PUBLIC DISSENTING OPINION OK FOR SUPREME COURT BUT NOT FOR MAGISTRATES

It would be presumptuous to say that everyone has now at least a passing acquaintance with the Post Office scandal but for those involved in criminal law there are probably subtle signals that what was known by professionals is gradually becoming if not public knowledge then certainly a situation which has been to a lesser extent part of the civil justice system for many years.  

In the magistrates courts where reputations might be at stake miscarriages of justice are unlikely to make headlines.  For the uninitiated a bench is usually composed of three magistrates although currently only two person benches seem to be more frequent in recent years.  To bring a guilty verdict  (on a full bench) a majority must find the prosecution case proved beyond a reasonable doubt but when that is announced in open court there is no acknowledgement that one magistrate might have come to a different conclusion.  Surely then it is logical to consider that the bench as a whole unit had that reasonable doubt.  A single District Judge (MC) has only his or her own conscience  to which to answer.  

My own practice after pronouncing a finding of guilt was to advise the offender of the process of appeal.  When the verdict was split perhaps I put more emphasis on the detailed manner to go about that appeal.  I was unable when I was active and am of the same opinion now as to why a split verdict, at least of guilt, cannot be made publicly.  When crown court judges were allowed to accept majority verdicts of 10:2 in 1967 there was general agreement in parliament and legal circles that it was of benefit to the concept of justice not only being done but being seen to be done.  It seems illogical that the lower court does not follow the example of the higher court. Even the Supreme Court allows for a dissenting opinion.  An interesting essay on this topic can be accessed here.  

Current numbers suggest that there were around 5,000 appeals from magistrates courts to the crown court where a judge sits with two magistrates for a re- hearing.  The percentage rates of success on appeal were 30% for conviction appeals and nearly 68% for sentence appeals. It seems that the MOJ no longer supplies detailed statistics on such appeals.  All this is rather confusing.  The latest verified statistics I can find are below:-

Whatever the actual numbers are the principle of dissent should be applied to magistrates courts.  There is no justifiable reason to oppose that except for the law for the ordinary citizen to be an increasingly tick box exercise which is a lot cheaper for government than the facade that justice is available for all. 

2024 MORE OF THE SAME OR WORSE TO COME?

In this, my first post of a new year, it would be gratifying to have been able to look back on 2023 with the faint hope that  improvements or increased efficiency within the justice system particularly re magistrates courts were just an early sign of better things to expect in 2024.  Alas great expectations remain just that. 

14years ago I mused that magistrates and their powers in their then current form would be on the road to extinction.  That they`re still here, is for some, a disappointment especially amongst the fraternity of criminal lawyers; an ever diminishing band of legal brothers.  Considering the havoc brought about by the musical chairs being played about at Petty France and especially the incompetence of that address`s most abject failure "Failing Grayling"  it might occur to many that we`re fortunate that the magistrates courts system is still functioning at all with half the number of courts cf 2010 and one third the number of magistrates owing to various bad planning decisions or indecisions since then. An example from 2016 on the thinking behind court closures can be read in this paper; Response to the proposal on the provision of court etc

The June 2019 report House of Commons Justice Committee "The role of the magistracy: follow-up"  did not exactly endorse the previous nine years of a cataclysmic mismanagement by the MOJ. 

 Judging by retirements and recruitment figures it seems reasonable to deduce that around one third of magistrates have less than five years experience and that the personal, academic and employment profiles of magistrates have changed considerably since my appointment.  The result is that few benches have many members who were sitting when their courts were semi independent of government and a certain free thinking was the order of the day.  So called post code sentencing lottery by local magistrates has been abandoned for the algorithmic  Sentencing Guidelines which appear to be but a stepping stone to "the computer says "X"  when sentence is determined.  

The last year has seen sentencing maximum of six months increased to 12 months and reduced again to six months.  The next few months will herald another fundamental change when magistrates courts will no longer have the option of any custodial sentence for offenders who appear before them.  I would imagine that District Judges(MC) who increasingly take a greater proportion of what are termed "high profile" cases will have their noses out of joint.  Prison overcrowding and severe court backlogs have meant that the judicial tail is wagging the judicial dog.  In Scotland by comparison with its long established independent justice system Justices of the Peace powers of punishment are limited to 60 days' imprisonment or a fine of up to £2,500 or both.  With such changes in England and Wales unimaginable even a year ago who`s to say that somewhere in the bowels of Petty France locked in a secure cabinet there is not a Green Paper with government thinking on reducing further the punishment levels open to magistrates and reintroducing custodial sentences in the future with the proviso that only salaried District Judges will in future be able to impose them.  

