real excuse. Will try to do better next. In the meantime, Andy Worthington has the good news that those unelected, unaccountable judges have struck a blow for freedom once again:

Yesterday, however, Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Owen finally addressed this lapse in the equal application of the law, ruling that it was "impossible" to conclude "that in bail cases a less stringent procedural standard is required" than in control order cases. The judges also rejected a claim by Siac that its decisions should be "immune from judicial review".

The judges' ruling came in the case of XC, a Pakistan student (and one of 10 students arrested in April), who was refused bail on the basis of secret evidence, and the case of U, an Algerian. Imprisoned without charge or trial for seven years, U had finally secured bail last summer, and lived for a short time, under a 24-hour curfew in a rented house in southern England, until, in February, then home secretary Jacqui Smith decided that he was likely to abscond, and persuaded Siac to revoke his bail and return him to prison.


And have some rather lovely dubstep while we're at it:



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12/04/2009 10:41:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, November 26, 2009 

Adapting to protest and adapting to the government's position.

It's an increasingly rare thing these days for an organisation to conduct a review into itself and actually find that not everything is as good as it could be. For that alone, Denis O'Connor and Her Majesty's Inspectors of Constabulary, with their report "[A]dapting to protest", undertaken following the police riot at the G20 protests, deserve recognition. While hardly a blistering assault upon the piecemeal way in which the different forces police protests, it also doesn't pull its punches. O'Connor finds that there are no clear standards regarding the use of force for individual officers when it comes to policing protests; that there is little attention paid to the use by individual officers of batons or "distraction techniques"; that different forces have a different understanding of the "proper use" of public order police powers, as demonstrated by the climate camp protests in 2006 and 2008, and also at the G20; that some forces cannot even provide a "minimal accredited public order command structure"; that training and guidance is out of date; that there is inadequate training in law, especially human rights, and when it comes to the use of Forward Intelligence Teams; and that inappropriate use of public order powers is widespread.

Equally, O'Connor's recommendations are difficult to fault. He proposes that the police adopt a fundamental set of principles on the use of force that runs as "a golden thread" through all policing, not just that of protests, based around the minimum use; that public order policing across the board should be codified so that the use of powers, equipment and tactics is consistent; that public order training be improved, especially since individual officers are themselves legally accountable for their actions; that the Association of Chief Police Officers should have its status reviewed, especially considering its role in policy making, most notoriously of late designating legitimate protesters as "domestic extremists"; and probably most significantly, keeping communication open constantly with protesters and the public, especially with protest groups' representatives.

All this is meant, in O'Connor's mind, to ensure that the historic principle of policing by consent, as philosophised and introduced by Robert Peel, does not break down. The obvious problem with this is that while it's difficult to pin down exactly when this compact irrevocably broke when it came to the policing of protests, although the report itself notes that the clashes between the blackshirts and anti-fascists in the 30s were far more significant breakdowns in public order than many of our modern equivalents, irrevocably break down it did long ago. Policing by consent does still exist when it comes to the average bobby on the beat, but when it comes to protests, especially those that occur on the relative spur of the moment and when they concern relative matters of life and death, it's difficult for a good-natured and friendly relationship between protesters and those that are in control of them to exist, and to pretend that it can be maintained is relatively naive. Often on these occasions relative control can still be exercised, but it depends on those who are pushing their luck either being told in no uncertain terms to calm down, or on them being arrested, potentially both for their own good and to ensure that the protest as a whole doesn't embarrass both sides. For all the times when the police are rightly criticised for their actions, sometimes even protesters recognise that those amongst them are just out to cause trouble: this was the case back in January, during the protests in London against the Israeli attack on Gaza. Some of the trouble can be put down to both sides underestimating the numbers who were going to turn out, but also down to the police failure to separate those out who were determined to attack the police or property early enough. As much as protesters loathe the Forward Intelligence Teams that indiscriminately film protests for their own records, some of it is justified, if only so that the idiots can be filtered out to the benefit of both sides.

