There was a howl of outrage when it appeared that the Presumption of Innocence had been suspended for those individuals with a penchant for strapping explosives around their waist and ensuring that the police had a neat pile of 24 or 48 disembodied hands to match up in an effort to find the guilty pair responsible for blowing up their fellow citizens.
Liberty, all manner of glossy barristers, Amnesty International; practically chained themselves to the railings in Parliament Square on behalf of suspected terrorists who had been deprived of their internet and mobile phones under Part 4 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 – the Presumption of Innocence was apparently the most valuable asset the United Kingdom possessed, and any abrogation from it – like assuming someone might be guilty without benefit of lengthy multi-barristered trial, rendered us no better than a rogue State. How dare the Police take it upon themselves to presume guilt? Who did they think they were?
Not one of those expensively tutored, liberty loving, legal assinegoes can be found complaining or even mentioning an internal Police document – Special Notice from 2002 (11/02) – which formed the genesis of formal Police Policy being ‘Believe the Victim’. Everything about that statement reeks of abrogation from the Presumption of Innocence. It is ‘Believe’ not ‘treat with a professional impartiality’. It is the use of the word ‘Victim’ rather than complainant.
Special Notice from 2002 (11/02) has never been made public. I have had to work from excerpts which appeared in a 2013 hearing regarding compensation for victims of John Warboys, and an old Observer article; it might appear to be the Holy Grail for those like myself seeking the origins of the dramatic change in policy that #Ibelieveher represented – but I confess, I am no nearer to discovering who wrote that Special Notice nor why – if you can throw any light on this I would be grateful. This is what it said:
Principle 1
It is the policy of the MPS to accept allegations made by any victim in the first instance as being truthful. An allegation will only be considered as falling short of a substantial allegation after a full and thorough investigation.
If you want the fullest available details of this official policy change, you will just have to wade through all 129 pages of DSD & NBV v Commissioner of Police for Metropolis. Enjoy.
By 2014, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary was grandly proclaiming:
‘The presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalised.’
It is said there is a current perception amongst many officers that the policy of belief applies throughout the life of the investigation.
When Dame Elish Angiolini reviewed the Met policy ten months ago (so why is Sir Richard Henriques invited to review it once again?) she was surprised:
to hear the suggestion made in several focus groups, that it is police policy for officers always to ‘believe the victim’. It was clear too that this understanding caused resentment amongst some officers, especially when it led to a perception that they must continue to investigate cases regardless of whether or not the allegation was true, while being required to suspend disbelief.
Dame Elish suggests that:
‘it is more appropriate for criminal justice practitioners to remain utterly professional at all times and to demonstrate respect, impartiality, empathy and to maintain an open mind’.
The alternative approach of ‘always believing’ the complainant may prejudice the impartiality of the officer’s role and lead to their failing to recognise or give weight to other evidence inconsistent with the complainant’s account.
We begin to see the tussle taking place within the Metropolitan Police between the blind, blinkered, uncaring, bloody evil, pernicious, ideologues who will persist in bankrupting the tax payer and persecuting the innocent on the grounds that there is no such thing as a false allegator – and those who adhere to the time honoured tradition of an impartial police force, investigating without fear or favour, but retaining common sense when dealing with outlandish allegations. We could call it the Spindler/Settle Line in the quicksand that is the murky world of Historical/hysterical Sexual Allegations.
On the subject of false allegations, we see Mr Justice Green referring to that same hidden Policy note:
Research on false allegations have shown that they account for as few as 2% of all crimes of rape, the same percentage as for many other crimes.
However, where officers detect false allegations, consideration should be given to obtaining medical assistance for the victim and/or charging them with perverting the course of justice.
Yet that figure is open to reinterpretation – depends how you count the numbers:
‘A variety of definitions of false allegations of rape were found to be in operation amongst police and prosecutors. These ranged from a broadly drawn definition of false allegations relating to intoxicated complainants (and poor recollection of details), delays in reporting, witness retractions, lack of physical injury and lack of medical evidence, and a narrower definition based on situations where the complaint was considered malicious’.
The review identified that where the ‘broadly drawn’ definition was used 36 cases out of the 299 (12%) could be classified as false. Using the ‘narrower’ definition, just 9 cases (3%) qualified as false.
However, the CPS soon stamped on that suggestion:
If there is any question as to whether the original allegation might have been true, then there is not a realistic prospect of conviction, and no charge of perverting the course of justice should be brought’.
Perverting the Course of Justice – (2011) Crown Prosecution Service.
Neither definition mentions the most likely categories: mental health issues; learning disability/difficulties; repeat victimisation; and people seeking attention and or affection.
This division between believers and non-believers can be seen in the focus groups:
A focus group of Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) claimed that ‘in four years as an ISVA I’ve never met a woman I felt made a false allegation’. There was also a belief that so-called ‘false allegations’ can be re-living earlier, including childhood, experiences.