My opinion as written above has not changed; only the time frame has changed. 

LAW AND POLITICS IS LIKE WATER

We have all been led to believe that the British system of trial by jury is a wonderful example of justice being blind and all are equal before the law.  All are blind who continue to believe that.  It was only a century ago that an Appeal Court was incorporated into the system to counter miscarriages of justice and half a century ago that hanging was abolished.  As we are all too aware these modifications  were leisurely in coming into being and were not universally welcomed by vociferous if small minorities.  Miscarriages of justice still occur.  The Criminal Cases Review Commission has published its latest statistics:-   

Referrals and decisions (April 1997 – October 2023)
826 cases referred to appeal courts
803 appeals heard by the courts
566 successful appeals
222 decisions upheld
15 abandoned by applicant

These matters would have been heard originally by a jury in the crown court.  Prior to their retirement to consider their verdict the jury would have been advised that they must come to a verdict based only on the evidence presented to them; a simple enough instruction on the face of it but one in which the words of the judge have in recent cases been stretched to breaking point. The departure from decades of almost total compliance with such judicial direction became aware to the public by “the Colston Four”. In 2020 four defendants  all admitted to taking an active part in removing Edward Colston’s statue and disposing of it in Bristol Harbour as the prosecution had alleged. Their defence to the charge lay in why the statue had been removed.  Colston was a slave trader who invested heavily in his native city. They were cleared of criminal damage. Last month nine climate change protesters were cleared  of causing £500,000 worth of criminal damage to the windows at the headquarters of HSBC bank in London. They were acting under the name of Extinction Rebellion.  Sally Hobson, prosecuting, said: “They accept that on 22 April 2021, they went to the HSBC building armed with hammers and chisels and they also accept that they used those tools to break the windows – they were responsible for the damage. “The value of the damage caused is in the region of £500,000 and additional security measures caused further expenditure so as to ensure damage was not caused again.  “Although the defendants accept they caused the damage, they deny that their actions amount to criminal conduct. Simply put, the damage was caused during a protest and the defendants say that they were lawfully justified in doing what they did.  “We say that whatever the purpose behind them causing the damage there was no lawful excuse for doing so. It was, we say, unlawful conduct outside of a lawful protest.”  Criminal damage is lawful if the defendant believes the owner of the property consents to the damage (as found in section 2 of the Criminal Damage Act 1970).  

There have been other similar cases.  In 1982 Clive Ponting was acquitted of breaching the Official Secrets Act despite admitting to leaking documents relating to the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands War. The judge directed the jury that Ponting’s duty lay to the civil service and that he had no viable defence.  In 2007, Toby Olditch and Philip Pritchard were acquitted of sabotaging US bombers at the outset of the Iraq war. The defendants suggested that the bombers would have been used to commit war crimes. 

Lords Devlin and Thomas in 1956 and 2011 respectively agreed that even when the evidence is overwhelmingly to convict, the law does not prevent juries from returning a perverse verdict. The Bar`s code of conduct does not allow a barrister to inform jurors of their right should they so wish to bring in a perverse verdict; it would constitute misconduct.  The logical conclusion is that a defendant in such circumstances in order to follow the examples of Ponting or the Colston four in arguing from that angle would have to be self representing.  That conclusion itself is somewhat paradoxical or Kafkaesque.  

There are some learned professors of law who argue that juries should have the right to hear arguments of perversity and not to be directed that only evidence presented in court should be considered in their coming to a verdict.  From my lowly position as a retired magistrate it`s my view that that argument would lead to not only more perverse verdicts but politically motivated verdicts examples of which are current offences against British companies or subsidiaries of Israeli companies on the pretext that they are acting against Palestinian interests.  

Law and politics are essential to our way of life.  Like water we cannot survive without them in combination but also like water too much can kill us. It`s also the case when the H is separated from the O2 the situation is combustible.  

It`s that time of the year again when a spurious date approximating to the winter solstice was allocated to the birth of a Jewish boy in Bethlehem, a village in Judea an area which is unfortunately less peaceful than it could be.  Nevertheless the message is clear: goodwill to you all and thank you for spending a few of your valuable minutes reading this and perhaps some previous offerings on this site.  