While O'Connor himself can hardly be blamed for focusing on the present, it's instructive that the policing of protests is only now considered controversial, mainly because of how the internet and modern media has ensured that the police (and indeed, the protesters themselves) can be held to account. After all, it's not as if the police have only suddenly disgraced themselves with how they treat legitimate protests; it's been going on for decades, whether you go back to the 70s marches where the National Front was often favoured against those protesting against them, to the Battle of Orgreave, the poll tax riots, the May Day protests of the 90s and early 00s, right up to the Countryside Alliance protest outside parliament during the pass of the fox hunting bill and more recent examples. It's also not just these more notorious cases, but the other, smaller marches, where outrageous police behaviour has often gone completely unnoticed by the national media. One thing O'Connor fails to address is that often it's been the very officers that are dedicated to control protests that have been amongst the very worst offenders; whether the Special Patrol Group or the modern equivalent the Territorial Support Group, these officers often seem to be selected not because of their powers of mediation, but because of their very obstinacy, quickness to use of force and general disdain for protesters of every hue. It may be that officers drafted in to control large protests aren't trained properly, and as a result of probably being as frightened and as uncertain as the protesters themselves can lash out and act defensively, but it's often those who have been specially trained that are the very worst. A special review of those in these groups and an emphasis on facilitating the right to protest would have been especially welcome as an additional recommendation.

The largest hole in O'Connor's report though has nothing to do with the police themselves; it is the influence of government itself upon the policing of protest. It's easily forgotten that this government has been one of the most ruthless at suppressing protest in living memory, that as well as banning protests within a mile of Westminster without prior permission, it attempted and almost succeeded in banning the biggest protest march in this country of all time, the Feb 15th 2003 anti-Iraq war protest, by claiming that to do so would damage the grass of Hyde Park. More recently it has connived with those being targeted by the likes of Climate Camp, directly handing over intelligence on individuals to the companies running the power stations. The support the government has given to the police, on almost every single thing they have done or been criticised over, has been total. Even Ken Livingstone, hardly a prior fan of the Met, defended Ian Blair and his force to the hilt after the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes. When you give such total, unconditional support, and shrink from criticising anything, you invite them to believe themselves unaccountable. To be fair to New Labour when it doesn't deserve it, it's not that this is new; the Tories did much the same, but not to the same extent. Every single new power which you give to the police is abused, most recently uncovered that the granting of the power of arrest for any offence has resulted in the taking of DNA profiles to continually enlarge the database, almost certainly by stealth and without any debate. Unless the government itself decides that protest as a whole is legitimate, and should be facilitated rather than something which it has to put up with, there's little hope of the police themselves introducing such an enlightened stance.

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11/26/2009 09:18:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 

The DNA database fudge.

One of the motifs of the past few months has been that politicians of all colours "just don't get it". Ironically, when it comes to the continuing debacle over the DNA database, you rather imagine that they did get it and now they're utterly bewildered at how things have turned out. Here, after all, is what ought to be a standard tabloid outrage scandal: because of the "unaccountable" European Court of Human Rights, the government is having to change its policy on keeping all the DNA profiles of those arrested but not charged indefinitely, potentially raising the spectre of the guilty getting away with their crimes. The Sun, that flag-bearer of social authoritarianism, did originally raise its voice, but has since barely made a peep about the S and Marper case and its implications.

For a government that has so often treated with contempt the concerns of civil libertarians, with the full connivance of the vast majority of the tabloid press, the Daily Mail only recently deciding that it's time to join the other side, it must be wondering where all those who believe if they've got nothing to hide they've got nothing to fear have disappeared to. As it happens, the majority are still probably on the side of mass DNA retention, just as they were on the side of extending the detention limit for terrorist suspects, even if the numbers fell away once the full implications of 42 or 90 days were properly explained.

It is therefore encouraging, that just this once, it's the other side making all the noise. On the one hand, you do have to recognise that if the government were to implement the the S and Marper ruling to the letter and destroy the DNA profiles of those not charged and found not guilty, on the very first occasion that someone then went onto commit a far graver offence and as a result was not brought to justice immediately, you can bet that those who are currently quiet would be screaming blue murder. A more confident, and indeed, more liberal government, would however make the argument that we cannot create a completely secure society without making the kind of sacrifices that would reduce the amount of freedom which each and every one of us currently enjoys. As it is however, we instead have a government that is terrified both of the power of the press in one of its "fits of morality" and which knows that such woolly-thinking is hardly a vote-winner. Even so, keeping an innocent person's profile for 6 years is completely unjustifiable, and quite clearly breaches the S and Marper ruling. The main hope from ministers has to be that by the time any challenge to it winds its way through the courts again, they'll ever not be in the same job, or they won't even be in government. The Conservatives are promising to emulate the more enlightened Scottish system, but again, whether it will be one of their first priorities is unclear.

