Police Scotland have replied to my (and many others) concerns about their anti-hate campaign I reported the police to themselves for breaching their own guidelines here
Now they have replied…and it is an astonishing reply –
As you may be aware, the following definitions are used by Police Scotland in relation to hate crimes and incidents.
- A hate crime is any crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group.
- A hate incident is any incident which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated (wholly or partly) by malice and ill-will towards a social group but which does not constitute a criminal offence (non-crime incident).
Police Scotland has assessed the circumstances you raise. The motivation of the Scottish Government campaign is not based on malice or ill will towards any social group, therefore the circumstances will not be recorded as hate related. Details of your correspondence however have been recorded and the content passed to Scottish Government, Connected Communities Unit.
No further action will be taken.
John McKenzie. Chief Superintendent, Safer Communities
Why is that astonishing? Because the police, or rather Chief Superintendent John McKenzie, seems unaware of his own legislation which states that a hate incident is something that occurs in the ‘perception of the victim or any other person to be motivated by malice or ill will towards a social group’ . It does not matter whether the alleged perpetrator took their actions based on malice or ill will – it’s the perception of the victim that they did which counts. It is a daft criteria but it is the one on which the police say they operate – except apparently when it involves themselves. Even though many people regard this and have reported it as a hate incident, the police say that the motivation of the perpetrators (the Scottish Government and the Police) was not based on malice or ill will and therefore this will not be reported as a hate incident – no further action will be taken (and presumably this won’t go down in their official records as a reported hate incident – it appears that some hate incidents are more equal than others!).
What is the Bigger Picture?
The question then is are the police hierarchy so illogical that they can’t see the contradiction between their laws and their actions? Or does this really show us what the bigger picture is? This poster campaign is not about stopping ‘hate’ against all people – it’s a selective campaign based upon a political ideology designed to discriminate in favour of certain groups and against others. The idea is that those selected groups which fit into this ideology are encouraged to report as much as possible, so that the Government can then say that the police have indicated a rise in the number of transphobic, Islamaphobic, homophobic etc crimes – and thus justify spending more money funding their own organisations which in turn need to report an increase in victimhood. The ideological victimhood gravy train is a lucrative one to catch!
The bottom line is that our police have become the thought police whose purpose is not just to prevent crime, but to impose the State doctrines. In this they work in conjunction with the education system (now used more for social engineering than actual education) and increasingly the legal system, although as the Ashers case shows our judiciary still maintain a degree of independence. The only thing that will prevent this going deeper is if we manage to maintain a free press, freedom of speech and freedom of religion although all of these are increasingly under attack.
Thats why the Scottish police and legal system spent so much time and money prosecuting a ‘daft laddie’ from Glasgow who made a silly video on the internet – watch this incredible story about Police Scotland and the Nazi dog. Thanks to Spiked for this great piece of journalism.
(I hope I don’t need to point out that I find the video Count Dankula posted offensive and distasteful – but I don’t want everyone or everything I find offensive or distasteful arrested and prosecuted – if that happened the whole country would become a prison!)
It’s not just the Scottish police – the South Yorkshire police have also joined in….but this is way beyond the police and the removal of any kind of meaningful law from our society. It is also about the nature and place of truth in our culture as this brilliant article from Unherd points out – How the powerful are perverting the truth
Back in 1996, I wrote that we can’t understand the universe, in any useful way, without accepting that it exists beyond our consciousness. Throughout my adult life I’ve believed that words matter, as they are our thoughts made (metaphorical) flesh, and so are also real objects in that same universe they are attempting to describe. Words are real things, with power.
Increasingly, and terrifyingly, only the last sentence of that paragraph holds water. Words have power, all right, but their actual meaning (define “hate crime”) no longer matters. Facts don’t matter. Biology doesn’t matter. History doesn’t matter. The truth is whatever the pathologically subjective declares it to be.
The Spectator also covered this in another perceptive article from Toby Young – Shouldn’t the Police be chasing down theft and assault and not thought crime
I was contacted by a serving police office who says that this kind of stuff is doing their heads in and he completely agreed. Young makes the same point.
Ordinary coppers don’t want to be spending their days chasing down thought criminals,
obviously. Last month, the new head of the Police Federation complained that his 120,000 members were being forced to follow up hate crime reports when they would much rather be investigating burglaries, two-thirds of which were not properly investigated by the police last year. It’s their managers who are at fault, such as the bright spark at South Yorkshire Police who encouraged Twitter users to report ‘non-crime hate incidents’ — episodes so trivial they don’t even meet the absurdly capacious definition of a hate crime.