 

CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR ORDER OR SOCIAL INNOVATION

 "Keep the bastards out of prison". It`s not too difficult to imagine that directive being given from one senior civil servant at the MOJ to his/her assistant. What might be surprising to many is that that conversation would have taken place in 2012 or 2013. By that time the original supposed deterrent to antisocial behaviour was ASBO; antisocial behaviour order beloved by prison governors because it reduced the tendency of having to allow for ever increasing numbers of miscreants being subjected to short custodial sentences in their already crowded prisons.  It was "sold" to magistrates and local councils as a method by which local nuisances both in noise and behaviour by local hooligans which might fall short of actual criminal behaviour could be contained without the high bar of trial and beyond reasonable doubt to prove guilt and local witnesses or council officers being able to submit anonymous statements.  

I suppose all that began with a new Tory government in place not long after the 1979 election. Home Secretary William Whitelaw had announced he was going full steam ahead on a key manifesto promise – the Short Sharp Shock. To a euphoric Tory party conference in October 1979, the urbane and aristocratic Whitelaw told delighted delegates that detention centres for teen lawbreakers would no longer be ‘holiday camps’.  This played on widely believed media stories of young hooligans leading cosseted lives behind bars.  “Life will be conducted at a swift tempo,” he assured the party.  The belief was that a regime of early wake up calls, military drill and manual labour over a three month period would shock young offenders out of a life of crime.  To break even the most determined spirit periods of recreation could be denied and  silence was the general rule with only 30 minutes of chat between prisoners permitted each day.  It wasn`t long before there was a rising disquiet amongst many  in the legal fraternity and pressure groups  that such sentencing did little to improve or deter criminal behaviour at the lowest end.  So in 2013 ASBO begat CRASBO later shortened to CBO or Criminal Behaviour Order. 

On 21/06/2016 I posted of my personal involvement in this historic legislation.  Generally I consider that this form of civil sanction [the breach of which is a criminal offence] is displacement legislation.  "Don`t commit an offence within our boundaries; go elsewhere to offend."  So from pillar to post the offending continues.  Breach of an anti-social behaviour order is triable either way with the maximum sentence for this offence in magistrates’ courts of 6 months’ custody and a maximum 5 years’ custody at the crown court.  

It seems that it`s taken eight years for the message, for what it`s worth, to get through to  Barnsley Council.  The offender in this case had previously been issued with another of these so called orders; a Community Protection Notice.  As far as I am aware the MOJ has no knowledge of the deterrent value of these civil orders.  It has been unable or unwilling to provide numbers of those breaching them and being subsequently convicted as above.  All that can be said, in my humble opinion, is that it reduces the burdens on police and prisons.  Whether or not such orders are another sign of outcomes determined by cost cutting or an innovative process to control low level but aggravating local misbehaviour is as much dependent on political opinion as social innovation. 

I HAVEN`T CHANGED MY OPINION

I have never sat on a jury.  Indeed many decades ago I received my one and only summons for that purpose but I had to request an exemption owing to my professional undertakings.  Now my intellectual and/or physical capacity according to the MOJ renders me unfit for such duties.  I must be content with voicing my opinions here and occasionally elsewhere.  A three person bench of lay magistrates is in effect a mini jury.  Its members have been trained how to consider evidence in a structured fashion supposedly simplified by the introduction of  Sentencing Guidelines introduced over a decade ago to  remove the effects of a perceived post code lottery in outcomes.  In some matters, as I have written previously, it seems only a matter of time until algorithms take over much of the human function but for the present most people`s experience of a court is in a magistrates court and their futures, for better or worse, in the hands of those selected for their apparent abilities to satisfy a selection process written by civil servants in the MOJ. 

Last month Grant Roberts JP was castigated by the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office; his [crime] misdemeanour was improper use of the internet insofar as, "had conducted an independent internet research on the defendant to assist him in reaching a decision." The full statement is available here. From the report a couple of points emerge in addition to the matters of principle which I will address. It would seem that the legal advisor must have been present in the retiring room to hear the then "innocent" admission by Mr Grant. From My earliest days on the bench following the examples set by those senior to me whose abilities impressed me I would request legal advisors to leave the bench in private to discuss any matter which required a decision after of course we had been advised of any facet of the law which was or could be pertinent to the matter in hand. Once I had assumed the middle chair most L/As were content except one newbie who insisted she must be present as she had always been at her previous court. After much reluctance she left us to discuss a post trial decision. She was never to repeat her interloping whilst I was sitting. Of course the situation re Mr Grant might have hinged on an absent L/A being informed by the other winger or the Presiding Justice of his junior colleague`s supposed inadvertent error.

