HMP Britain

ACPO—the Association of Chief Police Officers—is reported in today’s Mail to be holding a £500k “champagne gala” whilst 28,000 Police Officers face redundancy. What follows is Part 1 of HMP Britain’s Case Against ACPO. Feel free to add your own.

ACPO is against Liberty

Labour, with ACPO lobbying, passed laws to advance Britain along the road to a police state. ANPR, DNA retention, and the introduction of Tasers are just some of the policies ACPO have helped craft.

ACPO is a self-serving Lobby Group

Many of Labour’s policing laws were effectively written by ACPO and designed to serve the interests of ACPO’s elite against the interests of the taxpayer. The Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001) is a prime example: under this legislation, ACPO staff—and remember ACPO is a private company—became entitled to expensive gold-plated civil service pension.

Their lobbying also extended to powergrabs: the Police and Justice Act (2006) mandates ACPO Ltd must be consulted prior to changes in certain police powers. It also requires a representative from ACPO to be on of the National Police Improvement Agency. The codes regarding PACE may only be modified with ACPO consultation.

Police Reform Act (2002) granted ACPO extraordinary powers: it made ACPO the only private corporation whose employees can hold the office of police constable. Section 96 of the Police Reform Act (2002) grants the President of ACPO the powers of arrest and powers of a Chief Constable.

ACPO has more money than it can spend

ACPO has £15 million in cash at the bank and has an income of approximately £10 million per year. It has various commercial activities: it accredits burglar alarms, sells (and promotes) its own accreditation service for the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme and makes a profit each year in excess of £300,000 by holding an annual conference.

ACPO also has a sizeable property empire but refuses to say how large it is. It is known that a small subdivision of ACPO—the Terrorism & Allied Matters Committee—spends £1.3 million on luxury apartments for its members.

ACPO is highly political

Police officers are forbidden by law from joining a political party and diligently avoid accusations of political bias. The same cannot be said of Chief Police Officers and ACPO.

In an interview on Radio 4′s Today, the President of ACPO, Sir Hugh Orde, threatened to resign if Conservative Plans for elected Chief Constables became law.

In 2007, then-President of ACPO Ken Jones spoke out in support of the Government plans–opposed by the Conservatives–to increase precharge detention beyond 28 days.

This lead to the Conservatives writing in a private election note of ACPO giving “political cover to the Labour Government repeatedly and consistently” and engaging in “gratuitous photocalls” with Gordon Brown and other ministers. It goes on to say it “shows almost no criticism of the current Government”.

ACPO is Secretive Private Company

ACPO president Sir Hugh Orde has acknowledged that its role as a private company was “uncomfortable” an Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, the police watchdog, has said its ‘status as a private limited company ‘cannot continue’.

Despite receiving much public funding, responsible for senior appointments in quangos and helping the state draft legislation, ACPO is immune to Freedom of Information laws and is not bound by the usual rules of the civil service, despite receiving many of its perks.

If ACPO were to be brought into the state and its civil service, a justifiable question would be what is the difference between the APA, NPIA and ACPO, and do we really need it?

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Police ANPR database contains 7.6 billion car locations and images, the NPIA have acknowledged in a FOIA disclosure to HMP Britain.

The National Police Improvement Agency (NPIA) operate the National ANPR Data Centre (NADC) which stores information from CCTV surveillance cameras. Each time a car passes one of these cameras, the location of the car, the time, an image of the car (and often, its occupants) and the numberplate is stored at the NADC. This data comprises a ‘read’.

There are now 7.6 billion of these reads in the Police database and they are routinely stored for 2 years.

In an internal document [pdf] under the section entitled ‘Proposed Media Lines to Take’, the NPIA
state:

Q. This is just the government spying on the people,isn’t it?
No. This is simply a tool for identifying vehicles where a road traffic offence has been committed or where criminal activity is
suspected

Amusingly, the same documents details how each camera sucks up information on everyone and stores it on a database for two years. Of course, the police aren’t lying: they do only store data on areas where criminal activity suspected. The problem is they suspect every innocent motorist of criminal activity across the whole road network.

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A second police officer this week has now been convicted of PNC abuse in South Wales, it emerged today. Jamie Slater, 33, of Port Talbot, was sentenced to three and a half years at Cardiff Crown Court for misconduct while in public office. He had offered to ‘excuse’ motoring offences if victims agreed to have sex with him.

The Evening Post in South Wales reports that when victim’s husband learnt of the affair, Mr Slater retrieved his details from the PNC and sent him ‘taunting messages’.
This is now the second case of PNC abuse at South Wales Police force this week.