The police have time and money to run these kind of campaigns. Meanwhile I think of a friend who went down to the city centre police station to report a serious threat (his local police station has been closed and phoning the centralised police phone number results in someone in Glasgow not knowing the local area at all), only to find that it was unstaffed. In Scotland we have moved from having several police forces to having one centralised one – although this was done for financial reasons a side effect is that it makes it much easier for the police to become the instrument of the State – a State which is seeking to impose its ideology on everyone (remember that these posters tell you that if you don’t agree with them you are ‘not Scotland’).
Haters aren't gonna hate here – Scotland has a zero tolerence approach to hate crime 💙 #LiveScotland #ScotlandIsNow #NHCAW #No2Hate pic.twitter.com/73DsOSwbTX
— Scotland Is Now 🏴 (@Scotland) October 13, 2018
Our society is moving more and more towards this totalitarian thought police society. One of many responses I received shows how this is infecting the workplace as well – and in the same way. Remember that this is not about stopping ‘hate’, it’s about promoting one ideology and denigrating others. ” I was asked at work to sign a document that said if I offended someone on social media, it would be construed as workplace harassment. So far I’ve refused, out of genuine concern that this could be used to clobber me over the head from an LGBTQI+ perspective, but there is a definite pattern here.”
One final thought – this is not just a ‘religious’ thing. Others who have contacted me include atheists, secularists and those who often don’t agree with me…
Hi David, Really appreciate your article – I am not religious but wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments regarding the ‘campaign’ of intolerance by the Scottish Gov/Police Scotland.
My name’s … and I’m from …. and I’m a lesbian. I just want to say that I fully support you and I think these posters are terrible too. So do a lot of my friends. We don’t feel like Christians hate us and we don’t hate Christians either. I reported the poster as a hate crime against religious people and then I found out you’d done it too and I had to send you a quick message. Hopefully you’re not getting too much abuse from young people who identify as queer and non binary.
I find it increasingly the case that I am on the same side as some feminists and gay activists (at least in this area of free speech) whilst the rich and powerful (including some of the clergy – I was even told that the State Church had ‘approved’ these posters) think that this kind of State sponsored indoctrination and suppression of free speech is fine. Its a strange world…..
This is all disconcerting but I just can’t help but wonder ‘what is the way forward?’ from all this? These moves by British authorities are so backwards, and from my limited perspective out of step with even the majority of the secular population. Despite this, I once considered myself a classical liberal but find myself having increasing antipathy towards our establishment. Are things just set to get worse? Or is any light to be found in this tunnel?
You have received what I call standard fob-off email 2, which is almost certainly sent to all who express dissatisfaction (as I did) with standard fob-off email 1. I have been publishing my email correspondence with the police, here:
Police Scotland’s bid to wriggle out of hate crime bust
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2018/10/11/police-scotland-tries-to-wriggle-out-of-a-hate-crime-bust/
You will be able to read there my response to the email you have just received, in which I make exactly the same point as you, plus the police’s response to that, a holding response, while they put their thinking cap on.
Same Chief Inspector John McKenzie, of course.
Again, thank you for facing down this nonsense. From this southern side of the border it looks as if the uniting of the Scottish police forces has made it resultant system all too vulnerable to malign intent .
I’ve made two hate crime reports, one as a witness, another as a victim, from the southern side of the border. I explained in the text of my hate crime report why I don’t think it’s necessary to live in Scotland to witness this hate crime, or to be a victim of it. The text of my hate crime report, and all the emails back and forth since, are published on my blog.
Police Scotland’s hate crime
https://johnallmanuk.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/police-scotlands-own-hate-crime/
I’m taking the view that until somebody tells me otherwise, as an Englishman in England, I can (if they force me to) take Police Scotland to court, for point-blank refusing to record my hate crime reports as such and investigate them, sending a report to the Crown Prosecution Service, which also operates in Scotland. I may lose the court case, but gain publicity, plus experience that will be useful if ever my own local police force tries on an evil stunt like this.
Correction: The Crown Prosecution Service doesn’t operate in Scotland, which has The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service instead, as far as I’ve found out so far.
Excellent work John, I’m curious to see where it goes. It seems the police treat things differently when it against themselves, maybe that is where the ombudsman would come in?