Now let me offer a "what if" scenario which must occur at some if not many post trial decision making sessions. Every person in some form or another has specialist knowledge of something. At my former bench there were people from all backgrounds and occupations from bus driver to jeweller to teacher to builder to health professional etc. each with his/her own specialist knowledge; knowledge that others might need Mr Google to verify. The scenario continues: discussion centres around a witness`s oral statement which a bench member knows categorically is untrue. Does the magistrate inform his colleagues that with his undisputed knowledge the erroneous or lying evidence is false? If s/he does not and is questioned as to why he has come to a conclusion that perhaps is the minority conclusion a misjustice might have occurred. If, on the other hand, he does make his specialist knowledge of the topic a basis for bringing the false testimony to the discussion how different is that [in a particular case] much different from ascertaining a fact from the internet?

At this point I must make my own opinion clear. I remember exactly my own divulgence to my colleagues of a false statement made under oath by a defendant that I knew to be false from my professional expertise. My comment was recognised by my colleagues and adopted into our weighing the evidence. Was my action inappropriate? I did not consider it thus at the time and I haven`t changed my opinion.

CAN JURIES SPURN THE LAW?

A most interesting essay on whether juries can spurn the law in the Law Society Journal by Joshua Rosenberg can be read here.   

In due course I hope to discuss this with relation to magistrates.

SECRECY AT PETTY FRANCE

If there is one factor above many others that serves to distinguish a totalitarian regime from what we loosely term a democratic nation it is openness.  In this country it is exemplified by The Freedom of Information Act  which was passed on 30 November 2000 in the first Labour government under Tony Blair.  However in his memoirs of 2010 with a coalition government now installed he wrote, "“Freedom of Information. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head till it drops off my shoulders. You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it. Once I appreciated the full enormity of the blunder, I used to say – more than a little unfairly – to any civil servant who would listen: Where was Sir Humphrey when I needed him? We had legislated in the first throes of power. How could you, knowing what you know have allowed us to do such a thing so utterly undermining of sensible government?”

Tony Blair, A Journey, Hutchinson, September 2010

I suppose the underlying motivation for governments of all colours to withhold information from the public is that knowledge is power and the less power to the proles the better.  The judicial system is a prime example of secrecy in power, for power by power.  Magistrates are at the bottom of the pecking order and are supposed to represent a conduit between the professional government financed judiciary and the common folk who are suspected of law breaking.  Despite having a hybrid status of themselves being common folk volunteering their time unpaid they are arguably subjected to higher degrees of the requirement to adhere to strict rules and regulations as to their conduct in court and out. When I was appointed both government and the Magistrates Association took great pride in the old English system of the magistracy with an emphasis on "local justice for local people" notwithstanding the fact that an increasing number of paid District Judges(MC) were being appointed with no concern for their or any  geographical affiliations.  At the receiving end of the system where those accused of transgressions in their judicial or personal activities are judged by the Judicial Conduct and Investigation Office the guilty, until very recently, were identified by name and the bench to which they belonged. That is now no longer the case.  For those for any reason seeking to identify any Justice of the Peace admonished or worse by the JCIO some detective work is now required to identify the miscreant magistrates` localities as their bench is no longer identified. It seems that secrecy rules. The current inquiry into the handling of the Covid epidemic will be studied for years as to whether information withheld within and by government led to unnecessary fatalities. From top to bottom, from Number 10 to the lowliest PPS the order is plausible denial and obfuscation as a backstop. The JCIO gagging order is just another, if minor, worrying sign of a government covering as much of its backside as it can under the realisation that it will not be around much longer to cover its tracks.  