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The police have routine access to many detailed databases: conviction database, intelligence databases, DNA databases, car databases or lists of car journeys. The list goes on and on.

As we have previously detailed, this can result in the police databases being used for corrupt purposes. Today, PC Haydn Evans has been found guilty of using the PNC to research the backgrounds of his sexual partners, and to see whether his police colleagues were aware of his activity.

Following his conviction and fine for £80 (!!!), PC Evans is expected to take early retirement on a fat police pension.

It was said in mitigation that “Evans deeply regretted what he had done, and had co-operated fully with the investigation. He [Evans' defence] said Evans had an exemplary police record and had already offered to resign or take early retirement”

PNC abuse is the bread and butter of any police force’s Professional Standards Department, a branch of a force concerned with policing the police. South Wales Police could have accepted PC Evans’ resignation without publicity. Instead they took him to court and allowed justice—regardless of how ineptly—to be done.

A good day for for South Wales Police and the community it serves.

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In response to our Freedom of Information request, the Home Office has admitted the Taser has been used 223 times against those aged 13 – 17 between July 2007 and December 2009.

On 47 separate occasions, an electrical charge was delivered into a child subjects’ body. Over 4% of those subjected to an electric shock were children, the Home Office has acknowledged.

The figures also reveal that 3 children aged 14 have been subjected to an electrical shock of up to 50,000 volts for up to 10 seconds.

The figures were released yesterday in response to our initial Freedom of Information request in February and are available at WhatdoTheyKnow website

Unfortunately, the Home Office had protected the PDF file to disallow the extraction of data. Should you be interested, we have created a version of the data on Google Docs.

All figures refer to police forces in England & Wales

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The first serious criminal trial in 400 years to be held without a jury ended on the 31st of March 2010 with the conviction of four men for an armed robbery at Heathrow airport.

The defendants were found guilty at their forth trial. This trial was made possible by the Criminal Justice Act (2003) which removed the right to trial by jury.

The prosecution first sought a juryless trial in March 2009 from Justice Calvert-Smith. He refused and stated the trial could go ahead if the jury were protected for a cost of £1.5m. The ruling was appealed and the Court of Appeal ruled a juryless trial could go ahead.

What’s significant here is that the defence has never been shown the allegations of jury tampering, and the assertions of the police have not been tested.

The right to trial by jury when liberty is in peril has a long legacy and the American Revolution was sparked, in part, by its encroachment; indeed, its constitution specifically guarantees trial by jury as a result. If anything, the instigation of juryless trials shows how pathetically inept the European Human Rights Act is in protecting the liberty of its citizens:

Article 6 of the EHRA
In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law.

The Americans, as is so often the case where liberty is concerned, gets it right:

Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed,

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A court in Germany has ordered all data retained under the Data Retention Directive (Directive 2006/24/EC) should be destroyed.

This EU law is one of the more controversial across Europe and has seen protests across the continent, particularly in the Netherlands and Germany where memories of ‘data retention’ have a bitter resonance.

The German court was responding to a complaint brought by 35,000 plaintiffs, the largest number ever associated with one case. The court found the German legislation putting the EU directive into law violated a constitutional guarantee of privacy.

It is worth reminding ourselves of what the Data Retention Directive is: it mandates communication data should be retained for the period of at least 6 months. In particular, it requires the following across the European Union:

• trace and identify the source of a communication, e.g. the telephone number and subscriber name and address (telecoms); user ID and name and address of the subscriber or registered user (Internet)
• identify the destination of a communication e.g. number called, any number to which a call is rerouted, name and address of subscriber/user (telecoms); user ID or telephone number of the intended recipient(s) of an Internet telephony call, name and address of subscriber/user (Internet)
• identify the date, time and duration of a communication
• identify the type of communication e.g. the telephone or Internet service used
• identify users‟ communication equipment, or what purports to be their equipment
• identify the location of mobile communication equipment e.g. cell ID and geographic location of cell.

It is also worth remembering where this EU law comes from. Think of the Data Retention Directive as the UK’s gift to Europe: It started off life as Part 11 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001) in the UK Parliament. At this time is was voluntary.

When the UK’s presidency came in 2005, the UK introduced it as legislation in the form of a Europe-wide, compulsory framework for data retention and mass-surveillance.

Welcome, Europe, to HMP Britain!

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Nottinghamshire Police have been criticised by an inquest for contributing to the murders of a couple–Joan and John Stirland–by a criminal gang.