David – This is not the end of the matter! You can now make a FORMAL Complaint about the Police (CAP) (online) in respect of your dissatisfaction about Police Scotland’s Policies or procedures. This is totally separate to what you have already reported and will be recorded and a response sent to you. When you receive that response and if you are still dissatisfied you can take your complaint to the Police Independent Review Commissioner (PIRC). The PIRC will examine how your complaint was handled and they also have particular focus on matters of a ‘public interest’ which this certainly is.
The three ideas I mooted in my reply to the stage 2 fob-off standard email, were (I quote):
66
1) making a complaint+ to the police about the display of the poster, and another about the handling of my report of this poster’s display as a hate crime
[+your suggestion]
2) sending you a formal Letter Before Action pursuant to the Pre-action Protocol for Judicial Review (judicial review of your NFA* decision, that is)
[*NFA=no further action]
3) absent an assurance that the offending poster will no longer be displayed, seeking an injunction under the Protection From Harassment Act, compelling the police to stop displaying the poster, and possible seeking damages.
99
This, and other correspondence is published on my blog. (I cannot keep adding links to my blog, to comments I post on David’s blog!)
The limitation period for judicial review is only 3 months, and the burden of proof is high. There is no guarantee of an oral hearing. The limitation period for harassment actions is six years, and the legislation is designed to be claimant-friendly, and a hearing in open court will take place.
I’ve worked before with the guy who more-or-less wrote the book on harassment law, on Philip Kerr v MI5 (q.v.).
Last week a neighbour had their door side windows smashed in by people attempting to break into his house. They came back an hour later to have another try. The police still haven’t been round to investigate. Meanwhile the local plod are spending great amounts of time publicising little stories they have written about reporting ‘hate crime’.
They are at great pains to tell us that we can report, as a hate crime, something we weren’t involved in ourselves, but where ‘we think’ someone else was hate crimed against.
In the meantime, in London, it’s running at one murder a day from knives and guns.
As a pastor I am regularly called things that could easily be defined as hate crime (as David is, even on this website). While they occasionally get my goat, I can live with that. But people can’t live with being killed.
As a side point, our local council is beginning the process of putting in place another snowflake zone around a nearby abortion clinic. Their priority is clearly not life either.
The United Kingdom seems to be travelling at least 200 years into the past. Minus the better features of that period, & with no possibility of being confident that the law will oppose wrong-doing, rather than assist, protect & promote it. One cannot even take for granted that the Churches are Christian. A not-Christian Church can only produce a sick society
Maybe this rot has always been under the surface, waiting to emerge when given its head, like pus under a scab. And now, most of the old taboos, stigmas & restraints are gone. Things are going to get much worse.
Rev. Stockford,
Let me give you a perspective from the states. 1 murder a day is the official number. The true number is probably 2-3 times that, but the losses are still tolerable. By “tolerable,” I mean, “Not enough to wake the people into taking up arms to defend themselves or demanding the right to keep and bear arms.” The police in the corrupt urban areas of the US are better or worse depending on the city. In many cities, the police care only about protecting businesses and the rich. Otherwise, if there’s no body, there’s no crime. Many police feel so thwarted by the district attorney, city hall, and the voters that they’ve given up and are just waiting to collect a pension.
Typically, cities move Leftward politically until they’re depopulated of the middle class by crime leaving only the rich and their servants and half the population on welfare. The rich are usually not satisfied with their own poor as servants so they get them from violent foreign countries where there are no police. This is an effort to drive down wages under the guise of DIVERSITY! The middle class flee to the suburbs. Eventually, the cops can no longer even protect the rich at which point the rich start dumping the criminal class to the suburbs and whip the middle class back to the cities through “gentrification.”
Most of the “policing” you’re seeing at this point is just an effort to maintain the illusion of control. It’s like when Brazilian cops post pictures of confiscated DIY firearms: it’s a show to convince the middle class that they’re still being protected. In reality, men in the favelas are armed with RPGs and Russian-made AK-47s left over from the Communist guerrilla movements of the ’70s and the police can only enter these areas with close air support (I’m not making this up).
The effects of the policies of the rich will be to collapse the nation-state system and Lebanize the territories that were once states. Our own government has published papers on this.
Remember: their control is only an illusion. The gate is unlocked and the guards have fled to their own homes. Y’all have only to walk out.
You need to look at the latest uk government website: educateagainsthate.com
Would be interested to know your thoughts on it, whether it is another part of the worrying “big brother” tendency of the government.