A PIPE DREAM

When learned folk talk or write about "courts" more often or not the reference is to a court at the higher level of our jurisdiction system as opposed to the lower.  A casual observer might opine that that is not surprising; the higher the level of jurisdiction the higher the level of prosecution or dispute when considering civil cases.  For those very reasons tradition has made available a ladder to indicate the legal and/or intellectual prowess of those who keep warm the benches in these superior courts.  We might then surmise that whilst a crown court judge in army terms is a major, a High Court judge is a colonel, an Appeal Court judge a lieutenant general and a judge of the Supreme Court a field marshall.  Where does that leave the district judge and the lay magistrate? I would suggest the former is a sergeant and the latter a corporal who`s considered by his commanding officer to be capable of taking on the rank of sergeant.  Those who appear before the lower court might be thought of as privates  some of whom have disobeyed orders.  They differ from real offenders in that their employer is also their judge and that employer wants to have them back at work as soon as possible whilst simultaneously ensuring that any punishment is seen as a deterrent to others who might err. In the real world the armed forces, to use the vernacular, have skin in the judicial and legal game.  Not so our world.  Those who formulate the criminal justice system are as distant from their final product as can be.  After all Secretaries of Defence, Education, Health are at risk of trauma, children with poor arithmetic or language abilities and suffering poor health.  They all have skin in the game but not judges or magistrates. They don`t fear being removed from office by the electorate; only by failing in a personal or professional capacity.  And with a slight leap in imagination these sentencers are far removed from the results of  application of sentences the design of which is increasingly able to be formulated by AI with little human input.  Indeed a glance through the Sentencing Guidelines for eg assault requires but a modicum of original thought. It can be argued that the outcomes of sentencing exercises depend more on what`s inputted than what`s expected or hoped for as an output. 

Every day at magistrates courts there are examples of  the self imposed limitations in the system.  Indecent exposure and similar offences have been shown to be high risk factors for reoffending at a higher level of indecency or worse. This offender surely needs to be restricted in a secure establishment until his deviant tendencies can be considered cured.  If a positive outcome is unobtainable the public must be protected; their importance and safety outweighs the freedom of such an individual to roam until further convictions. 

Arson is a very serious offence but it is classified as an either way offence meaning it can be tried in the magistrates or crown court the lower court having a maximum sentence of only six months custody.  

In my time on the bench I never sat on such a matter.  Indeed I would suggest that few of my colleagues past or present have but at Kidderminster Magistrates Court such a case was heard.  Apparently considered as a Category 3 offence the offender is still free to continue his daily life.  

When six consecutive four week jail terms are handed out to an offender the seriousness becomes apparent but not so apparent that immediate custody was deemed suitable.  That get out of jail free card was played also by the bench of Kidderminster Magistrates Court in the form of a suspended custodial sentence.  

Finally an offender of no fixed abode requested an immediate prison sentence, a request  with which the court complied. 

It is common knowledge that there has been, is and will officially soon be a directive from the MOJ regarding the availability of custodial sentences for magistrates courts.  As things stand now there is often little or no adequate outcome for many offenders.  Around 3%-4% historically have received immediate custody orders and for those sentenced in the community, a blanket term with no meaning if ever there was one,  a decimated probation service is generally all that is available to attempt rehabilitation by, inter alia, doing good works in the community.  For others there are so called banning orders, courses in anger management, domestic abuse and other therapies.  But in all these cases the offender is free to mix with the population. I have long advocated that an interim form of deprivation of freedom combined with professional therapists and trainers would fulfil that purpose.  In Dickens` time it was  called the workhouse {search box will identify previous posts on that word}  and fulfilled the local needs as were considered then socially beneficial both to the receivers and the public. 

It is common sense and economically very sensible that protection of the public should be combined with remedial therapies to prevent re-offending.  Until there is some fundamental way in which we govern ourselves I am realistic enough to be aware that such innovation will remain a pipe dream. 

IS OPTIMISM ENOUGH TO SEE US THROUGH?

Today 14th November 2023 our Prime Minister in emphasising  that his government was all set for "change" appointed a previous prime minister as Foreign Secretary; a prime minister who had resigned from parliament a few months after the result of  his ill conceived  ineptitude and dismal failure of his "referendum policy".  Perhaps this single appointment sums up all the failings of the last 13 years.  I have a picture in my head of a boy scout on an overnight expedition in self sufficiency being unable  to light a campfire with a simple sparking kit and asks the scoutmaster for a box of matches.   And so it is with magistrates courts.  

