Briefings

Briefings • PSPOs

Lords debate hike in ‘busybody’ fines

Clause 4 of the Crime and Policing Bill includes a substantial increase in penalties for breach of Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPO) and Community Protection Notices (CPNs), from £100 to £500. The main result of this change will be more people getting massive fines for dubious non-offences such as having a messy garden, begging, standing in groups and ‘idling’. These penalties will be largely issued by dodgy private enforcement companies who are paid per fine. The Bill is now in the Lords, and two peers – Lord Tim Clement Jones and Baroness Claire Fox – have introduced Committee Stage amendments to remove…

Briefings

Crime and Policing Bill Briefing

The Crime and Policing Bill will introduce a swathe of liberty-robbing measures: it will create absurd new crimes, new blank-cheque powers, and out-of-proportion new penalties. Here is the Manifesto Club’s briefing in advance of the House of Lords Second Reading on 16 October, highlighting some parts of the Bill that are particularly concerning. Increase in fines for ‘busybody’ offences from £100 to £500 (Clause 4) Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) allow local authorities to ban particular activities in a particular area, if they believe that an activity is having a ‘detrimental effect on the quality of life’. Community Protection Notices (CPNs) can…

Briefings • Dispersal powers • PSPOs • Public space

Doncaster officers issue more dispersals than most police authorities

A small group of Doncaster Council officers are issuing more dispersal notices than most police authorities. In 2023, the council’s ‘City Centre Engagement Officers‘ issued 504 orders to people to leave Doncaster city centre for 24 hours. The officers counted 90 breaches, and issued 12 fixed penalty notices for breach. Data from police authorities in the year up to July 2023 found that only four authorities – Hampshire (990 dispersals), Northumbria (833), Norfolk (753), and the Metropolitan Police (522) – issued more dispersal notices than these council officers. The 14 other police authorities able to provide the information issued fewer dispersals than…

Briefings • CPNs

Record number of prosecutions for Community Protection Notices in 2022

Community Protection Notices (CPNs) are on-the-spot legal orders that can be issued on the basis of a police or council officer’s opinion that somebody’s conduct has a ‘detrimental effect on the quality of life’. There is no requirement for the officer to gather evidence, or even to speak to the CPN recipient, before issuing the notice. People have received CPNs banning them from wearing a bikini in their garden, looking at their neighbours, entering the town centre, feeding birds in their garden, or using leather footballs in a school playground. If a person fails to appeal a CPN within a 21-day window…

Briefings • Free speech • Public space

Do we want to still have a right to protest in 2022? The Police Bill must be stopped at all costs

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill must be stopped at all costs. This Bill would in effect remove the right to protest; it would give police officers the power to ban or place restrictions of their choice upon public demonstrations. This Bill would mean that someone could be locked up for 10 years if they put others ‘at risk of’ disease, or at risk of ‘serious inconvenience’ or ‘serious annoyance’. This Bill comes after freedom of association has effectively been suspended for months, with organisers slapped with £10,000 fines and demonstrations violently broken up by police. This Bill would mean that…

Briefings • PSPOs

Dozens of council orders now illegal under new government guidance

The Home Office has published new Statutory Guidance governing Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs), a power that has been used to ban a wide range of public activities, including ball games, rough sleeping and standing in groups. We have carried out FOI surveys into the use of the PSPO power in the period up until June 2017 (this data is available in one report published in February 2016, and another in July 2017). Using this data, we estimate that around a fifth of existing PSPOs are explicitly prohibited, or strongly advised against, by the new guidance. The important change is that the new…

Briefings • PSPOs

Statutory Guidance on PSPOs and CPNs: A campaigner’s guide

After campaigning from the Manifesto Club and others, the Home Office has released new Statutory Guidance covering the use of anti-social behaviour powers, including Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) and Community Protection Notices (CPNs). We still believe that these powers are inherently flawed and should be scrapped altogether. This Guidance is not perfect and could have gone further, but nonetheless it makes several important changes, and could significantly limit the abuse of these new powers. Here are the significant new elements to the Statutory Guidance, below:   PUBLIC SPACES PROTECTION ORDERS GUIDANCE 1. The Guidance states that PSPOs should target the activity causing…