The overall result though is classically New Labour. They would like to go further, without being able to, while also privately doubtless wishing they could do the exact opposite. Such are the constrains by which we have been governed, and likely will continue to be under Cameron's "new" Tories.

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11/11/2009 09:31:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, September 18, 2009 

A response to the Heresiarch on the Conservatives and liberty.

(Apologies for the crap blogging of the last couple of days. Hopefully will be better next week.)

Left as a comment on the Heresiarch's post, but felt was reasonable enough to dedicate a post to as well:

I think you're being far too credulous. You're talking almost rapturously about a party that only recently was advocating a "21st century clip round the ear", i.e. the police "confiscating" mobile phones or bikes off teenagers summarily, almost exactly like the very worst proposals made under Blair. A party that thought David Davis at best an eccentric when he resigned, and at worst a lunatic. And just what exactly was the Conservative response to the police riot at the G20 protests? There wasn't one, mainly because when it's the police beating up crusties, hippies, greens and lefties the Tories couldn't care less and even cheer it on.

A lot of people seem to make the mistake that the current strain of authoritarianism began in 1997. It didn't. It can instead be linked back almost certainly to the murder of James Bulger, and while Labour made the most out of it, the Tories were no slouches either, as Michael Howard's record as Home Sec testifies. It was after all he who first proposed ID cards, even if they're nothing like the ones we may soon have to get used to.

I don't deny that on some things the Tories may well be better, and I expect they'll keep to their promises on the various databases, mainly because they'll be one of the easiest things to cut and shut down. I don't believe for a second though that as soon as the Sun starts screaming about the latest moral panic that they'll ignore it or argue against instant measures which must be introduced right now; after all, why bother getting an ex-tabloid editor as your spin doctor if you're not intending to govern with a firm eye on the tabloids? It might not quite be New Labour MKII but it probably won't be far off . That "principled opposition" to extending detention without charge will be forgotten in an instant if we get another 7/7 or worse. And as for that "British" bill of rights, well, it either won't thankfully happen or we'll have the HRA repealed and one of the very few excellent pieces of Labour legislation will be gone. Then there's the apparent Tory intention to further politicise the police, likely to make things even worse, not better, and Kit Malthouse's claim that the Mayor's the real one in charge of Scotland Yard is probably just the start.

All that said, there are some Tory policies which show promise - such as the recent green paper on prisons, which if implemented could do a lot of good, but I'm not exactly going to be holding my breath. To be not as beyond redemption as Labour isn't going to be difficult; to actually be better might well be.

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9/18/2009 09:36:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 

The sense of impending doom returns.

Did you notice anything missing over the past few months?  That slight feeling of dread which you could constantly feel in the marrow of your bones?  That cloud of doom which had hung over the country ever since 7/7, being whipped up at least once a year by either further supposed disruptions of supposed plots or by newspapers demanding that we wrap ourselves in the flag in the face of such unmitigated horror as two idiots succeeding in only setting themselves on fire.

For a while this year, since the Manchester raids turned out to be the latest example of "security sources" briefing their poisonous hyperbole to an ever compliant media, we've actually had something approaching a thaw, helped along both by the actual reduction in the supposed threat level from severe to substantial, and also MI5's own acknowledgement that there are now less "active" plots than there were previously.  Considering the claims that there was up to 30 active plots and 2,000 individuals dedicated, presumably, to the militant variety of radical Islam, this was a sudden turn around and still remains so.  In line with this, we've had less blatant scaremongering, including from the worst offender, the Sun.  The recession and expenses scandal have of course helped also.

It was perhaps to be expected then that when the verdicts were finally returned in the retrial of the "liquid doom" plotters, with this time round the three ringleaders all being convicted of conspiracy to murder on airplanes that the headless chicken act would return once again.  Yesterday we warned to be alert that al-Qaida would try to bomb aircraft again, as clearly they don't learn from both their successes and mistakes, while today the Sun has attempted to do something approaching investigative journalism by discovering that, shock horror, those convicted of terrorism offences or offences related are being released from prison when they've served their sentences.