The response of, no further action, is not surprising, but the reasons given, as a matter of administrative law in England and Wales could give rise to a legal process of Judicial Review. Or, indeed, there may be different system of appeal. And all those people with rebuffed grievances, complaints are likely to have locus standi, perhaps as a “class or group action.
While Supreme Court Judges will by and large come from a particular class and education, they are independent, not political appointments, and form part of the Separation of Powers, between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. As the unanimous decision in the Asher’s case illustrates they are independent thinkers not swayed by the clamour of culture.
And it is worth remembering that it took the unflinching support of the Christian Institute from start to finish of the expensive legal proceedings in the Asher’s case against publically funded support.
One, almost unwritten, public policy factor taken into account in making decisions, was the avoidance of multiplicity of actions. (again England and Wales). Don’t know if that continues to apply. The whole idea of “hate crime” goes in the opposite direction.
I agree with you that JR might be justified, but for practical reasons I have mooted, in another comment of mine on this page, a different litigation strategy, using The Protection From Harassment Act. In England this has to be done within 6 years, using the Part 8 procedure. I don’t even know whether the CPR applies in Scotland. But it may be possible to sue in Engand a harasser outside the jurisdiction. We can look it up on the internet.
It’s all very reminiscent of Esther to my way of thinking. A ripping yarn, in the Canonical chapters that are held infallible in churches like David’s and in the longer and much-embellished version of the story in the Apocrypha, from the Septuagint. (I love that book!)
I do like the Spectator cartoon!
I hope that you do take this further. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Can’t he see for himself how he quoted the definition and yet changed the definition in his application?
The fact he even quoted the definition baffles me. At least he could have waffled some sort of nonsense but he hasn’t even apologised that malice was perceived.
I believe it was motivated by malice and hate to a degree, I perceived it to be so, as did you and many others, clearly the chief superintendent didn’t but that isn’t the point of the guidelines. I know I’m repeating what you’ve said so many times but I am so annoyed by his utterly stupid response.
He has distorted the definition and that should be reported as an incident in itself. This response angers me more than the posters themselves which I thought stupid, ignorant and bigoted.
If I were you I would be inclined to report the chief superintendent for twisting the definition to suit his own purposes. I’d support you.
Islam believe’s that Jesus was a Prophet, It would be interesting to See and Hear from a Muslim about How they view One of their Prophets Words being placed in the category of Hate Speech.
Obviously for a Christian Jesus is the Son of God.
But there are Muslims on youtube on the streets of England Giving out Korans and Speaking with Christians and the Rest of the Public about the Islamic Faith And Seeing that the Koran Mentions Jesus 24 times Where as it Mentions Mohammed 6 times then From a Muslim Viewpoint??? Would these Hate Laws Be Seen As an Attack on One of Islams Prophets Seeing that’s How they Regard Jesus.
I am so ‘offended’ that many people do not view Jesus as the Son of God.
This really ‘hurts’ me.
Why do they ‘hate’ me so much?
Pastor David
I am the person who sent you the links the other day about proposed widescale censorship that were reported on a Commie website. I didn’t know how trustworthy the site was though they provided primary source docs as evidence. Now, though, it has already begun:
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/12/cens-o12.html
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/15/pers-o15.html
Dark times.
The police, by their own criteria for “hate crimes”, have committed at least one. So I would persevere. They cannot be allowed to think that the law allows their hate crimes, while forbidding, and punishing, others. I would seriously consider taking them to court. This utterly foolish law needs to be challenged.
David,
Chief Superintendent McKenzie is in a hole with little option but to keep digging. I wonder if those who put him in this position are as unaware as he seems to be of how his reply sounds to those whose trust in the police has already been eroded. The poster campaign failed to notice that ‘Bigot’ is generally not taken personally by someone who is bigoted whereas anyone who has been accused unjustly of being a bigot could assume that they are being addressed and many do.
As soon as realisation sets in that they are battering the wrong target, the logical thing to do is apologise and withdraw. They haven’t apologised so the charitable thing is to suppose that they have not realised what they are actually communicating to the very people they think they’re protecting!
Instead, Chief Superintendent McKenzie is probably unaware that the poster was read by many as saying ‘Go and live somewhere else.’ He is most surely unaware that ‘Details of your correspondence … have been recorded and the content passed to Scottish Government, Connected Communities Unit.’ sounds awfully like, ‘We know where you live.’
