Another candidate withdraws for no reason?

Posted on 10/08/2012 by samchapman

Alan Charles, Labour candidate in Derbyshire has withdrawn from the election this morning believing himself to be disqualified because of a conditional discharge he received when he was 14.

Perhaps he should have read Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 s.14(1) which provides:-

(1) Subject to subsection (2) below, a conviction of an offence for which an order is made under section 12 above discharging the offender absolutely or conditionally shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than the purposes of the proceedings in which the order is made and of any subsequent proceedings which may be taken against the offender under section 13 above.

(2)Where the offender was aged 18 or over at the time of his conviction of the offence in question and is subsequently sentenced (under section 13 above) for that offence, subsection (1) above shall cease to apply to the conviction.

(3)Without prejudice to subsections (1) and (2) above, the conviction of an offender who is discharged absolutely or conditionally under section 12 above shall in any event be disregarded for the purposes of any enactment or instrument which—

(a)imposes any disqualification or disability upon convicted persons; or

(b)authorises or requires the imposition of any such disqualification or disability

 

What will he do now? Is there anyone in the Labour party who understands the law?

 

P.S. I should credit Ros Baston, whose comments about conditional discharges a few weeks ago made me think of looking it up. Others obviously owe her credit too.

P.P.S. The referenced 's.12 above' doesn't necessarilly exclude discharges made before the 2000 Act became law – so someone still needs to check if discharges made before this were covered by similar get-out clauses!

 

Posted in Perspectives | Tagged | 5 Comments

None-fessions and Nonsense

Posted on 10/08/2012 by samchapman

It has been an eventful 48 hours at TopOfTheCops. First we had Labour Police and Crime Commissioner candidate for Avon and Somerset confirm the site’s many predictions around previous criminal convictions when he stood down because he was disqualified due to an incident for which he received a fine 46 years ago, and the early work on this was acknowledged by Michael Crick. (Labour have immediately appointed the former runner-up as their new candidate).

Following on from this PCC candidates around the country began to put on this site what I am going to call ‘None-fessions’ – whereby they declare they have considered their own record in light of the law and declare that they have nothing to declare – i.e. they have no problematic convictions that could disqualify them. Last night I emailed all the candidates whose email addresses I had who had not already made a ‘None-fession’, and responses have been coming in today. I will be collating these and publishing them so you all know who has none-fessed and who has not.

There has already been some media interest, and I’m told that several sources are indicating that there will be more cases of past convictions to come out. So, candidates, be sure and none-fess soon or people will be thinking that you will soon be confessing your way out of the race. Remember, with the publicity and that email I’ve sent you, if you get caught then saying you didn’t know about the law is no longer an option.

And then our exclusive last night on the judicial ban on magistrates standing for PCC has set wheels in motion. Not only is there coverage in the Guardian and the Telegraph (and well done to Alan Travis and Martin Beckford for acknowledging TopOfTheCops as the source), but twitter has been, er, all a-twitter with despondent magistrates and legal opinions.

Kent Conservatives candidate and magistrate Craig Mackinlay described it as ‘Unacceptable & nonsensical“. For South Yorkshire Independent candidate Gillian Radcliffe it was “crazy“. Surrey Conservative candidate Julie Iles said it “seems I’ve no choice but to resign with immediate effect as a J.P. but I am saddened by it.” For solicitor and election law expert Ros Baston it was “bordering on irrational as well as unreasonable” and she “Never thought day wld come where horse dancing makes more sense than a judge’s edict“.

The big focus has been on the idea that magistrates standing to be PCCs must resign. Not take a leave of absence, but resign. Mervyn Barrett, who is standing in Lincolnshire as an Independent, had his staff provide in-house legal advice, and then took Counsel’s opinion. If you are a PCC candidate and a magistrate, then his Special Advisor, Matthew, would like you to get in touch with Jason@mervynbarrettobe.co.uk, as the advice is that Lord Justice Goldrings direction is challengeable, and that “Lord Justice Goldring has assumed the role of legislator and usurped the role of Parliament”

Yes, you heard right. He is an Independent (see his TopOfTheCops Candidate Statement here), and he has staff, a SpAd, and can get legal advice both in-house and counsel’s advice at the drop of a hat. It’s not just the political parties who are well-resourced, and people are beginning to ask where the money comes from for all this.