OK, perhaps that's a little unfair to the Sun, but not by much.  As per usual though, the story doesn't live up to its billing:

FORTY convicted Islamic terrorists are back on the streets after being released from jail, a Sun investigation has revealed.

"Islamic terrorists" as a description is being used rather loosely here.  Almost all the "big names", which is another loose description, have not been released yet, as we'll come to.  In fact, the biggest name that has already been released is Abu Bakr Mansha, a quite clearly deadly individual.  When arrested, Mansha had a blank firing pistol, which someone had been attempting to convert to fire live ammunition, a balaclava, a Sun newspaper article on a soldier who had won the military cross, and the soldier's former home address, as well as the expected radical material.  Mansha though also happens to have an IQ of 69, and allegedly gave the "intelligence" which led to the Forest Gate raid.   Truly someone to worry about.

The others already released are in much the same category, and so dangerous that the Sun doesn't actually name them.  According to the paper, at least three of those convicted in connection with the 21/7 attacks have been released.  This would be surprising for the fact that as far as I'm aware, the shortest sentence passed was six years and nine months, which even with the deductions made for current overcrowding and for time spent on remand would seem to have been released early, although the sentences could have been reduced on appeal.  None of these individuals were charged with directly helping with the bombings; they provided sanctuary or helped after they had failed, while others were either relatives or wives that helped.  The vast majority of these are unlikely to be "fanatics" but helped out of friendship or even because they were under pressure to.  The organisers of the Danish embassy protests have also been released, unsurprisingly, given that however disgraceful the views expressed, there was no action behind the words, and considering that they seem to be from the usual suspects who are all mouth and no trousers.  Others include those involved on the periphery of the Birmingham beheading plot, on similar charges to the 21/7 accomplices of not disclosing what they knew even if they weren't involved, while one was convicted of having the "Encyclopaedia Jihad".  Two had helped the ringleader, who has not been released, with supplying equipment to fighters in Pakistan, but again that doesn't specifically involve any sort of violent threat in this country.  Those involved with an Islamic school in Sussex have also been released, such an important set of convictions that there seems to be very little on it anywhere.  That doesn't begin to add up to 40 but we'll let the Sun off.

How about those soon to be released then?  We'll, there's Sohail Qureshi, not to be confused with the Canadian "terror suspect".  Qureshi was arrested when attempting to travel to Pakistan, and had night vision equipment, medical supplies and £9,000 in cash in his bag.  Material was found where he talked of hopefully "kill[ing] many", and presumably hoped to join fighters in Afghanistan.  Sentenced to four and a half years, with time on remand and reductions, he's meant to be released next month, which will still mean he's served 3 years.  The judge said his offences were at the "lower end of the scale", and while undoubtedly he could be a threat, with careful supervision and the confiscation of his passport there doesn't seem to be any reason why he shouldn't be released.  Much the same is the case with the next person mentioned, "[H]ulking thug Andrew Rowe", who Peter Clarke, that former king of hyperbole as anti-terrorist chief at the Met, called a "global terrorist".  In reality the evidence against him amounted to the usual radical material, supposed code referring to attacks and a guide on how to fire mortars.  Oh, and don't forget the socks bearing traces of high explosive.  How dangerous he truly was or is is anyone's guess, as he was under careful police supervision prior to his conviction.

Next up is the other "shoe bomber", Saajid Badat, who had meant to carry out an attack on a plane at the same time as Richard Reid, but pulled out at the last minute, also cutting himself off from his handler in Pakistan.  Considering that he failed to go through with the attack and also seems to have been about to settle down when he was arrested, the threat he poses seems low to negligible.  Finally, we have Kazi Nurur Rahman, who had links to the fertiliser bomb plotters, and probably the most serious risk as a result.  He was however entrapped by the police and security services, and there was no evidence whatsoever that he actually had the money to buy the weapons beyond the 3 Uzis which he agreed to purchase.  Again though, there is no reason why he shouldn't be able to be handled by MAPPA.

There are other problems with the Sun's story beyond the actual facts.  Does anyone really believe that a "senior security source" genuinely told the Sun this?:

If this was the United States, a great many of these people coming out soon would have been sentenced to 99 years and locked away for the rest of their lives.

