‘Police should stick to investigating actual crimes’ – Free Speech Union speaks out over PSNI LGBTQIA IDAHOBIT statement

The Free Speech Union, a pressure group based in London and led by conservative writer Toby Young, was reacting to a lengthy press release from the PSNI this week about how the force is “celebrating... LGBTQIA communities” on “IDAHOBIT day” (see full press release at bottom of article).

In it, the PSNI makes reference to the PSNI’s policy of recording “hate incidents” – things which are not crimes, but which the complainants feel have a “hate motivation”.

The press release indicates that people should call the PSNI about things like “harmful comments”, and goes on to say that police should be involved “no matter how small or trivial you think the incident might be”.

The PSNI is currently running an eight-figure annual deficit and is on course to lose perhaps as many of 1,000 of its current complement of 7,100 officers by 2025.

‘POLICE SHOULD INVESTIGATE ACTUAL CRIMES’:

The Free Speech Union said: “Trying to tackle discrimination and prejudice against marginalised groups is a laudable aim.

“But the risk is that in their enthusiasm for this work the PSNI will define ‘hate crime’ too broadly and investigate people for saying things they disapprove of but which aren’t against the law.

“For example, [the PSNI] says ‘harmful comments’ about LGBTQIA people are ‘hate crimes’, which is misleading.

“Stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation is a hate crime, but misgendering a trans person is not.”

(The term “misgendering” means refusing to acknowledge someone’s self-declared gender; so if someone who is physically male wishes to be referred to as a female, to do otherwise is to “misgender” that person.)

The Free Speech Union statement continued: “In addition, referring to someone who reports a hate crime as a ‘victim’ [something the PSNI has often done], without having established any of the facts, means taking their account at face value, including their accusation against the alleged perpetrator.

“That flies in the face of the presumption of innocence, which is a sacrosanct principle of British justice.

“We’ve seen where this kind of overreach can lead in England and Wales, where an estimated 250,000 ‘non-crime hate incidents’ have been recorded by police forces since 2014.

“That’s a lot of man-hours spent investigating ‘non-crimes’ when the police should be investigating actual crimes.”

NON-CRIMINAL INCIDENTS CLASSED AS ‘HIGH HARM’:

The PSNI responded that “like many other high harm reports, non-crime hate incidents are recorded on policing systems nationally”.

These can “help police services including the PSNI to identify signal incidents which may indicate an escalation of tensions within a particular area or community thereby assisting us in our preventative approach to keeping people safe”.

It added: “If someone reports to us believing they are a victim of a hate motivated crime, we will investigate their report.

“The outcome of that investigation then determines how we as a Police Service respond and may instigate a wider criminal justice system response.

“Determining whether a crime has taken place in the eyes of the law, requires Police to look into reports made to us and take the appropriate investigative steps. This is the same for any crime reported to us.

“Hate crime, as we’ve seen before, can have a long lasting and damaging impact on victims and we will continue to encourage those who feel they have been targeted because of their disability, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation or transgender identity to report.”

More from the News Letter on this:

Use transgender pronouns or face possible dismissal: new guidelines for NI’s 23,000 civil servants

Church of Ireland document states there are males, females – and ‘non-binary’ people

PSNI says officers should work in an ‘empowering safe space’ as it urged all staff ‘to be an ally of the LGBT+ community’

HERE IS THE PSNI PRESS RELEASE IN FULL, PUBLISHED MAY 17:

PSNI supports International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia:

Today (17 May) The Police Service of Northern Ireland are pleased to be supporting the International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).

This awareness day celebrates the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and agender (LGBTQIA) communities globally and raises awareness of the continued work needed to prevent discrimination towards them.

Supporting the LGBTQIA communities, including both the public and police colleagues, continues to be an area of focus for the Police Service of Northern Ireland who recognises more can and will be done to build trust and confidence within these communities to report to Police.

In Northern Ireland over the last 12 months from 1st April 2021 to 31st March 2022, the number of homophobic and transphobic motivated crimes each recorded their highest financial year figure since the recording of these hate motivations began in 2004/05.

Homophobic incidents increased from 366 to 462 and crimes increased from 246 to 336.

Transphobic incidents decreased from 71 to 65, while the number of transphobic crimes rose from 34 to 42.

Today and for the remainder of the week, the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Hate Crime leads will be taking part in events hosted by The Rainbow Project, Cara-Friend, HERe NI and the Equality Commission.

The Police Service will also be posting a range of content across their corporate social media channels encouraging members of the LGBTQIA community to take the brave step in coming forward to report crimes against them.

Superintendent Sue Steen, the Police Service’s Hate Crime Lead said: “This awareness day and week of activity hosted by our partners is a reminder to us all of the continued work that needs to take place to support our LBGTQIA communities.

“Nobody should face discrimination because of their gender or sexuality and we will continue tackling such prejudice.

“We should be proud of the diversity within Northern Ireland.

“We still have a long way to go until everybody in our community feels safe to live their lives openly and without fear.

“There are still too many LGBTQIA people who are subjected to harmful comments and even violence.

“These hate crimes will not be tolerated and it is up to all not to stand by if we see somebody being affected and to report it to the police.

“Over the coming weeks, alongside The Rainbow Project, we will be hosting a series of listening events with members of the LGBTQIA community to hear what more we can do to build trust and confidence in policing so that we can work together to put an end to hate.”

On 1st April 2022 the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Department of Justice launched a new advocacy service to support victims of hate crime, including from the LGBTQIA community, through the justice system.

The Hate Crime Advocacy service is a consortium consisting of The Rainbow Project, The Migrant Centre NI, Leonard Cheshire Disability and Victim Support NI.

When a victim reports a hate crime to police, their details will be shared with the advocates.

They will then contact the victim to offer support and answer any questions they may have about the criminal justice process.

Commenting on the Hate Crime Advocacy service and the ongoing partnership working with the Police to increase reporting of hate crime against LGBTQIA people, Aisling Twomey, Policy and Advocacy Manager at The Rainbow Project said: “The majority of LGBTQIA hate crimes and incidents go unreported, with young people particularly reluctant to report their experiences to the police.

“A staggering 68% of respondents to The Rainbow Project 2021 state of the community survey never reported any experiences of violence, abuse, intimidation or coercion to the Police or any other services and only 9% had reported to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

“Key reasons for not reporting included that they didn’t believe that Police could do anything about it or that it was not serious enough and they were fearful of repercussions.

“When you report hate crime or crime in general, you become part of the movement to stop it.

“No matter how small or trivial you think the incident might be, it is important to the whole community that it is acknowledged and reported.

“This is why The Rainbow Project is continuing to work alongside the Police Service of Northern Ireland and our Hate Crime Advocacy Partners in Victim Support, Leonard Cheshire and the Migrant Centre to increase awareness of hate crimes and getting victims and witnesses access to support.”

To find out more about the Hate Crime Advocacy Service you can visit the website here: https://hcasni.com/

Victims and witnesses can report incidents to police without fear via the non-emergency number 101 or 999 if a crime is ongoing.

Victims or witnesses who come forward will be taken seriously and treated with sensitivity.

However, if people do not feel comfortable speaking directly to police, hate crime can also be reported anonymously to Crimestoppers www.crimestoppers-uk.org or 0800 555 111.