But that’s not all. Each PCC will be scrutinised by a Police and Crime Panel in their area – think of 41 of these panels, each with roughly 15-20 Councillors and a couple of Independent souls. Well, the judge is banning magistrates from those too, and their members probably aren’t following this election quite as closely as the candidates, but they are unlikely to be very impressed. So I prodded the Local Government Association a bit, and they went for it, describing the ban as “nonsensical“, which is not a bad result for a Thursday in August.

But then there is also a suggestion that any magistrate merely participating actively in the election should take a leave of absence until the election is over. How many JPs are also the public spirited people that parties rely on to knock on doors and deliver leaflets? Can the courts function without all these people for 3 months?

Which goes to the nub of the issue for me. What does it say about the professional judiciary and lay magistrates when one of the most senior judges in the land gives the impression that magistrates are so dispensable, pawns in the chess game between judges and elected representatives? It doesn’t make me want to give up time and energy to serve on the local bench.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Senior Judge bans magistrates from PCC role

Posted on 08/08/2012 by samchapman

Anyone wondering how Police and Crime Commissioners are going to be welcomed by the judiciary may be best advised to think in terms of pork pies and bar mitzvahs.

That at least is the message one picks up from JO Circular AC (5) 2012 issued at the end of last week by the Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales, the Rt. Hon Lord Justice Goldring.

The circular is for magistrates who are considering standing for election as a PCC, or planning to take part in a PCC election campaign, or who intend to apply to become a member of a Police and Crime Panel. Wiltshire Conservatives’ Angus Macpherson JP, Cambridgeshire UKIP candidate Paul Bullen JP and who knows how many others need to take note.

The message is a fairly simple one. 

Judges are disqualified from being elected as PCCs, but the law does not prevent Magistrates from standing, so Lord Justice Goldring has decided that he will stop them from standing. “Magistrates who wish to stand for election, upon announcement of their intention to do so, should resign immediately.”

If they just want to participate actively, whatever that means (leafleting?), they should take a leave of absence. They should not hold meetings with PCC candidates. 

If you do resign to run for election, you are still not free – “former magistrates should be highly circumspect when describing their bench careers.”

The justification for this is twofold – 

1) It’s going to be highly political. (You know, like Solicitor General, Attorney General and Lord Chancellor – clearly offices we could never give to a politician. Oh, wait.)

2) “it would be inappropriate for a judicial office holder to hold an office which has an oversight and leadership role in respect of Police Forces, or to participate in an election campaign for such a role.” (Which neatly misses the fact that until recently magistrates by law were a significant proportion of Police Authorities membership, and that members of the bench are Councillors, MPs, etc).

If you are a magistrate who doesn’t want to be a PCC, but would like to sit on a Police and Crime Panel, then tough. Lord Goldring is directing you to resign. With about 600+ panel members across the country made up of fairly active citizens, this is not going to go down well.

Ironically, the form of judicial independence defended in this direction seems so extreme as to in itself constitute a political statement. This is not merely rules. This is message. And it’s a message which needs to be reconsidered.

I can hardly wait till the day when we can elect our judges. 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

A matter of Conviction

Posted on 08/08/2012 by samchapman

Today Bob Ashford has stood down as Labour PCC candidate for Avon and Somerset, having achieved some clarity on the fact that convictions dating from his youth 46 years ago will disqualify him from standing for the office. These were, by the way, convictions that resulted in a total fine of around £5. He tells his side of the story here.

I first raised the issue of candidates with previous convictions on 29 April, and again on 9 June, when an Independent candidate in Lancashire withdrew, and I repeated the rules then, making clear that they applied to juvenile convictions where people had not necessarily gone to prison, but where an adult convicted of a similar offence could have.

On 18 June Michael Crick joined in, mentioning the difficulties Simon Weston was having around a teenage conviction. This led to a statement from Theresa May that the law in question was not targetted at people like Simon Weston.