But in this country much weaker sentences have been handed down and a large percentage of them have received reductions from the Appeal Court.

As a result, we are faced with an extremely worrying situation. We have got to hope these people come out without violent extremist views. But the likelihood of that is slim.

This simply isn't true in any case: Jose Padilla for example, convicted of charges similar to some of those here, received 17 years and four months. The wife of one of the 21/7 bombers received 15 years just for the help she provided.

Then of course we have the views of the contacted politicians, including the egregious Chris Grayling:

IT'S time to get tough on the extremists.

Yawn.

It's time we stopped these people from operating in our society. Yet the preachers of hate continue to preach.

Who? Where, Chris? The idea that it's still preachers of hate behind most of the radicalisation is years out of date.

It's also time we outlawed radical groups who propagate extremist views and in doing so incite violence against innocent people.

So you're going to ban the BNP and other neo-Nazis are you Chris? Good luck!  As for the Sun's editorial, it calls those released and soon to be released a "Terror army".  I don't think they're going to be challenging any of the more famous fighting units any time soon.

There were two other more important terrorism stories yesterday which didn't make the Sun's front page.  There was, oh, err, a huge fucking bomb discovered on the Northern Ireland border, twice the size of the one which caused the largest single loss of life during the Troubles in Omagh in 1998.  The Real IRA just aren't as sexy or as terrifying as the "terror army" though.  Or there was Neil Lewington, given an indeterminate sentence with a minimum of 6 years for carrying what were glorified Molotov cocktails with him, supposedly on the cusp of a "terror campaign".  He though was white and a neo-Nazi, even though he was actually more prepared and ready to carry out attacks than the liquid bomb plotters were, who hadn't constructed any devices while some didn't even have passports.  Terror though no longer just corresponds to individual nutters and old, boring causes: it's planes exploding one after another however implausible and however well covered they are by the security services.  If we're left meant to be fearing those who were stupid enough to get caught once, then we really are scared of the wrong people.

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9/09/2009 11:42:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, September 08, 2009 

Crying over spilt liquid part 94.

Congratulations are then in order to the Crown Prosecution Service for second time around managing to convince a jury that the three main ringleaders of the "liquid explosives plot" had indeed intended to target airplanes.  There was never much doubt that they had indeed been plotting an attack; the devil was in the detail of just what they were planning to target, and the case that it was to be transatlantic flights was flimsy at best, amounting it still seems to little more than the fact that when arrested Abdulla Ahmed Ali had a USB memory stick with flight times on it, as well as an e-mail, supposedly written in code to a handler in Pakistan where Ali made clear that all he had to do was "sort out opening timetable and bookings".

Not that you would have noticed from the celebrations from the authorities and also from the press that the "liquid doom" plot was indeed viable, but this second trial was also a miserable failure in as far as convincing a jury again that the underlings, including those who recorded "martyrdom videos" were guilty not only of conspiracy to murder on aircraft, but also conspiracy to murder persons unknown.  Only Umar Islam was convicted of the second charge, the jury hung on the first; the three others were cleared of the first charge while they were hung on the second, and lastly Donald Stewart-Whyte, who had only converted to Islam four months before his arrest, was cleared of any involvement in the plot.  This, it's worth remembering, is what the police are again calling "the strongest terrorism case ever presented to a court".  This strongest ever case has now been presented to a jury twice, and it's still only succeeded in convicting 3 individuals of conspiracy to murder on two separate charges, and one on a single charge.

Also interesting is that this time round everyone is openly accusing Rashid Rauf of being the plotters' main conduit to al-Qaida, which just shows how you can smear the dead, or rather, supposedly dead, of anything you like.  Suddenly Rauf is the new Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of international jihadist terrorism, not just helping the liquid plotters but also the 7/7 and 21/7 crews.  Rauf, of course, mysteriously disappeared from Pakistani custody while visiting a mosque, then equally mysteriously turned up, apparently dead, in a missile strike.  His family, quite reasonably considering that no body has been forthcoming, think that he's either still alive and his "death" is to cover up Pakistani embarrassment, or that Rauf has instead entered the American "black" system, or at least the parts which haven't been shut down, a view that I'm partial to, even if I dislike believing in a conspiracy theory.