For many decades offenders at magistrates courts with few exceptions have been subject to legislation which limited sentencing powers to a maximum of six months custody. The Magistrates Association, a body ignored by increasing numbers of magistrates,  has repeatedly pressed for that limit to be increased although no historic papers on that topic are available on its website which, for non members, is carefully edited to avoid controversy.  But as with many aspects of all our lives the Covid epidemic changed all that. The ruthless pruning of court buildings from 2010  [300 to 150] and the ignoring of the situation in that year when it was predicted that almost half of magistrates would be retired within a decade threw all previous assumptions on prison capacity into turmoil.  There is an old adage, what goes around comes around.  Another that seems suitably appropriate is the Conservative Party`s chickens have come home to roost.  We are now on the 11th Secretary of State for Justice/Lord Chancellor since 2010 proof if it were needed that with the confusion, obfuscation and crass intellectual failings in Petty France  the law `n order banner of the Tory Party is well and truly shredded.  In an attempt to repair that once upon a time headline policy of safeguarding the nation`s streets from crime the delayed realisation that there is simply no prison space remaining and no time before a general election to build more prison accommodation the government has decided to march magistrates courts sentencing powers not just up the sentencing hill and then march them down again but to march them underground.  On 2 May 2022, the Government gave Magistrates the power to impose a sentence of up to 12-months' custody for a single triable either way offence (Section 224(1A) of the Sentencing Act 2020 inserted by section 13(1)(b) of the Judicial Review and Courts Act 2022). {my bold} The government justification for this increased sentencing limit is available here.   The Magistrates Association was quick to respond to the extended sentencing powers of May 2022.  "We advocated for an extension to magistrates’ sentencing powers for more than a decade to help speed up justice for complainants and defendants. It’s anticipated that 1,700 days of crown court time will be freed up every year now that magistrates can hear more cases." 

On 22nd March this year the well respected House of Commons Justice Committee wrote to the then Lord Chancellor.  A week later magistrates courts were marched down again.  The Sentencing Act 2020 (Magistrates' Court Sentencing Powers) (Amendment) Regulations 2023, authorised by Mr Mike Freer, amended section 224(1A)(b) of the Sentencing Act 2020, reducing the maximum sentence for an either way offence from 12 to 6 months. The change came into force on 30 March 2023.  {my underline}  Once again the Magistrates Association responded by saying it (The Magistrates Association)  expressed disappointment about the reversal, cautioned about resignations, and said it would be urging the Government to restore the extended powers as soon as possible.

In 2021 a poll indicated that the public thought that sentences had been shortened but in fact crown court sentences had increased.  Indeed the prison population has increased by 20% in the last 20 years. The inevitable result of this crass mismanagement is that this dying administration has concluded that sentencing reform is a pre requisite for any other reforms to the prison problem. The government is the maker of its own misfortune.  Sentencing reform means promotion of community sentences tough enough to punish, deter and rehabilitate.  This sounds simple enough but requires a reinvigorated probation service already decimated by probably the most incompetent Justice Secretary this country has ever experienced, Chris Grayling.  To that end  we can only hope there is a basis for optimism. 

But for magistrates there is more to come.  Last week the King`s Speech had something interesting within its many bland pronouncements: "To address recent concerns about prison capacity and reoffending, Mr Chalk has stated the government would legislate to introduce a presumption that custodial sentences of less than 12 months would be suspended.[33] Offenders would instead serve their punishment in the community. Mr Chalk said the government did not plan to dispense with short sentences completely because a custodial sentence would remain the appropriate sanction in some circumstances."

So there in brief, we have it.  A justice system in its death throes, its death having been inflicted by a thousand self inflicted cuts.  Were an individual to inflict such mutilation on her/himself or another s/he would be immediately sectioned.  Defence, Health and Education have their own stories of blundering, mindless,  gross and asinine inefficiencies and mismanagement.  For all our futures 😱 is no help. Optimism is part of human nature.  I hope it`s enough to see us through. ☝

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IS THE BLINDFOLDED METROPOLITAN POLICE INSTITUTIONALLY ANTISEMITIC?

The term "hate crime" is now, I suppose, recognised by all those who have a finger on the pulse of UK social mores and is now a common charge heard at magistrates courts. In the year ending March 2023, there were 145,214 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales (excluding Devon and Cornwall police) a decrease of 5% from the year ending March 2022 (153,536 offences) the first fall since the comparable time series began in the year ending March 2013. Prior to the fall seen this year police recorded hate crime offences rose between the years ending 2013 and 2022; this prolonged period of increasing offences was thought to have been driven by improvements in crime recording by the police and better identification of what constitutes a hate crime. There were 101,906 race hate crimes, a fall of 6% from the previous year when there were 108,476 offences: this was driven by a decrease in racially or religiously aggravated public fear, alarm or distress offences. As in previous years the majority of hate crimes were racially motivated accounting for 7 in 10 of all such offences (70%; 101,906 offences). Religious hate crimes decreased by 4% from 8,602 to 8,241 offences. In the light of current events the next set of religious hate crime figures will be interesting.