Whereas:
Some specialist officers trained in sexual offences investigative techniques (SOIT officers) who participated in the focus groups reported that they regularly encountered false allegations. One estimated it might be as high as 30% of cases though this was an extreme view.
Young people lying their way out of trouble were considered not uncommon, and as in the Crown Prosecution Service report on perverting the course of justice and false allegations SOIT officers said they had encountered complainants who, having embarked on a lie, found it difficult to ‘stop the ball rolling’.
A Detective Constable described making a rape report as like ‘unleashing the dogs of war’, as once started it was almost impossible to halt the investigation. Criminal compensation claims were also suggested by a minority as a potential motive for a false allegation.
While these views were not shared by all the SOIT officers who spoke to the review, there was widespread agreement that many complainants needed specialist support.
Concern, and sometimes resentment about the resources taken up dealing with false allegations, was expressed in focus groups. First response officers described such cases as‘a complete waste of time’. SOIT officers identified there being insufficient resources to investigate all reports and that they had to ‘filter the false jobs out’ to focus on the ‘real jobs’.
Detective Constables expressed concern that time spent on false allegations diverts officers away from genuine reports.
Some police officers perceived a reluctance at senior level to admit or discuss the true level of false or ‘delusional’ reporting, and that this was down to political pressure and inextricably bound up with attitudes towards ‘no criming’.
All of the above was recorded a bare ten months ago – you can see that the fissures in the Met police’s confidence in #Ibelieveher are both deep and current. Does that mean that #Ibelieveher would be more effective if more Police were forced into line? Or was it only ever just a catchy phrase and ‘disbelief’ not truly the problem?
According to 2005 research key factors preventing complainants from completing the initial investigative process included ‘being disbelieved and fear of the criminal justice system’.
However, in the 2011/2012 British Crime Survey, ‘female complainants’ most frequently cited reasons for not reporting were that it would be ‘embarrassing’, they ‘didn’t think the police could do much to help’, that the incident was ‘too trivial/not worth reporting’, or they saw it as a ‘private/family matter and not police business’.
Focus groups of complainants told the review that failure to report was less to do with attitudes towards the police and more to do with their own feelings of guilt, shame and wanting to protect their privacy.
Perhaps the real reason Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe would like a new inquiry is that he would really rather you didn’t read this recent and comprehensive review of Metropolitan Police Policy and behaviour towards sexual offending – a review which reveals more than it conceals for once?
In a recent BBC interview, Sir Bernard said:
‘I think we have really got hung up on this word belief, it’s confused officers, and my point would be we of course have to be empathetic, we want people to believe we are going to listen to them.
‘We want to be open minded about what they tell us and then what the suspects tell us.
‘And then we have got to test all that evidence.
‘There is a great danger at the moment with the advice that is around that perhaps there is a tendency to think we will always believe any complaint that is made.
‘That’s not wise for any good investigator.’
{ 62 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks once again, for your enlightenment.
BTW the link behind “Constabulary was grandly proclaiming” appears broken.
Now I’ve lost the link too!
It was the 2014 ‘Making the Victim Count’ from HMIC.
PDF: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/wp-content/uploads/crime-recording-making-the-victim-count.pdf
From: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmic/publications/crime-recording-making-the-victim-count/
Joe Public, I think Anna’s link might originally have been one of the following:
Making the victim count (web page)
Making the victim count (PDF file)
ΠΞ
naughty
This do?
http://thesecretbarrister.com/2016/02/11/its-not-the-polices-job-to-believe-victims/
Keir Starmer recently announced that false accusations were rare using the fact- they are rarely prosecuted. An analogy would be that because few burglaries are solved, they don’t really happen.
And this man was in a position of power and still seeks to be.
This subject interests me because over 25 years ago my nephew was accused by a youth of raping him. By the time I got to the West End police station to aid him the case had been solved. It was solved because the cops kept an open mind and did their job impartially. A forensic inspection proved the claimant’s story to be false and after persistent questioning he admitted it was the beginning of a blackmail attempt by him and a much older man he lived with. As one DC said “they must have done this before”.
The same police were extremely disappointed but understood when my nephew did not want to participate in a blackmail trial so they had to let the would-be blackmailer go free. Needless to say he never put himself in a position ever again where he was alone with any young person but that one night colored his life forever. I just cannot imagine what it does to those that have to go through an entire trial or media trawl like Lord Bramall.
Worse than you think. You think, for one thing, that someone will see through the rather obvious collusion going on (for example, witness statements dealing with the same subjects in the same order using the literal same worlds), even when admitted, and the laughably obvious inconsistencies (oh, but they are so upset by their abuse, that’s why they don’t get it right) and outright lies (ditto), but no f**king chance.
True story ; honest to god. A supposed abuser in one of these cases was accused of assaulting someone in a pub, the father of one of the officers involved (in an argument over the case), with *two* of the officers involved as a witness who obviously knew him very well (this was current). Only one problem ; the supposed assaulter was on the other side of the world at the time – literally, in the southern hemisphere, which was of course very demonstrable using passport records. Not actually in the country at the time. Quietly hushed up, action taken, nothing. Anyone care to explain how at least two of the three weren’t lying ? (No twin !)