It remains the fact that there was no need whatsoever to retry the main three convicted again today; the sentences that they would have received, which have been deferred and they will presumably now receive, likely to run concurrently with the sentences to be handed down for the new convictions, would have been substantial, likely to be in the 30 year range.  The real reason for doing so was two-fold: both to prove that there definitely had been a "liquid bomb" plot, regardless of whether or not it could actually have been carried out, and also to ensure that the government and security services were not embarrassed again for hyping up a plot out of all proportion, ala the ricin fiasco and the other plots which haven't even got past the arrest stage.  Hence tomorrow the Telegraph is running with the front page legend that up to 10,000 could have died, despite the fact that only four people have actually been convicted.  They keep claiming that up to 18 could have taken part in the attacks, but where are these supposed people and how can they even begin to suggest that was possible when they can't even convince a jury that those whom recorded videos were out to commit "mass-murder on an unimaginable" scale as John Reid so famously put it?

It would be even worse if the government were to use today's verdicts to rally support for the war in Afghanistan as Alan Johnson already seems to be doing.  The whole plot in fact illustrates the folly of what we are doing in that benighted country.  Not only does the exact foreign policy we continue to insist on enrage the likes of Abdulla Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar, if not radicalising them entirely then sowing the seeds which lead to them coming into contact with those of like minds who then poison them further, the policy is even further counter-productive because it's in the wrong country.  What's happening in Afghanistan is a civil war which we still seem to imagine is a global one; what's happening in Pakistan rather, is a civil war with global dimensions.  This isn't even to begin to suggest that what we're doing in Afghanistan we should start doing across the border, but it is about being honest both with ourselves and with them that the real problem is in the autonomous areas of the Pakistani state where they do still exist safe havens.  We need to help Pakistan without getting ourselves fully involved.  Tackling Salafist ideology involves not walking into exactly what it feeds upon: Western states acting like bulls in a china shop.  When we finally learn that we might not have to keep pretending that we're all doomed by 500ml bottles of soft drinks.

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9/08/2009 12:03:00 AM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, August 18, 2009 

Don't tase us bros!

The latest figures released on the use of tasers by police forces across the country are starting to look concerning. While the jump from 187 uses between October to December 2008 to 250 during January to March this year can be explained by how the Home Office allowed Chief Officers to decide when "specially-trained" units can be deployed with the weapons, it doesn't explain why different forces are using them far more readily than others.

The most startling are the number of uses by Northumbria police, which since April 2004 has used tasers in one way or another on 704 occasions, 4 more than even the Met has. This is an astounding number, especially when compared to another force of similar size and with a similar urban environment, Merseyside, who also took part in the same trial as Northumbria and which has used them just 76 times in total. One explanation might that more units were trained in their use than in the other forces, but Northumbria's use still seems to be remarkably high. Northumbria claim that their use is highest because they're the only force to train firearm response officers to also use them, and that the rise would correspond with the drop in firearm officers being deployed, in contrast to other forces, but it also makes you wonder whether because officers know this they more readily call for help when faced with problems they would have dealt with themselves before. Only the Met and West Yorkshire actually fully "discharged", as in fired rather than threatened their use or pressed the weapon up against the person on more occasions.

The biggest worry with the use of tasers has to be that when the police would previously have reasoned extensively to subdue someone who was uncooperative with them, or used acceptable, if subjective force to achieve the same result, the weapon becomes the first resort rather than the last, even if used just simply as a threat. Unlike in the US, where the Taser was meant to be deployed as an alternative to firearms (even if, somewhat predictably, no such fall in the use of guns seems to have been noted), police in this country have only ever used guns when the suspect is also believed to have or has used one. That tasers seem to be entering normal police use, and that as a result, their use also becomes to be seen as normal is a cause for concern when the safety of the weapons is far from being certain. As the Guardian leader argues, the exact circumstances of their use, as well as how they were used needs to be recorded to ensure that the above doesn't become the norm. The police blogger Nightjack wrote that most police were approachable and pleasant, it was just that they had started to dress and be armed like "imperial stormtroopers" which worried and put the general public off. The casual deployment of tasers would only make such attitudes worse.

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8/18/2009 09:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, July 08, 2009 

Her Majesty's Willing Torturers.