They had moved to Lincolnshire from Nottingham after their son had attempted to murder gangster Colin Gunn’s nephew and the police feared they would face reprisals.

The inquest at Lincoln Crown Court was read an extract from Mrs Stirland’s 2003 diary after she fled Nottingham.
She wrote: “This is just because police in Nottingham cannot control the Gunn family.”

This was certainly true: the Gunn crime family were behind most of the high-profile crimes within Nottinghamshire and in no small part responsible for its reputation as ‘Shottingham’.

Failing to tackle Gunn is one of the major failings of Nottinghamshire Police; the way they brought him to justice is one of its major triumphs.

Eventually, Nottinghamshire Police did act and began a secret operation to bring Gunn to justice. Operation Utah was formed with this task and those on the operation were vetted for relationships to Gunn and worked separately from the main force; indeed, most of Nottinghamshire Police 2,400 employees were oblivious. The primary reason for this enhanced security was the fear Gunn had penetrated the police; and they were right.

As part of their investigation, which eventually saw Gunn jailed for 35 years, they uncovered two corrupt police men Philip Parr and Charles Fletcher. These two police officers were found guilty of passing information to Gunn’s associates, helping him evade justice.

Data Security

At the inquest into the Stirland’s death, the court heard evidence that Nottinghamshire Police had failed to pass on information to Lincolnshire Police concerning intelligence that the Stirlands may be targeted by Gunn. When the Stirlands reported a prowler in their garden, the police response was inadequate.

The question now must be be why was this information not passed on? Was it a simple administrative and bureaucratic error? Or was it something more sinister: did the police fear passing on this information to another force in case it would ‘leak’ out to Gunn? Were the police so fearful of corrupt elements within its organisation that it fears the distribution of this information?

The IPCC, in their 22nd February 2008, allude to this being a possibility:

“It is apparent that the secrecy surrounding Operation Utah was paramount, which in the right circumstances is appropriate. However, there is no doubt that such a situation inhibited those who had taken responsibility for the care of the Stirlands, when assessing the risks and necessary measures to counter the threats and attacks.”

The police need not have worried: The Stirlands’ new address was eventually found by Gunn who promptly had them murdered. Information as to their new address was given to Gunn by a British Telecom employee.

If nothing else, this case shows how precious “personal data” can be.

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The Guardian reports the Serious and Organised Crime Agency is investigating the scale of corruption within the police. The day before, the Independent reported comments by Nick Hardwick, Chairman of the IPCC:

To say [police corruption] has gone away would be a very bad mistake. There are no forces that are free of corruption [...]

A glance of the cases in just the past 7 days bears this out:

• Monday 8th February 2010:
  Ali Dizaei sentenced to four years for assualting a man and trying to frame him for assault.
• Friday 12th February 2010:
  PC Mark Bohannan passed on information to his wife’s drug dealer in exchange for free cocaine. This information allowed the dealer to escape undetected.
• Monday 15th February 2010:
  Martin Lansley, a ‘civilian’ police worker, stole sensitive data about Royal visits by senior royals. He also obtained officer’s passwords, station door codes, PNC information  and cryptographic signatures of the Chief Constable.

There are clearly some problems within our police force and problems in particular with data security.

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The truth: political interference.

Following Operation Helios and Ali Dizaei’s victory in his April 2003 trial, there was still sufficient evidence to place him through the formal disciplinary process. The IPCC, in their 16th June 2004 review [pdf] of the case are quite clear as to why this disciplinary process did not take place:

Making a private and confidential agreement with Supt Dizaei [...]

Confusing the vital public interest in promoting an effective diversity recruitment plan for the MPS with its public duty to uphold the police discipline system by assessing misconduct proceedings against Supt Dizaei on their merits.

They go on to say “the charges against Supt Dizaei are capable of proof”.

In short, a deal was done with Ali Dizaei to halt disciplinary proceedings. They say the Met confused its “diversity recruitment plan” with its “public duty to uphold the police discipline system”. In short, Dizaei got away with to avoid the Met being accused (again) of “institutional racism”.

There must be some focus upon the deal done with Dizaei that halted the disciplinary proceedings. The agreement with Supt Dizaei brokered by ACAS and the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), the Superintendents Association and the National Black Police Association should now be released.

Further, what input did the MPA have in this? Was there political inference from the professional politicians of the MPA and higher up? And what does this tell us about Conservative plans to further politicise the police service?

Perhaps Lord Toby–then Chairman of the MPA–will enlighten us.

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