The thing is , you are f**ked whether you are or not. The supposedly impartial investigation has bottomless funds and never investigates anything that would help the defence, and very expensive barristers are used by the prosecution, whereby the defence, unless they shell out for it themselves a la DLT, get the office boy, and this is not recoverable because “you were given legal representation” so unless you are very rich (or sometimes very poor) you get f**ked over.
Reading the text cited is helpful in understanding how the sense of the original differs from the implied meaning:
“1.31. Crimes can and should be recorded at the first point of contact with the
police in all but the most exceptional circumstances. The presumption that
the victim should always be believed should be institutionalised. The practice
of some forces of investigating first and recording later should be abandoned
immediately. The present latitude of allowing up to 72 hours before a crime
is recorded should be abolished.”
Institutionalisation of the presumption of belief is applied to the recording of a crime when reported. The instruction is intended to address the problem of significant under-recording of crimes of rape when the individual reporting the crime was encouraged not to continue with an attempt to have the complaint recorded. It is misleading not to make that absolutely clear and to allow the reader to be left with the impression that the principle may extend beyond that, to institutionalised belief in the account provided by the person making the complaint as against that of an alleged perpetrator.
It’s always worth checking what the original says.
Er, maybe you need to read the Dame’s words again, Owen:
“It was, however surprising to hear the suggestion made in several focus groups, that it is police policy for officers always to ‘believe the victim’.
It was clear too that this understanding caused resentment amongst some officers, especially when it led to a perception that they must continue to investigate cases regardless of whether or not the allegation was true, while being required to suspend disbelief.
The review was told however that the genesis of this policy stemmed from a police Special Notice from 2002 (11/02)…”
The instruction may indeed have been intended to address a particular problem, but has it in fact led to quite a different one? There certainly appear to be some resentful police officers who ‘believe’ so.
http://content.met.police.uk/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3D%22494%2F967%2FDame+Elish+Angiolini+Rape+Review+2015%2C0.pdf%22&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1283963458477&ssbinary=true
The wording the author uses is, “Everything about that statement reeks of abrogation from the Presumption of Innocence”, the subject of the post. The principle enunciated actually addresses the procedural issue of the recording of a report of a crime.
The author makes no real attempt to clarify why Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary would reasonably have concluded that, ‘The presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalised.’” nor how narrow the scope of HMIC’s recommendation was.
Embedded in the context of the author’s expansive rhetoric, the rather florid description “was grandly proclaiming” appears intended to highlight an over-arching philosophical principle rather than a guideline relevant to one specific aspect of procedure.
The author does.
Don’t be tedious, Owen.
“The author makes no real attempt to clarify why…” Really? The landlady requested assistance in doing just that: “… I confess, I am no nearer to discovering who wrote that Special Notice nor why – if you can throw any light on this I would be grateful.”
That’s the Special Notice from which Dame Elish Angiolini thought the “genesis of this policy [of belief] stemmed”. What steps do you suggest could have been taken by the author (Anna, not the Dame) to ‘clarify’ matters when the mysterious document is of unknown provenance, its author(s) is/are unknown, and its complete wording/purpose is not known?
Bandini, it’s worth remembering that rhetoric is a tool of the advocate, not the analyst.
Like one of the rough kids at school, I’m breaking open a tube of biro-ink to tattoo this pearl of wisdom into my arm as we speak, Owen.
Was Tim Godwin the author of the Special Notice? I’m on a crappy tablet and can’t really check at moment…
“But a lack of detectives has compelled boroughs to break the rules laid out in the 47-page policy document, Special Notice 11/02; A Policy for the Investigation of Rape and Serious Sexual Assaults .
The document says that investigating officers dealing with sexual assault cases ‘must be substantive detective sergeants or substantive detective constables’.
According to those standards, issued by Tim Godwin, now the assistant commissioner for territorial policing…”
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/may/01/ukcrime.prisonsandprobation1
Yeah, I saw that ‘issued by’ – but its not really substantive. What I want is to know the research that lay behind it.
What I want is to know the research
There’s your problem, right there, you’re assuming that was any.
I wish I didn’t think you were right!
Happy Valentine’s Day xxx
Thank you and returned with best wishes for you & The G Man.
BTW it is also our wedding anniversary today (I would be out on licence by now had I…), well one of them anyways. Like Paddington and ursidean birthdays, we have 2 Wedding Anniversaries a year…
There is a reference to it being ‘available on request’ at the following archived page:
http://policeauthority.org/metropolitan/committees/x-ppr/2002/021111/08/index.html
And I thought there might be a clue here, but it is heavily redacted:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/investigation_standards#incoming-98037
(It contains the same wording for ‘Principle 1’.)
‘The presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalised.’