Since the allegations first emerged that this country had been complicit in the rendition and torture of those picked up in the so-called war on terror, we've almost never had a complete picture of what happened when, why and how. The closest we've came to was the rendition of Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, associates of Abu Qatada who were visited prior to leaving the country to travel to Gambia by MI5, and where they were picked up by the CIA and taken to Guantanamo Bay. It later transpired that Bisher al-Rawi had in fact been providing the police and intelligence services with information on Qatada; once Qatada himself was in custody, it seems al-Rawi was disposed of.

Thanks to David Davis, we now have the fullest account of just how complicit both the police and the security services have been in such practices, almost outsourcing torture in the case of Rangzieb Ahmed. Using parliamentary privilege to get round reporting restrictions and the secrecy which the government has easily imposed on the trials of the men alleging that they were tortured, he detailed how despite knowing that Ahmed intended to travel first to Dubai and then onto Pakistan, they let him leave the country. This was a man who they knew was almost certainly a terrorist, and whom they had evidence on which later convicted him as one, yet they let him go to what has since been called the "crucible of world terrorism". There was a method to their madness though: they suggested once he had arrived that Pakistan's inter-services intelligence arrest him. That was their exact message: they "suggested" that the ISI might be interested in him.

The ISI was happy to oblige. Once they had arrested Ahmed, both Greater Manchester Police and MI5 supplied the ISI with questions to which the ISI was more than willing to provide answers. Ahmed's torture, compared to perhaps that which Binyam Mohamed underwent, was mild by comparison. He had just the three fingernails removed, which an independent pathologist confirmed were removed whilst he was in the custody of the ISI, was beaten with wooden staves the size of cricket stumps, and whipped with a 3ft length of tyre rubber. He was, like the others who allege they were tortured, visited by officers from both MI5 and MI6, except this time, after telling them he was being tortured, they didn't return. The policy it seems, after the first allegations were made that intelligence officers had visited those who had been tortured, was that officers would not return if they were explicitly told by the person they were questioning that they were being tortured.

After 13 months in Pakistani custody, Ahmed was deported back to the UK and was convicted last December of being a member of al-Qaida and of "directing terrorism". The attempts by his legal team to have the case thrown out on the basis of the complicity of the police and the intelligence services in his torture failed, having been held in secret. His conviction does not diminish the fact that we felt the need for this man to be tortured, despite the fact he could have been arrested before he left the country, where it was quite possible he could have disappeared. His conviction also appears to have purely been down to the information acquired whilst he was in this country; his torture it seems added absolutely nothing. It seems instead to have been almost vindictive, plotted by MI5 and the police, presumably safe in the knowledge that the government wouldn't allow what they were doing to leak out. Unfortunately for them, it has.

David Davis in his statement to the Commons pointed out that the United States has somewhat attempted to wipe the slate clean when it came to their complicity and use of torture against various "terrorist suspects", even if no one responsible for putting the policy into action has been brought to justice. Instead here we still have ministers and ex-ministers completely denying that they would ever condone torture, when they quite clearly must have known what was going on, and if they didn't, they should never have been in the job in the first place and it would suggest that we have intelligence services that are completely unaccountable even to those ostensibly in charge of them. Quite obviously, there needs to be, as Davis called for, a full judicial inquiry into all the alleged cases of rendition and torture that have come to light down the years. It is also equally clear that like the Bush administration, the current government will never admit willingly that it has colluded and indulged in such medieval practices. That might just be the best possible reason that the current lot, Her Majesty's Willing Torturers, if you will, should be kicked out at the first possible opportunity.

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7/08/2009 11:30:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, May 07, 2009 

A profile of an contempible government.

For a decision made by the European Court of Human Rights, which the tabloids habitually love to portray as a foreign entity imposing liberal madness on this unspoilt land despite our leading role in its establishment, there was surprisingly little apoplexy at the judgement concerning the retention of genetic profiles on the DNA database, especially considering the Sun had scaremongered about the case on a couple of occasions. Partly this was due to being distracted at the time, as Karen Matthews had just been convicted, but also partially down to a gradual changing of views on the general question of civil liberties. After more than a decade where the belief that if you had nothing to hide you had nothing to fear became so entrenched that almost anything, with the exception of the death penalty, was considered as a potential policy to deal with the hysteria over crime, even as crime itself fell off a cliff, sanity has finally begun to make something of a return.