On the other hand, just because you’re paranoid …
Yours,
John/.
The B-word, “big*t”, has become to Christians in the UK today, as the N-word, “n**g*r”, was to African Americans in Alabama, during the days of Lyndon B Johnson’s presidency and the rampages of the Klu Klux Klan. That’s how the meaning of the B-word has evolved.
I cannot remember having heard the word in conversion over the past few years, except in connection with its misuse in order to put down Christians (or religious people in general), not because of any intolerance on the victims’ part of the beliefs of others, but rather because of an intolerance on the part of those who call Christians and others this and other names, because they are intolerant themselves of the beliefs of those whom they insult in this manner.
I’m not quite ready to agree with you about the evolution of ‘Bigot’, John,
and not just because your reading depends on an over-realised expectation of persecution. I’m not saying it won’t come here but comparing our trials with the burning down of ‘Black’ churches in the American South is too much.
There is a generation dying out in England, who still think it’s extremely rude to describe someone else as ‘black’ because in their youth, ‘black’ was a pejorative label. ‘Methodist’ was a label of disapproval that was taken up as a badge of honour and so, perhaps to a lesser extent was ‘Puritan.’ Will the same happen with ‘Bigot’? I don’t think that the word is as closely applied to Christians as would warrant us getting the teeshirts printed with the obvious backronym: B.I.G.O.T. (Believer in God; Obedient; Truthful.) Not yet anyway.
The two most notorious cases of the words being used in recent memory are 1) the time when Gordon Brown left the microphone on and described a protester about excess immigration as ‘a bigoted woman’ and 2) the time that a leaked position paper or whatever from Nick Clegg’s office described opponents of gay marriage as bigots. In neither case was ‘bigot’ being used as a code word for ‘Christian.’ But as with so many things it’s a case of ‘watch this space.’
Yours,
John/.
I only wish I had had an “over-realised expectation of persecution” before I actually experienced persecution. If I had, I might have been more careful to keep a low profile, and thus avoided entirely unexpected persecution that was less kind than sentencing me to death would have been.
I compared two words, not one crime with another.
Thank you for reminding me of two in-the-news examples of the word “bigot” used to express intolerance, but not of Christians.
I cannot remember myself having heard the word bigot on the lips of Nick Clegg or Gordon Brown. I stand by my original statement. I genuinely cannot remember having heard the word bigot in conversion over the past few years, except in connection with its misuse in order to put down Christians (or religious people in general), not because of any intolerance on the victims’ part of the beliefs of others, but rather because of an intolerance on the part of those who call Christians and others this and other names, because they are intolerant themselves of the beliefs of those whom they insult in this manner.
Very dramatic, John,
would it be appropriate for you to elucidate and do you care to?
Yours,
John/.
It would not be appropriate for me to elucidate here, however much I might care to. You are invited to learn what I am referring to on my blog, specifically in the post immediately before (i.e. listed below) “Alfie’s inquest?”
This is not a topic for wimps and snipers. I must not derail David’s intended focus here, nor enter a legal grey area, by elucidating here.
Thank you for your sarcasm.
Sarcasm not intended, John.
The invitation was genuine and thanks for the link.
Yours,
John/.
John,
What prompted my over-realised expectation of persecution remark was the fact that my contemporaries who — thirty years ago — expected to be imprisoned for preaching the Gospel in this country have not been imprisoned. Persecution has come much more subtly, in that people have lost their businesses because they attempted to apply what most of us would recognise as Christian principles. (Some have lost business even though they were acquitted because there is a corporate fear of guilt by association among those with powers of patronage.) Loss of reputation; loss of access; loss of business; and even loss of health can be inflicted without it being obvious that Christians are being targeted.
However, claiming that we are persecuted because we are Christians would produce expressions of incredulity from almost all onlookers. The orchestration of enmity is not achieved by flesh and blood so our battle, also, is not against flesh and blood. Personally, I’m pretty much pursuaded that orchestrating a response to whatever scrape Satan’s dupes find themselves in, is not the optimum way of fighting a battle that belongs to the Lord. But that may well be just because I am a wimp.
Yours,
John/.
“The idea is that those selected groups which fit into this ideology are encouraged to report as much as possible, so that the Government can then say that the police have indicated a rise in the number of transphobic, Islamaphobic, homophobic etc crimes – and thus justify spending more money funding their own organisations which in turn need to report an increase in victimhood. “
I largely agree with the article but I wonder if the above can be proven beyond mere speculation?