Latest figures suggest that there are 3.9 million declared Muslims in England representing 6.5% of the population and 271,000 Jews representing 0.50% of the population. The number and proportion of religious hate crimes recorded by the police, by the perceived targeted religion, year ending March 2023 was 3,400 concerning Muslims 44% of the total and related to Jews 1,510 equating to 19% of the total 7,756 such offences.  One doesn`t need to be a mathematician to note that the level of hate crimes against Jews is out of all proportion to their numbers in the population. What can be assumed is that these crimes can be constituted under the term antisemitism. 

When it comes to the prosecution of  hate crime the Crown Prosecution Service works to the following guidance:- such crimes are covered by legislation (Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and section 66 of the Sentencing Act 2020) which allows prosecutors to apply for an uplift in sentence for those convicted of a hate crime including of course crime based on religion. For a complete understanding of CPS guidance on religious hate crime there are tens of thousands of words to read here.

Generally until October 7th Muslims regarded themselves [and the statistics seem to bear this out] as the pre eminent victims of religious hate crime.  Since that dreadful day; dreadful in the eyes of  most right thinking observers but justified in the minds of those eaten up by a combination of Marxist Islamist propaganda,  Tweeters with nazi sympathies and the gorgeous luvvies who follow every progressive trend, have demonstrated hate crime at levels  unknown in this country for 70 years. It has been allowed to fester with little application of the law available to prevent it.  Crowds of estimated 100,000 have twice thronged London`s parliamentary area behaving in a manner not conducive to public order but arrests were relatively few at only 29.  In contrast Jewish assemblies at Trafalgar and Parliament Square by up to 4,000 peaceful demonstrators  required police only to protect them unlike the marches where thousands from the Met and beyond were summoned to ensure that there should be no disturbance to the King`s peace.  Of the weekend just gone the Independent reports, 
" 29 arrests were made in the capital, including two people on suspicion of breaching the Terrorism Act over the wording of banners at the event. A man suspected of making anti-Semitic comments in a speech was also arrested suspicion of inciting racial hatred, while three others were arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer. Later in the evening, police said some demonstrators launched fireworks into crowds and toward officers, resulting in a dispersal order being issued to clear the area."  Can it be assumed that all the others involved were not considered as having broken the law?  I would suggest no. The Met Police have been overwhelmed and face in my opinion a charge of institutional antisemitism insofar as their application of the laws available to them has been lax to say the least.  

Notwithstanding the above when it comes to perceived criticism of Muslims in one form or another police in all regions are not slow to invoke that legislation which had been ignored over the last few weeks in relation to the war against Hamas. Quoting direct from the CPS website:-
"An MP has been found guilty of racially abusing a member of the public today (3 November 2023) at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after a one-day trial. Robert Stewart MP, was convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence after he told a member of the public to go back to his country, demonstrating racial hostility likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to those present at the time. He was attending an event hosted by the Government of Bahrain when he used racist language towards the victim outside of the venue. Stewart was fined £600, which the court said would have been £400 had it not been for the seriousness of the hate crime he committed. Claire Walsh, of the CPS, said: “The court has found today that Robert Stewart's language amounted to a racially aggravated offence. "His claim that his words were misinterpreted were rejected by the court in light of evidence presented by the CPS, including footage filmed by a witness and the victim's testimony. “Hatred of any kind has no place in society and wherever our legal test is met, the CPS will not hesitate to prosecute those who perpetrate hate crimes."  A report from LBC is available here. Readers will or have decided whether the application of hate crime legislation is partial or impartial.  

Police have been observed tearing down posters in London and elsewhere of pictures of children kidnapped into Gaza by Hamas terrorists. Their response has been that their action was to prevent public disorder.  So the assumption must be that police consider an image in a legally allowed public space of a kidnapped child is a provocation for some misguided people to be disorderly or commit a public order offence. The latest news on forthcoming protests scheduled for this Sunday November 12th Armistice Day is that the Metropolitan Police have asked the organiser of a proposed march on that day to postpone it.  That request has been refused. If the Met has made it clear (and it has) why it considers the protest should not take place on Sunday why does it not ban it for those very reasonable fears?  Jews and many others will have their opinions.  Thank you for giving  a few minutes of your time to read mine.