Sanity however is not something that comes naturally to the Home Office under Labour. Despite the hilarious complaints from the Sun, and indeed from Jack Straw that "the criminal justice lobby" have the ear of ministers more than newspaper editors do, the facts, not least a prison population which requires an early release system which actively undermines justice but without which they could not even begin to function, speak for themselves. Admittedly, the DNA database makes for an easy populist cause: while few will still openly call for a "complete" database, the idea that everyone convicted of a crime should be on it indefinitely is still a difficult position to argue against, even if it is as illogical a position as arguing for a full one. At least on one point the government does seem to be willing to be reasonable, or something approaching it: those over 10 and under 18 will have their profiles removed, regardless of whether they are convicted of a crime or not, unless for a violent or sexual offence, when they turn 18, as long as they are not arrested again during their teenage years. Youthful indiscretions it seems will not matter for life as they currently do.

If however being convicted of any offence that carries a potential prison sentence means that your profile should remain on the database indefinitely is indefensible, as the government proposes despite the ECHR's damning verdict, then the idea that those found completely innocent should remain on the database for either 6 or 12 years, depending on the gravity of the offence, is bordering on a complete mockery of justice. While everyone has become acquainted with the example of Mark Dixie, who was convicted of the murder of the photogenic Sally Anne Bowman (who we most likely would never had heard of had she looked more like Susan Boyle), after he was arrested for being involved in a minor scuffle outside a pub, it isn't really an apposite example in this instance because no one is arguing that profiles should not be created from all those arrested and checked against unsolved cases as a matter of course; he would have been caught red-handed regardless. The "consultation" document (PDF)does however contain a more troubling one for those of us who believe those found innocent of what they are accused of should instantly have their profiles removed from the database: Kensley Larrier was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon and had his profile taken and loaded onto the database, but no charges were brought. Three years later Larrier was successfully convicted of rape after his DNA was matched with that left at the crime scene.

It doesn't necessarily mean of course that Larrier would not have been convicted through good old fashioned police work, and the suspicions of the police confirmed once they had arrested him, but it does leave those of us advocating a complete wiping of the profiles of the innocent from the database with the uncomfortable position of knowing that undoubtedly some will get away with subsequent crimes, including the most serious, which they would otherwise have been brought to book for, or at least brought to justice for far sooner than otherwise. The key argument to make in response is that a few "bad eggs" should not mean that all those unfortunate to come under suspicion should be considered potentially guilty until proven innocent, but even that is far from being wholly convincing. Even if we then point out that no system is infallible, and that unless we are prepared to go down the previously mentioned path of everyone being on the database, some would still always escape justice, it still leaves us open to the accusation that we're prepared to put principles, however noble, before the rights of those to have justice seen to be done.

More indicative though of how the government seems determined to still eventually build such a complete database by stealth, is that all those given just a caution, a warning, or a reprimand will also have their profiles kept indefinitely. The number of cautions given in recent years has sky-rocketed, although it's not clear whether this is due to the huge rise in new offences created by this government, the fact that any offence, however minor, is now also an arrestable offence, or an increasing tendency for "summary justice" rather than court proceedings to deal with those minor offences, but it effectively means that only those officially found to be guilty of no offence whatsoever, which is also increasingly rare, will have their profiles removed.

The government claims that its proposals will not just mean that it will comply with the ruling in the S and Marper case, but that they will go substantially further than the requirements. Whether the court will agree may well depend on a further case being brought, but considering the time it will take for it wind its way first through our court system, where S and Marper failed in their attempts, and to the ECHR to consider again, it will doubtless be years before we find out. Certainly there needs to be a challenge, not just to the 6 and 12 years retention for those found completely innocent, but to the blanket retention of those given just a caution, let alone those convicted and given either a fine or a suspended sentence. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats talk a good game on doing the right thing, but whether the former can be trusted to keep their word, the LDs hardly likely to be in a position to put theirs into action, remains to be seen. In any event, the government has as usual done as little as it feasibly could to not be held in further contempt. It ought to be another thing for which it should be held to account, but even if the mood is slowly changing, there are few votes in giving in to those barmy Europeans.

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5/07/2009 10:58:00 PM | | | links to this post

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