On 24 June Keiron Mallon withdrew from the Thames Valley Conservative selection because of a previous conviction, and it was very clear he had highlighted the conviction in the applications process without anyone spotting the problem.

On 28 June Michael Crick reported that the Home Office and Attorney General were briefing that Simon Weston wouldn’t have a problem with his teenage conviction, and on the same day solicitor and election law expert Ros Baston advised that she thought they were wrong about that and, embarassingly for the Home Office, pointed to the record of the Policing Minister explaining to the Common’s committee as to how it would catch such convictions when the legislation was being considered.

On 29 June I again mentioned this, and a week or so later, after the fuss about his conviction had died down, Simon Weston withdrew from the race, citing not his conviction, but that the race had become too political. Some were perhaps unconvinced, as Michael Crick opting to take the line wasn’t he barred anyway?

Ros Baston reported back on 10 July that the Home Office and Electoral Commission were saying they agreed with her (and my, and everybody else’s) interpretation that the law covered juvenile offences, and this is the article that Bob Ashford cites as causing him concern, leading him to contact the Labour party on 19 July to seek clarification. This was over a month after the Labour selection results had been announced, but it should be remembered that the issue was raised on this site before the Labour selection was completed, and that the law (which, despite the confusion, is pretty clear) was passed months before the parties began their selection processes. And here we are at 8th August with Bob Ashford pulling out, and I have to say I would not be surprised if there were more to follow.

Any candidates who may be disqualified but who are putting off this issue are depriving other candidates a fair hearing and preventing the electorate from giving proper consideration to the choice they have to make. I would urge parties, media, and the public to ask candidates to each make a statement that they have considered this issue and are not disqualified, or we may find time and effort being wasted on candidates who cannot stand. I am offering to maintain a list of candidates on this site who have made such a declaration. This is not a Criminal Records check – this is a chance to show you have considered the issue and that you are clearly qualified to stand.

Meanwhile, there have been other developments. I had a concern that the system would run on trust, with candidates risking further convictions by declaring they were not disqualified and no checks being done on this. Ros Baston’s reading of a new draft Order related to the election that has since been released is that if it is approved cops will be in a position to check candidate’s criminal records, though it is not clear that it will be anyone’s job so to do.

Questions that arise

Others will complain at the severity of the disqualifications, impacting on people decades later for minor wrongs committed in their childhoods. I need not cover these issues here, but other questions remain:-

1. Can any of the candidates read? It is shocking to me that you would stand for election for a new post such as this and not personally read the legislation that sets it up. If you are not able to understand it yourself, should you be standing? If you don’t understand the rules for candidates being qualified should you be selecting them? Both the selection processes of Conservatives and Labour have failed in this respect. Some confusion was introduced by the Government in June, but the issue predates the confusion and the confusion was never credible.

2. How will Labour choose a new candidate? Will it fall to the runner-up, John Savage, who is now the only remaining shortlisted candidate?

3. Why did the Home Office make such a fudge of the issue around Simon Weston’s conviction/disqualification, when they clearly knew that such convictions would disqualify those who offended as juveniles?

4. Which candidate will be next to go?

You can email me a declaration about your status at Editor@TopOfTheCops.com

Posted in Perspectives | Tagged | 15 Comments

Candidate Statement of Peter Williams

Posted on 06/08/2012 by samchapman

Peter Williams is standing as an Independent candidate to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey. If you are intending to stand to be Police and Crime Commissioner where you live, you can submit your own Candidate Statement, so get in touch at Editor@TopOfTheCops.com. Others are on the way, and we are looking for 400 words, and a photo of you to which you have rights.

Keep Politics out of Policing – Keep Local People in Control

I am passionate about keeping policing in Surrey focused on the people of Surrey, for the benefit of the people of Surrey and not subject to political influence of any kind.

With an MA in Criminal Justice, extensive business experience and 20 years working in the Criminal Justice System, I am well qualified to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for the county.

I would bring to the appointment my experience of seventeen years as a magistrate and nine as an independent member of the current Police Authority, including four as its Chairman. I have a proven track record. I have learnt much about policing and I know what is important to the residents of Surrey. I have the knowledge, skills and commitment to fulfil the wider remit of the PCC under the new governance structure.

