Interview: Environmental Health experts on the trouble with CPNs

John Pointing is a barrister and David Horrocks is a chartered Environmental Health Practitioner; together they run Statutory Nuisance Solutions. They have decades of experience in the environmental health field, and co-authored the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health guidance on Community Protection Notices. What follows is an edited transcript of an interview with John and David, in which the discuss the trouble with CPNs, the reasons for the falling standards in local authority enforcement, and what needs to be done. What is the background to the changes in environmental health enforcement? The shift in Environmental Health enforcement started to occur around 2003,…

CPNs: Do you need help?

Have you received an unjust CPN? Do you need help? We are partnering with the Freedom Law Clinic to provide legal support for people who have received a Community Protection Notice. Qualifying solicitors will work with CPN recipients to provide legal support, such as advice on appeal process, writing court testimonies, or submitting informal appeals to the council. Their work will be overseen by solicitor and Freedom Law Clinic director Luke Gittos. Qualifying solicitors will also prepare case reports of historic CPNs, documenting events and the legal process, and providing support where necessary. At the same time, the Manifesto Club will work…

Council prosecutes woman for bipolar episode

The Statutory Guidance for Community Protection Notices (CPNs) says that ‘Particular care should be taken to consider how use of the power might impact on more vulnerable members of society’. This would include groups such as the homeless, young people, or those with mental illnesses. We are currently in touch with a woman with bipolar disorder, who was issued with a Community Protection Warning (CPW) on the basis of unfounded allegations made against her by her neighbour. The stress of the CPW led the woman to have a bipolar relapse, after which the council issued her with a CPN and then a…

Pensioner given criminal record for weeds

For the past year, we have been in touch with an elderly lady in north London who has received a series of council CPNs for Japanese knotweed. Her case is tragic and perverse – and shows perhaps better than any the counterproductive nature of Community Protection Notices, and why they badly need to be reformed. The justification for CPNs was that these provide quick and easy redress for ‘victims’ of anti-social behaviour. However, the extremely low standards of evidence and procedure (requiring no production of evidence, and no formal process or proof of guilt) have yielded instead a system that is arbitrary,…

Family with autistic children issued with legal order for ‘slamming door’

One council has issued a legal order to a family ordering them not to ‘slam doors’. The family has two autistic children, and so leaving the house can be something of a challenging business. Yet the council issued them with a Community Protection Notice ordering them to ‘make sure that when you close the door you do in a way that does not disturb others’. When the family pressed a council officer for specification, he suggested that they close the door with both hands. When the father said that he needed one hand to hold a child, the council was unsympathetic. The…

CPNs: The Anarchy of Arbitrary Power

Summary This report analyses local authorities’ use of the Community Protection Notice power in the year between November 2015 and October 2016, following on from our previous report on the use of the power in its first year. Our FOI requests to all English and Welsh councils with powers to issue CPNs, found that between November 2015 and October 2016, 4376 Community Protection Notices were issued. These orders have been used to impose highly unreasonable restrictions upon individuals, such as that they must not swear, they must not have any visitors to their home, or that they may not drink alcohol in their home. Homeless people have received orders…

CPNs: The crime of crying in your own home

For two years, the Manifesto Club has been campaigning against ‘blank-cheque’ Public Spaces Protection Order powers, which allow a local authority to prohibit any activity it believes to have a detrimental effect on the quality of life. There has been some public opposition to particular PSPOs, which have led to draft orders being modified or withdrawn. In the process of this campaign, we have become aware that other powers in the same act – Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 – are being used to a similar effect, but have gone beneath the radar of public discussion and debate. These powers include Community Protection Notices, an order which…