The Manifesto Club has collected new statistics showing the continuing rise of litter fines issued by private companies. The primary company is Kingdom Security Ltd, which purchased the litter fines operation from XFor Ltd, and according to our FOI responses now works in…
The Manifesto Club is supporting a new campaign, Football Fans Not Criminals, highlighting the ways in which ordinary law-abiding football fans are being treated like criminals. For merely attending a match and supporting their team, fans are subject to a series of special controls and restrictions which do not apply to supporters of other sports. There are 11 laws which apply only to football fans, creating offences which would not be an offence in a rugby or cricket stadium. It is an offence to carry alcohol into a football stadium, to drink in view of the pitch, to sell or give away tickets,…
All walk-on and supporting actors for the main TV companies now require a basic criminal records check. They need this for any production on which an under-18 will be on set, at any point and for any length of time. (A 17-year old on the set for a few minutes will require everyone in the whole production to be checked. The whole production will need to be checked if there is a chance that an under-18 might at some point contribute ‘as a result of last-minute changes to the schedule’.) The actor will have to pay the £25 check fee themselves and give the certificate…
A guest post by Samir Jeraj, outlining the progress of events in the London borough of Hackney, where a PSPO banning homelessness was successfully overturned by residents. Soon after the May 2015 elections, our local newspaper The Hackney Citizen published a warning from Crisis, a national homelessness charity. Their Chief Executive, Jon Sparkes, was warning that a new ‘Public Space Protection Order’ from Hackney Council would criminalise homeless people. Sophie Linden, the Councillor in charge of the PSPO, said: ‘The level of street drinking, persistent rough sleeping and the associated anti-social behaviour in the area reached the point that we had to…
Coventry City Council is planning a PSPO for a public park, which will prohibit ‘congregation of groups of 2 or more persons in the Designated Area where the behaviour of some or all members of the group has or is likely to have a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the community’. This incredibly broad PSPO is being planned in a park where there appear to be very serious problems – allegations of drug dealing, assault, even the procurement of under-age children for sex. Yet rather than focus on the individuals committing these very serious offences, the council…
I have just received an email from a school governor: “I’m a Chair of Governors of a primary school and have been made aware of a new statutory instrument that was laid before Parliament last week, which mandates that all governors of maintained schools have an enhanced criminal records check, regardless of whether they’re undertaking regulated activity or not. Up until now, the decision as to whether to check all governors was down to the LA or body in question, and we did not routinely vet new governors. Despite being known to the school for over a decade, I will be required to…
Oxford City Council is continuing its campaign to squeeze spontaneous social life and character out of the city with a new PSPO, this time targeting the city’s waterways. The order will prohibit mooring without permission of the landowner, storing items on the bank without permission of the landowner, smoke or noise pollution which causes annoyance to others; it will also give council officers powers to confiscate alcohol and to order people to put their dogs on leads. In its evidence, the council cited the 95 reported crimes that had occurred on the waterways in 19 months, including arson, burglary from boathouses, assault, drug dealing,…
PSPOS — Blank-Cheque Powers Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) are unprecedently ‘blank cheque’ powers, which allow a single council official to ban activities in public spaces within a matter of days, after a brief consultation with the police. These measures have been presented as a decentralisation of power to local communities, but in reality central government has given certain council officers the powers to create new criminal laws, with minimal checks and balances and a very low burden of proof. Our FOI requests have found that since the enacting of PSPOs as part of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act on 20 October 2014, 130 PSPOs have been passed in…
A guest post by Peter Lloyd: There has been some welcome reduction in the number of football matches subject to the draconian restrictions on freedom of movement that make them ‘bubble’ matches, as their discriminatory approach and blatant unfairness have become better known and objected to by clubs and fans alike. But already this season supporters of Burnley, Bristol City and Wrexham have been forced to travel on official coaches and severely restricted if they wanted to watch their team play at Blackburn, Cardiff and Chester respectively. Match kick-off times have been moved, pat-down searches carried out, roads closed and fans filmed by…
Kettering Council has just passed a draconian and entirely unnecessary PSPO. This order (available in Appendix B here) will ban a series of activities which are in themselves not causing of public nuisance or harm. The result is that people will be fined and criminalised merely for being in a public place, for skateboarding, begging, or for swearing. The PSPO will ban: – ‘Loitering’ – The council’s report says: ‘The police have concerns about the number of people who use the roadways in Kettering as a place to congregate and socialise, particularly at night’. The council does not specify the actual harm…
Southampton Council is proposing a PSPO prohibiting the following activities: (a) The consumption of alcohol or being in possession of an open container of alcohol is prohibited within the designated area. (b) Begging or asking members of the public for money is prohibited within the designated area. (c) Loitering for the purpose of consuming alcohol within the designated area is prohibited (d) Loitering with the intention of begging or asking members of the public for money within the designated area is prohibited. There is a public consultation. Here is the Manifesto Club response: These are extremely unreasonable restrictions on people’s public freedoms.…
In June 2010, Home Secretary Theresa May promised to ‘scale back’ criminal records checks to ‘common-sense proportions’. There was a widespread recognition that vetting was creating mistrust, turning away volunteers, and absorbing the time and money of local community groups. Confirming public…