Above all, I would uphold the political impartiality of the police service.

The Police Authority has consulted our residents to find out how they wanted Surrey policed. As Community Safety is our clear priority, I intend to continue with this valuable exercise which has led to Surrey Police having some of the highest confidence and satisfaction levels in the country.

Working with statutory partners and within the Criminal Justice System, I will prepare and implement a Policing Plan to:

  • Keep the constable at the heart of policing
  • Address all aspects of anti-social behaviour in the county
  • Continue to reduce crime and relentlessly pursue criminals
  • Challenge and hold to account the Chief Constable
  • Progress collaboration with neighbouring forces
  • Encourage innovation
  • Ensure value for money
  • Press for even higher performance
  • Give fair and equal service to every resident
  • Improve the service to victims of crime
  • Use my financial expertise to address Government cuts
  • Keep Surrey in its rightful place at the top of policing

There is a real danger that Surrey Police could be controlled by a political activist and the only way to avoid this is to elect an Independent Commissioner.

As a truly independent candidate, I will not feel beholden to any political party but only to the residents of Surrey.

Help me keep politics out of policing!

 

Posted in Candidate Statements, Independents | Leave a comment

Posted on 05/08/2012 by samchapman

Sussex Independent candidate on the saga of getting a nomination form in time for it to be completed.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Happy Birthday – You’re Fired!

Posted on 04/08/2012 by samchapman

Ann Barnes, described by Blair Gibbs as “Vocal critic of #PCC reform & respected chair of Kent #police authority,” has been attracting a lot of attention over the past few days.

For one, Times Crime correspondent Sean O’Neill asks “Could this be a credible independent PCC candidate to take on the party hacks?“, and she has attracted a good luck message from former Police Federation national chair Jan Berry, one of the high profile people who did not secure the Conservative nomination in the same county.

Also, she has now resigned as Chair, giving up the last few months of position and allowances, possibly as a way of underlining her time commitment to the campaign, fairness to other candidates, etc.

But one thing in particular that has been attracting positive comments (including some from other Independent candidates) and press attention, is her commitment to create a position in her staff as Youth Commissioner, and to subsidise it, in part, if necessary, from her own salary as PCC.

Now a number of candidates had gone as far as to say they wouldn’t claim the whole salary, but this is the first I am aware of who has said they will commit an amount, albeit unspecified, to a particular role.

There is one problem though. In a response to a question from yours truly, Ms Barnes has committed that the post would “be filled by a young person (under 25)“.

This led me to a further question:-

“How do you propose to comply with the law against age discrimination, if you are going to require the postholder is under 25?”

Now, it was a couple of days ago and I’ve not had a response. Running an election campaign can be all-consuming, so it is quite possible the question has been missed, or the answer is being researched.

I’m not an expert on age discrimination, but what I could find was not promising. You can make age a genuine occupational qualification in a job, but you need a pretty good legally defensible reason, and that reason has to be independent of age if I’m reading it right.

And then a different question occurred to me. If you employ a 24-year old in such a role, what do you do on their following birthday? Is it a case of “Happy Birthday – you’re fired”?

If it is, that would appear to be asking for a tribunal – saying that someone who can do a job one day is disqualified from doing it the next solely because of their age.

If it isn’t, the problem is not avoided, because continuing to employ someone who has turned 25 to do a job where the recruitment was restricted to under-25s actually makes the point that the age restriction was not a genuine occupational qualification, and therefore unlawful.

And does this mean that someone could only be recruited on short-term contracts, or so young, that they didn’t reach 25 while employed?

The tried and tested way round this would be not to make the restriction, but to pay a pittance that only a child would be able-to-afford-to-earn/be-desperate-enough-for-the-CV-points-to-do but then we get into ‘job evaluation’, whether a PCC should really be exploiting people, etc, and that seems not to be a very good approach either.

Oh dear.

Now, this is not my specialism so, reader, if it is your’s perhaps you could tell me why my musings are fundamentally wrong-headed and why the law is OK about these things in the comments below?