“Institutionalised” in the same sentence as ‘victim’, I always thought the word was a polite way of saying ‘committed to the funny farm’…which seems strangely apt.
hung up on this word belief, it’s confused officers
For once I agree with the UberCop, ‘belief’ needs to be rewritten as ‘not actively believe nor DISbelieve anyone, complainant nor suspect’….although why it should be necessary in the first place when every single Officer attests; “diligently without fear of or favour to any person”.
I too think D. Corporal Hogan Howe right here. In the age of the ‘sound-bite’ they seem to have been bitten by reckless abbreviation: what they want to say is that they’re prepared to lend credibility to the complainant subject to the investigation.
En passant (as they say in Germany): Dem gesperrten Zwerge und der besten Frau der Welt: Glücklicher Hochzeitstag!
ΠΞ
Danke und ebenso(?).
Bitte vielmals. ΠΞ
Oh btw ‘blocked’ as in “Verstopfung” (Constipation) not ‘blocked’ as in ‘kettled by the Met’.(I have chronic IBS-D and am a shade under 6ft in my Para Boots…cockney humour).
I apologize, Blocked Dwarf (on both counts); I sought not to misrepresent you: only to translate your magical pseudoplume (or nom-de-nym)* verbatim in to the language of the greeting!
Your reply prompted me to look up I.B.S.; thank you for that. As one ages, one seems to have ever more friends with increasingly obscure and unpleasant ailments of one can be grateful, I suppose, to be ignorant; that’s now one of which I know a little anyway.
(Sorry too for the delay in finding and replying to your note.)
* © Peter Cook
I’m only a layman but I’ve not seen any announcement that Common Law no longer applies in this country. You know- Common Law- based on principles established over the last 800 years that a person is judged innocent until proven guilty. . Are all these subtle and not so subtle changes to the law part of the harmonisation (as the eurocrats might put it) of the different codes across Europe. As I said- I’m only a layman- but this reeks of an imposition of Napoleonic Code where a preson is preseumed guilty unless he can prove his innocence.
It seems we have more than one legal code in use in this country.
Do we get a choice which one we prefer?
Common Law
Napoleonic Code
or Sharia Law?
And did we have any say in the matter?
Nothing to do with the Europeans or their legal system. This came at us from across the Atlantic, not the Channel, and the “modifications” were authored on the basis of Anglic Common/Statute Law by the one and only Catharine Mackinnon, whose specific purpose was to invent a legal framework that could subvert American Law to create what she described as “Feminist Jurisprudence”.
Thank you for the information.
However- my point remains.
We have three legal codes- all mutually exclusive.
If the aim is One World Government and all that entails who is going to give way?
Will Islam? Will Europe? Will the countries with a Common Law heritage give way?
I see nothing but bloodshed. Maybe not this year….
At the risk of sounding like a stuck vinyl record, this is not unique to the legal system of England and Wales, nor Britain, it is standard feminist-authored belief and policy among Progressives (which basically defines the ruling elites in all Western nations, currently). This is the result of a long campaign by organised Feminism after their taking ownership of rape, domestic violence etc which has gradually led to these beliefs being considered the only acceptable thing to believe universally among that class, and all the institutions they control, as with the similar universalisation of similar attitudes to race, homosexuality and the latest frontier, transexuality.
It would of course be entirely fair to observe that the “Believe The Victims” cult began in the USA among evangelicals fighting an imaginary war against a plague of Satanic Cultists; but also one must note that the original claims in that regard were mostly of Satanic rituals and murders, then the “breeding of babies for Satan” (possibly inspired partially by Rosemary’s Baby) and it was only when the Feminists got hold of the idea that it morphed into a sexual fantasy land of Satanic Rape (of children, ideally) being the primary motivation. Satan is a man, and it’s all about his Satanic phallus’s perverted desires, and all that.
The methodology of trawling for victims, that began in the USA too, as the bizarre duo of evangelicals and radical feminists joined forces to track down the Satanic cults, rape cults, patriarchal rape system, all sex is rape, think of the children, Oprah and Geraldo, it’s everywhere, believe the children, you don’t believe them what kind of monster are you, are you one of them too? And here we are.
Cleveland and Orkney, and then Shieldfield, were the increasing foreshocks before the earthquake. And here we are. The Police have, let us be clear, done nothing more than obey their institutional masters.
On Rosemary’s Baby : while Australian law and police have not yet succumbed to the lunacies current in the UK there have been determined attempts to do so by politicians and so-called ‘victim advocates”. The spread of the Satanic Cult nonsense has been prevalent mainly in NSW (and aided by British born former celebrity agent Liz Muliner who was told by a psychic her specialist GP father at Guys Hospital had led a child abuse cult).
There is a Satanic Cult promoter at present who the so-called Truth Movement is proclaiming an heroine and it caused me to read up on one particular MP who embroiled herself in a NSW Royal Commission into various bent coppers there. That Commission concluded that there was no institutional cover-up of pedos but a small group of bent cops had accepted bribes from 2 wealthy pedophiles (both eventually went to jail and died there).
