The NSPCC and Enhanced Disclosures

Earlier this year I wrote this post including a submission I had sent to my local MP, Martin Linton, regarding the UK system of 'Enhanced Disclosure Criminal Records Bureau checks' (aka Enhanced CRB checks).

The current system of Enhanced CRB checks, introduced as a direct response to the failings of the police and Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute double murderer Ian Huntley, means that false and disproven allegations can be made by the police against those whom they have investigated, questioned or arrested. This means that, instead of the police gathering evidence and the courts deciding on its veracity and the guilt or innocence of the suspect, the police are allowed to decide by themselves who is guilty and who is not - an acquital becomes merely a technical failing of the case rather than a declaration of innocence.

This means that teachers, nurses, social-workers and anyone else who requires and 'Enhanced CRB Check' to work are condemned as guilty at the point of allegation - or at least at the point at which the police believe that are guilty.

The Government and others claim that this is acceptable in the name of 'child protection' - I for one do not believe that child protection and the rule of law to be mutually exclusive. Quiet the opposite; justice and child protection can and should compliment each other.

While false allegations are blighting the lives of men, women and children who are affected by the current CRB regime, no one, not even the legal pressure group 'Justice', is willing to touch the issue due to its unpalitable and controversional nature. A climate of fear has been stoked up in the UK to the extend that no one, not even professionals, are comfortable with talking about banal miscarriages of justice in relation to 'child protection'.

I recently sent a second copy of the above submission to Martin Linton MP but do not expect any sort of substative response; he and the Government realise that their policy is indefensible on the details and instead hide behind insubtantive soundbites to the popular press.

I have also sent the below email to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), a pressure group that is closely linked with both the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice and who has been one of the principle cheerleaders of condemning innocent people 'on the off chace':

Dear Sir or Madam,

I have recently become aware of a number of cases where people have been arrested but subsequently cleared of criminal charges but where these individuals have later been sacked or de facto barred from work due to the repeating of these false allegations as part of the 'enhanced' CRB check process.

An example would be were a teacher is falsely accused of assaulting a pupil, and the falsity of this is is found in court or even in a complete lack of evidence, but that allegation is then reiterated by the police on subsequent enhanced checks as if the teacher may have been 'guilty' in fact if not in law. Another example would be were an adult is falsely accused of possession of child pornography (the Operation Ore credit card fraud scandal for example), but again the fact of the arrest is revealed to employers as if the individual was probably guilty of a crime - it would appear that the police have been promoted to the role of 'judge and jury' in these matters.

Obviously, we are all concerned with protecting children but it is obviously unacceptable that innocent people should undergo para-judicial trial by employers on the basis of unproven allegations logged (or indeed made by) the police force. I am sure we can also agree that the rule of law is absolute and that the way with dealing with child abusers is through prosecution and conviction, not a formalised system of 'no smoke without fire'!

If the new system is to depart from a presumption of innocence, then should it not be for the courts to decide whether such allegations should be included in a check using the civil law 'balance of probabilities test'?

The current system is clearly inadequate, and probably illegal, since it punishes innocent people as if they were guilty. As a leading insider group in this area, can you outline to me what work you are undertaking to repair the current system to ensure that men, women and families who are innocent of any crime are treated as such by employers?

As the system stands, I would never enter the teaching or caring professions and would strongly advise others to avoid them since the current system is founded on a presumption of guilt - indeed one is condemned at the point of allegation and the police, and the lay employer, have been awared the role of judge and jury (something I was trained to believe was the exclusive preserve of the courts).

I look forward to your response.

Bully Boys in Blue? The Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group

Writing about this story on BBC News.

In 1979 a 31 year old teacher named Blair Peach was beaten and killed by officers of the Metropolitan Police's notorious 'Territorial Support Group', the same unit that went on to kill Ian Tomlinson in 2009.

John Cass, a senior police officer, wrote a report on the killing at the time but this report has been suppressed by the Met and the British Government.

Jack Straw, the current Justice Secretary, was a backbench MP at the time of the killing who attempted to force the Government to publish the report. He now as the opportunity to do so but probably will not because his Department, and that of the Home Office, has become a virtual facade for the shadowy 'Association of Chief Police Officers' - a trade union that has usurped the powers of a Government department:

I wrote the below letter to Justice Secretary Jack Straw - I urge you to do the same.

Dear Mr. Straw,

I am writing to you in your capacity as a Parliamentarian in reference to Inquest's call for the publication of the 'Cass Report' on the death of Blair Peach in 1979. I understand that you called for a public inquiry at the time, but that the request was rejected by the then Tory government.

The Met claims that they cannot publish the report as they cannot 'act in a manner that could cause distress'. Since when did the Met care about causing distress? Causing distress seems to be their standard operating procedure when dealing with people they are prejudiced against such as striking miners, protesters or those who they have accused of crime, regardless if there is any evidence of such a crime (something you have condoned in law with Enhanced CRB checks!).

Publish the report; why should the police benefit from protections that innocent members of the public have been denied? If the police have done nothing wrong then surely they have nothing to fear?

BNP victory - what does this say about British politics?

There are a number of reasons why the British National Party, an overtly neo-nazi organisation, won its first parliamentary seats in the 2009 Euro elections: the collapse of Labour amplified its vote; the populist, reactionary rhetoric of the mainstream parties on immigration and crime have legitimised such bigoted views rather than tackled them and; the deletion of social class from the mainstream political vocabulary has left working-class white communities wide open to exploitation by the likes of the BNP.

Democracy is in crisis because the majority of the people (the polity) have literally become idiots; they decline to take responsibility for the management of the state - this is an epic crisis that threatens Western civilisation.

More immediately, the mainstream political parties should have the courage not to be ashamed of their relative education and wisdom to lead the people rather than to follow them. This includes saying 'no' to populist knee-jerk politics and explaining to them why such things as the rule of law, free trade and liberty have been and should continue to be so important to our country.

Sadly, the current tactic of the main parties is to attempt to poach support from the likes of the BNP by borrowing some of its more moderate rhetoric on immigration and crime and thus hoping to make it surplus to requirements by co-opting rather than converting those ignorant enough to hold such views.

The above are difficult, since they require the rebuilding of a nation that perhaps cannot be rebuilt by politicians alone, but the third point is actually relatively simple and redressable if the political parties had the courage to recognise the importance of class.

Currently, much of the Government's social agenda is perceived as being geared toward redressing inequalities based on race and gender rather than on class. If we look at the concrete realities of disadvantage as experienced on the street, the above categories are primarily (although not entirely) proxies for class disadvantage and deprivation, but proxies that exclude the majority of disadvantaged people in the UK today.

Issues of racial and gender identity are not irrelevant in our society - there are working class specific and wider issues where race and gender are key, but they should not be used as expedient proxies for addressing social disadvantage that is really about class. To do so is to foster a sense of alienation amongst already marginalised members of disadvantaged communities and leave them open to exploitation and co option by the BNP. To claim that these people are simply wrong in their perception and to leave it at that is to bury ones head in the sand while the tide comes in.