I was quite disturbed by the Police Scotland posters as well but largely from a pragmatic standpoint. You don’t bring people to your side of thinking through punishment and dictates, you just entrench people in their views. Section 28 did not bring people to Christ or stop people from being gay but helped to push forward the gay rights movement. Likewise punishing religious people for anti-LGBT views is not going to suddenly make religious people more LGBT friendly.
Just write another complaint – being explicit about this being a hate incident or hate crime in your perceptions as a member of a religious community.
That’s an excellent point, RevDave.
Armour-piercing ordnance needs two qualities. It needs to be sharp at the front, and heavy at the back. (The pressure pulse at impact is roughly proportional to missile weight divided by surface area of the point.)
The sharpness of any hate crime report that is going to pierce the police’s armour, represents how skilfully the complaint is drafted. The weight represents the prestige and the number of witnesses collectively witnessing the same hate crime and victimisation in a single report, plus the degree of press interest shown in the hate crime report that the police wish to sideline.
Each participant so far, so far as we know, has relied on his own wits to draft his hate crime report and subsequent emails rejecting fob-offs. Each has relied upon his own prestige, as a sole complainant. (David has much prestige. The rest of us have less.)
The only people who I am aware have published their hate crime reports, are David, and myself. (My encouragement that others publish their own hate crime reports as comments on my blog post publishing mine have fallen on deaf ears so far. Who will be first?)
Consequently, would-be hate crime reporters only have their own ideas, plus David’s and mine to copy.
We can bombard the police with complaints none of which pierce their armour. That’s like shooting rifles at a tank. The police may realise they are outgunned from the pitter patter of non-armour-piercing ordnance landing on the outside of their tank. The may even listen to reason, and surrender. The battle is the Lord’s.
But if we have to pierce their armour to make them surrender, we must keep developing better and better ordnance to fire at them. If not hate crime reports that they will NFA, perhaps claims and summons and writs and injunctions issued by the courts.
Your point, RevDave, that we don’t have only one bite each at the cherry, is a reminder to me that we can do this with teamwork and perserverance.
Unless and until the police withdraw that hate poster of theirs, there is no limit to the number of times we can report it as a hate crime, using sharper and sharper drafting, and more and more prestigious witnesses with every hate crime we report.
Each time we do that, the police will issue an individual “no further action” (NFA) decision. Each new NFA decision starts the limitation clock ticking again, giving us a further three months to apply for judicial review.
What will undo us, is any failure of teamwork and failure to persevere. God knows, teamwork and perseverance are fruit-of-the-Spirit Christian virtues that God wishes to see growing in his church and his individual saints. Time, and the Ancient of Days who created time, are both on our side. It will be a shame if we fail, but we must not expect a quick win necessarily. We don’t need quick wins, as Ashers ought to have taught us.
“The motivation of the Scottish Government campaign is not based on malice or ill will towards any social group, therefore the circumstances will not be recorded as hate related.”
Is ‘hate crime’ something objective or is it subjective? Is it something which has to be proved or is it merely something which is perceived?
The answer given by Police Scotland is ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Yes, I win and No, you lose.
However, it is interesting that Police Scotland have the ability to decide the motivation of the Scottish Government. Again, is this objective or subjective? Did Police Scotland ask the Scottish Government for their motivation and were then completely satisfied when the Scottish Government said, “Certainly not hate”? In which case is that line of defence also available to other people who are accused of ‘hate crimes’?
The UK has enjoyed a strong and healthy relationship between the people and the police. The key feature of our peaceful democracy has been policing by consent. These policies and practices and the implication that the police can read our minds regarding intention are a fast track toward a loss of confidence that will be devastating and extremely difficult to retrieve.
“the implication that the police can read our minds”
It’s even worse than that, or better depending on how you look at it. The implication is that the state of mind of an offended victim, who testifies that he “feels” hated, is sufficient mens rea to convict an accused of a hate crime.
The police are almost in a no-win situation. If we challenge in court the police’s “NFA” decision not to investigate the hate poster hate crime we have reported and win, we shall at least be on track to protecting ourselves from that poster, if nothing else. If we challenge the NFA decision in court and lose, because the court rejects the entire silly doctrine that it is the “victim’s” perception that determines whether there is “hate” or not, we shall have established a legal precedent that will undermine any attempt to carry out the threat communicated in the hate poster, to prosecute religious people for spreading their beliefs.