The particular Italian born MP railed in the media and in Parliament about Pedo Rings so much so, her twin gay sons fled the country and have never returned. But she also presented in Parliament details of an alleged Pedophile Ring comprising of judges, police, chauffeurs and MPs who inducted young boys (including their sons ) into this dark Satanic ring that operated over generations.
What she was describing was the exact plot of an Aussie film The Secret Everlasting Family a fictional tale fed to her by a convicted pedophile who claimed to be a ‘whistleblower’ intent on exacting revenge on the authorities for his convictions.
@Eric Hardcastle – There is a very problematic person in Australia, named Michael Salter. I believe that he is currently a member of the academic staff at an Australian University. He has a Phd in Criminology, but he says: “My background is in public health and public policy, and I’ve worked in the non-government and university sectors in translating research into policy and practice. My work aims to combine theoretical and empirical insights to inform work in a range of areas, including social work, child protection, therapy and counselling, policing and the law”. People living in Australia ought to be concerned that Dr Salter has been and may be involved in: “translating research into policy and practice” and “informing” work in child protection, policing and the law, in that country.
Michael Salter is a fervent “ritual abuse” True Believer and has been since his late teens, when he lived with and befriended a ritual abuse victim claimant to whom he extended his absolute and unequivocal belief, and for whom he attempted to play the roles of guardian & medical/mental health/legal advocate. Subsequently, Salter was an active participant in and supporter of self-professed Satanic abuse cult, ritual abuse, and/or mind-control victim claimant “support groups”, both offline and online. Salter was an avid discussion forum participant at the Rigorous Intuition “truther” website run by Jeff Wells, a site where more critical thinking was encouraged than in many sites of the same genre, but also where belief in CIA-satanic cult conspiracies to kidnap, abuse in every way possible, and ultimately “program” children was actively encouraged, and where it was forbidden to question RA-MC victim claimant’s personal narratives.
Salter left the field of public health/social work and pursued a degree in criminology, SPECIFICALLY in the hope of influencing public policy makers in Public Health, Child Protection and the criminal justice system, with his ardent “RA-MC victim claimant narratives are never false, although the traumatized Survivors may be unable to communicate their truths in terms that make sense to non-victims” perspective. Salter adopted the “broadened terminology” ploy, in which a term other than Ritual Abuse or Trauma-based Mind Control is claimed to represent some “larger” category of sexual violence crimes, which RA and MC are then said to be “special cases” within. Salter’s verbal trojan horse, by which he was able to promote belief in RA-MC without openly professing to be doing that, is called “Organized Sexual Abuse”. He published a lengthy book on that “subject”, based on “research” he conducted which consisted of soliciting RA-MC victim claimants to submit their personal victim narratives, and then collating & analyzing the “data” within the narratives, AS THOUGH everything the victim claimants said was an indisputably proven fact, with no verification process whatsoever.
http://bornepress.com/michael-salter-on-organized-abuse/comment-page-1/
APP, the photo staring back at me in the link rang a bell – I think he popped up to opine when 60-Minutes broadcast their Exaro-based load of old cobblers. Glancing at his Twitter-account ‘reveals’ his continued interest with re-tweets galore for Exaro’s warriors.
(Yet another petition has been launched, this one to bend Jeremy Corbyn’s arm to expel Tom O’Carroll from the Labour Party: “Is it right to rape a 4-year old??” Professional big-mouth, Jess Philips MP is already predictably outraged…)
https://twitter.com/mike_salter
@Bandini – no surprises there! Salter had an article purporting to compare/contrast the recent Rochdale grooming cases with the old Rochdale SRA debacle, in an online criminology journal in 2015. Brimming over with the radical feminist ideological cliches that he is so enamored of. Salter’s approach to “research” would be very pleasing to the Exaro crowd, adhering to the feminist sociology principle of allowing your subject’s narratives to define truth & reality without verification or critical analysis.
For example, Salter recently claimed to have solved a longstanding problem with Ritual Abuse claimant victim narratives. Almost universally, RA “survivors” have claimed that they were used for the production of commercial CSA images, but there are no such images of them as children in the NCMEC “library” or similar databases of CSA images. It is inconceivable that commercially produced and distributed CSA images produced more than 10 years ago would not be in these databases, so why are the RA victim’s CSA images not in them? Does this mean those images never existed, and that the “survivor’s” narratives therefore contain falsehoods? (YES) Fortunately, some RA survivors have recently related to Salter that they now remember the CSA images of them were actually kept in private collections for the purpose of blackmailing the victims into ongoing, lifelong compliance with the abuse cult’s demands. So, they weren’t actually distributed commercially.
This is BS of course. The scenario of a blackmailer who tricks or coerces minors into generated sexual images of themselves, and then extorts more explicit & perverse images from them by threatening to “publish” the images publicly online, is a circumstance unique to the internet era. Such blackmail scenarios wouldn’t have worked, prior to the internet, and it is blatantly obvious that Salter’s “survivors” have derived their revised “memories” from highly publicized accounts of such blackmail schemes that have occurred in recent years.
Perhaps Dame Elish took her more balanced and thoughtful view of this because she herself was the subject of vile allegations by the Hollie Greig Hoaxers?
I remembered that too – and thought she was an interesting choice for the review.
We also seem to have one law for the likes of Cliff Richard and one law for suspected murderers and rapists on the run, because naming the latter would cause them “damage or distress”? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3444996/Police-won-t-fugitives-identities-suspected-killers-rapists-run-kept-secret-guessed-s-human-rights.html
Yes I saw that. I’m having trouble making any sense of police policies – it would seem some police are too!
The latin phrase the landlady has chosen is perhaps more instructive than she intended, because in an age before gender politics it refers distinctly to” him” ( a male personage).
Modern law seems to this neophyte to be distinctly split by gender, and the woeful nonsense of “believe the victim” as it has been adopted by the Metropolitan Police and CPS seems to be pandering to the feminazi faction of politics and government services (eg Ms Balls and Allison Saunders) to the detriment of mostly male defendants of reasonable monetary means. Their dogmatism appears to exempt females from the latin text.
Perhaps the time has come for Theresa May to email Peels Principles of Law to Bernie Hogan-Howes and Butch Saunders, underlining applicable sections:
1. The basic mission for which police exist is to prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to the repression of crime and disorder by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police existence, actions, behaviour and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.
3. The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain public respect.
4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes, proportionately, to the necessity for the use of physical force and compulsion in achieving police objectives.
5. The police seek and preserve public favour, not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to the law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws; by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of society without regard to their race or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. The police should use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to achieve police objectives; and police should use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the intent of the community welfare.
8. The police should always direct their actions toward their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary by avenging individuals or the state, or authoritatively judging guilt or punishing the guilty.
9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
My thoughts are not original, but they do I think bear repeating often.
There is no need for further costly public examinations and obfuscation, the landlady points out that adequate (if not downright elaborate) oversight has been applied and the conclusions are obvious-“believe the victim” is a terrible miscarriage of British justice, even Bernie seems to understand this. Allow him his one year tenure to clear out the pernicious affect of feminazi policing, meanwhile Theresa May needs to seriously think on Butch Saunders tenure at CPS and review many other recent appointments of hopeless chief constables.
Keep ’em peeled, indeed
Awesome research.
Almost too much to take in, or do I mean that we have all been taken in.
Just one suggestion re: “Special Notice from 2002 (11/02) has never been made public.”
The synnergy that 2002/03 was also the years of the passing of the NuLabor Sex Laws can surely not be mere coincidence?
On a slightly lighter note:-
http://thesecretbarrister.com/2016/01/13/exclusive-crown-prosecution-service-victim-letter-pro-forma-leaked/
Great piece, Anna!
I especially appreciated excerpts from the reports, wherein the reasons why genuinely victimized persons don’t make a police report or perhaps never disclose anything to anyone, are expanded beyond the facile standard explanation: fear of not being believed. It is great to see an expanded understanding of the complex & diverse motivating factors for not reporting/disclosing, including the vastly under-rated (and to some, incomprehensible) factor – that a victimized person might have more pressing “life issues” to deal with, from their perspective. Many of these newly acknowledged factors can be summed up rather simply, as a judgement on the part of the victimized person, that their life circumstances are likely to become WORSE, rather than better, if they were to report/disclose their victimization at that time (or, ever). Such a judgement could be based on misinformation or lack of information of course, including false ideas fed to them by an abuser, especially if they are a minor, but ultimately they understand the realities of their own life better than anyone and have an inalienable right to make such a determination for themselves.
It’s also encouraging to see, in these reports, acknowledgement of how over-rated “I feared that no one would believe me” has been, as a factor in not reporting. For a very long time, that was the ONLY politically correct, socially acceptable explanation – and that has greatly hampered our collective understanding of this issue and been an obstacle to objective research. “What do you mean, you want to research factors that inhibit disclosure of sexual abuse? Victims fear we won’t believe them, everyone knows that, that’s all there is to it – no need to squander our grant monies looking for anything else, thank you…”
You’ve nailed a number of “interested parties” driving the push for “believe the victim claimant, unfailingly” to be institutionalized in every facet of our society, including the criminal justice system, but there’s something else going on that shouldn’t be overlooked. The “Believe The Children” organization wasn’t really about believing child victim’s testimony, it was really about believing whatever an adult claimed that children had experienced. It should have been titled: “Believe US, and whatever we tell you about conspiracies to abuse all of our children”. Some adult victim claimants have very extensive victim narratives…book length in some cases. They aren’t simply demanding that everyone believe that they suffered sexual abuse or sexual assault, they are demanding belief in the entirety of their narrative, which may include racist diatribes, extreme political views or paranoid conspiracy theories of all sorts.
On the subject of believing children:
A swimming teacher that I know told me last month that one of her youngsters had stumbled in the water, much to the concern of his mother. Employing one of her standard distraction techniques she asked if the child had seen her fish. The toddler replied, “No” and the lesson continued with no further problems.
Then, without any prompting, the little boy proceeded to describe the fish, invisible to everyone else in the clear, shallow waters of the indoor swimming pool.
Congratulations. And thank you.
Other references here: http://policeauthority.org/metropolitan/committees/x-ppr/2003/030109/09/index.html
Ever seeking sources not symptoms. The true source, as with so much else, of our sacred ‘Presumed Innocent’ now lost.
Are the 19Hateys phoney Anglophone False God Mammon worshipping Fraud Marketeers. RayGun/HagMag/RabidRupe – an aXis of PURE EVIL unleashing their Beast of Greed. (Bean counters know the price of everything and the value of nothing! When everything is for sale, the truth is first to go!)
15 long lean years on for Truth, by July ’95 the UK P.M. in waiting NuLab/Lite Tory naieve BLiar was summoned to Oz Alien Media Monsta Murdoch’s Hayman Isle BIG bunker for populist drivel. From which, whatever lowbrow crap rabid Rupe’s mad dogs buy, becomes Brit NuLaw Public Gospel preached nationwide by ALL Rupe-cowed bent Cops/Media.
By Y2K+1 a brave UK All Party Committee on Police Trawling, honorable Chair (HagMag’s ‘Dead Sheep’) Lord Howe rightly stated, “The atmosphere is like that of a Witch Hunt where all sense of reason and proportion is lost.” Soon trashed by Rupe-cowed populist NuLab/Lite Tory then reversing our sacred ‘Presumption Of Innocence’ in Y2K+2.
For early erudite detail, ya’ll Johnny/Jenny/Anna cum latelies, check un-phoney Anglos: late great Ace Sleuth ‘Private’ Dick Webster, Johnny ‘Peerless’ Pilger, Bob ‘The Builder of Facts not Myths’ Woffinden, et al.
Not least, the late great Brit D.J. Scouser John Peel (last interview last lines, Indie On Sunday, 29 Aug ’04), “Rupert Murdoch has destroyed most of what was good about this country.”
http://www.richardwebster.net/caregoesontrial.html
http://johnpilger.com/articles/murdoch-a-cultural-chernobyl
Are we getting somewhere at last or not? The very recent extended charges of indecent assaults seem to denote great determination for the ‘ ibeleavers’ to plug on regardless of the way ideas are seemingly changing in some quarters around them. The episode on the station concourse is a case to point to. Goosing in public is easy but it requires the gooser to be photoed, or known to the goosee. I cannot finger my goosers 30 or 40 years later as no cctv or and complete strangers. What privileges complainants have these days, compared with my goosing days. I found then that ones audience tended to disbelieve one. Or have that look that said she’s making it up. That could be a tad frustrating. It really is modern technology that drives this process. The Twitter mobbing and Internet chatter on various web sites winds people up. I fled from my bust prodder on the tube and his proposals to help me make money! Did not report his prodding as I wanted my day out in London. If I did report this now I would be wanting compo surely?. Otherwise what would be the point? It would be a nice little earner!
Bah! I was hoping to pop in & discover the identities of those responsible for ‘Special Notice 11/02’…
My poor old tablet was bursting at the seams with downloaded pdfs yesterday evening, but to (almost) no avail.
It would seem that things fell into place in April 2002 when both HMIC are said to have produced their ‘Thematic inspection on the investigation of rape’ (presumably this would be the HMCPSI ‘Report on the joint inspection into the investigation & prosecution of cases involving allegations of rape’, April 2002) & the MPA produced their ‘Scrutiny on rape investigation and victim care’ (easily downloadable).
The latter included ’38 recommendations’ which I am guessing came to be implemented (in part or whole?) through the issuing of the ‘Special Notice’ shortly after.
There were so many advisory groups involved, and the conversion of ‘Sapphire: A Project’ into ‘Sapphire: The established way of doing things from here on in’ seems to have occurred at the same time, adding to the confusion. One name which kept popping up was that of Liz Kelly (“Professor of Sexualised Violence at London Metropolitan University, where she is also Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit”) who seems to be very influential.
“There is a need for a coherent, consistent national policy and practice framework for rape investigations… … Within this attention should be given to moving beyond the real rape template and orientating police investigations to discovering evidence that supports the allegation.” (October 2001)
Perhaps the Special Notice 11-02 was what ‘orientated’ the police to believe in belief?
(Having scanned through hundreds of pages my head is in a twirl, but in amongst the literature was so much that raised an eyebrow or two! For example, regarding the prevalence of ‘false allegations’ a figure of 10% of cases was mentioned, but then it was pointed out that only 10% of cases are actually reported to the police. This meant – incredibly – that the police shouldn’t believe that many false allegations are made as 10% of 10% is 1%: ergo, only 1% would be false! I’ve had my fill of pdfs and need a good lie down now.)
http://policeauthority.org/metropolitan/committees/x-pspm/2002/020411/07/index.html
I had to look that word up: “Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows; an assinego may tutor thee” (Troilus & Cressida)
From the Portuguese for a young ass – good one Anna!
Further to our, “By Y2K+1 a brave UK All Party Committee on Police Trawling, honorable Chair (HagMag’s ‘Dead Sheep’) Lord Howe rightly stated, “The atmosphere is like that of a Witch Hunt where all sense of reason and proportion is lost.” Soon trashed by Rupe-cowed populist NuLab/Lite Tory then reversing our sacred ‘Presumption Of Innocence’ in Y2K+2.”
Special Notice (11/02) was likely from NuLab/LiteTory Home Sec – Jack ‘Man Of’ Straw.
Who, so ironically, during sub Sewer of The World rabid Rupe’s Y2K mad dog pedo riots calling for public notifications of all known UK so called ‘Pedos’.
Straw strongly stated, “There will be NO public notifications!”
Now, THAT’S a-tellin ‘em Blackburn Bozo!
And, oh so ironically from the friendly (not Wicked) ‘Wizard of OZ’ – innocent lil child Dotty & VERY weird Stranger Danger – Strawman!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nauLgZISozs
On Twitter I see the Exaro/Baker supporters mob have gently bullied Tom Watson into making sure Tom O’Carroll is expelled from being a Labour party member.
https://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/699539669206364160
https://www.change.org/p/jeremy-corbyn-mp-remove-paedophile-advocate-tom-o-carroll-from-the-labour-party
Have posted a list of failures by Met Police which shows the claimed institutionalisation of belief was not regularly borne in practice and there was indeed institutionalised disbelief towards a substantial number of rape victims, especially if they had psychosocial disabilities.
http://londoninvestigates.uk/?p=471
Rog, that is seriously impressive research for which I heartily thank you.
Worth reading folks!
I did before you posted Anna and formed the view that the information Rog posted was possibly one of the most important pieces previously missing in the jig saw which you are trying to assemble. Its interesting that there is this binary view of belief/disbelief has arisen AS A STARTING POINT from which to work . It struck me the STARTING POINT should be A DUTY NOT TO BELIEVE OR TO DISBELIEVE …..actually the starting point for most people until anyone starts to tell them (actually nowadays train them ) how they must think.
And yes I am of the view that its no different from religious orthodixies in the past and will lead to much the same outcomes
Thanks for the kind comments
Just found this; haven’t done any research on it, but seriously!?
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/man-guilty-of-raping-five-year-old-41170
I’ve come late to this and apologies for repetition.
1) The Met police policy has been ‘believe’ complainants, unless proven otherwise since early 90s. Proof of ‘otherwise’ was not the police’s responsibility. They could easily overlook not looking at confounding evidence (and have) even within the CPIA Code. (non enforceable.)
2) The ‘presumption of innocence’ is a legal principle in court. Has nothing to do with the police investigation.
3) Police investigative methodology may be open to question. The modern approach is to take as read and then seek support – this is flawed but it goes back a long way.
4) the old approach was to listen to account and then see if it stood up to scrutiny through testing. This is the ‘coach and horses’ approach decried by the Met in the 90s once they had ‘seen the light’.
5) I have yet to find the particular ‘coach and horses’ article disparagingly cited by the Met in the early 90s as example of deplorable discriminatory practice (ie contrary to presumption of belief) It was said to be in the Police Review in in the early 80s which may have dovetailed with he Roger Graef doc.
6) My suspicion is, and has always has been, that this article may be a a sound ‘rule of thumb’ guide to ensuring that well-founded cases are prosecuted.
7) Does anyone have access to Police Review archives?
@ Margaret Jervis The ‘presumption of innocence’ is a legal principle in court. Has nothing to do with the police investigation.
That was always my understanding though I lacked the confidence to express it.If you are right on the point as I believe you to be then it is sometrhing of a ‘canard’ within the context of examination on the part the Police and the CPS play in any prosecution
Proof of ‘otherwise’ was not the police’s responsibility. They could easily overlook not looking at confounding evidence (and have) even within the CPIA Code. (non enforceable.). That is the issue though I didn’t appreciate(but did sense) that it had been institutionalised to the extent it has. Anyone who has practiced law will realise the impact such an approach must inevitably have ….results of ‘successful’ policing being convictions ….not contingent on evidence and even less on justice but on many factors including resources available to any Defendant (Think Dave Lee Travis ruined) and of course the skill or otherwise of Defence Counsel.
I do repeat the long stop safeguard that should be in place that there should be duties to the Court though by whom and to what extent is becoming increasingly confused
Esther Rantzen: police should investigate current child abusers, not dead ones:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12165309/Esther-Rantzen-police-should-investigate-current-child-abusers-not-dead-ones.html
{ 2 trackbacks }