Or, if I’m on to something, and this turns out to be a plan that is not sufficiently-well thought through, you could get into the far more entertaining business of pointing out similar problematic commitments made by other candidates – because having had a look, I regret to say that I don’t think PCC world is short of such examples.

Posted in Perspectives | Tagged | 3 Comments

Candidate Statement of Ian Johnston QPM

Posted on 01/08/2012 by samchapman

Ian Johnston is standing as an Independent candidate to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent. If you are intending to stand to be Police and Crime Commissioner where you live, you can submit your own Candidate Statement, so get in touch at Editor@TopOfTheCops.com. Others are on the way, and we are looking for 400 words, and a photo of you to which you have rights.

BACKGROUND

  • Very experienced senior police officer – 33 years police service, the majority at senior detective ranks, followed by 7 more years as Vice President and then President of the Police Superintendents’ Association of England and Wales
  • Deep experience of working with and representing the Police Service at the highest levels of Government
  • Able to leverage extensive personal network created over 40 years of police service
  • Deep understanding of the critical issues facing the Police Service today and in the future
  • Owner/manager of a successful consultancy company providing services to an established list of clients who need to target the public safety and criminal justice sector
  • Distinguished Police Service has been recognised by both the award of the Queen’s Police Medal (QPM) and also an invitation to a reception hosted by the Prime Minister to celebrate outstanding service to local communities

MY COMMITMENTS

  • To reduce Crime and Disorder and Anti-Social behaviour.

  • To be the voice of the people of Gwent on all policing issues.

  • To listen to concerns, respond and find solutions to local problems.

  • To place a greater focus on the needs of victims as opposed to offenders.

  • To work WITH elected politicians but FOR the people of Gwent.

  • To form effective partnerships with Gwent-wide statutory and voluntary agencies/bodies.

  • To set the strategic direction of the Force through the Police and Crime Plan.

  • To scrutinise, support and challenge the overall performance of the Force against the priorities agreed within the Plan.

  • To ensure that the policing priorities truly reflect the needs and concerns of our local communities, including minority and ethnic groups, particularly concentrating on the issue of anti-social behaviour.

  • To hold the Chief Constable to account for the operational delivery of the agreed Policing Plan.

  • To approve the Gwent Police budget and ensure that the financial management of the budget by the Chief Constable remains consistent with the agreed objectives and conditions.

  • To ensure that CORE policing functions continue to be carried out by warranted police officers and not the private sector.

Posted in Candidate Statements, Independents | 5 Comments

The SDP election

Posted on 31/07/2012 by samchapman

I think it was 1987 when I saw it – a TV news item about some General Election billboard poster ideas from the Conservatives, some of which had not seen the light of day. While a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament had been taken care of with an image of a soldier, his arms raised in surrender, and the words “Labour’s Policy on Arms” – (how I laughed), the anti-Alliance poster had not made it. Three words, each with their initial letter highlighted to spell out the initials of one of the parties – S.D.P.

The words were “Still Deciding Policies”.

TopOfTheCops began some 6 months ago with a pregnancy analogy for this election. 9 months is a long time when you are waiting for something, whether it be a baby or an election. And here we are, about to enter the final Trimester, and this could be the SDP election, because actual policies are very thin on the ground.

Sure, we’ve had themes and a bit of central direction from the Labour party. Don’t cut, what is it today, oh yes – don’t cut the cops, or bad things will happen – you’ll put crime up. If we have learned anything over the past 15 years it is that the public generally stand very ready to believe that crime will go up, so let’s use that. Oh, and local priorities will mean that domestic violence is a priority everywhere, even where they deal with it well.

And we’ve had a stern-faced “it’s all about the deficit” feel from the government, a new way of arranging the various interventions on anti-social behaviour, an effort to make the courts a bit quicker but not much ‘red meat’ as such.

It is, according to one way of thinking, a local election, and yes, we have had individual candidates with commitments here and there, though they can be a tad operational. More special constables, cop shops, a campaign to save a police station here or there.

But very little in the way of what I would call policies.

In June the assembled ranks of PCC candidates from all parties and none at the Crest Advisory event fell quiet to listen to the government’s Crime and Policing Advisor, Lord Wasserman. As he hammered home his view that the PCC role was completely and utterly political, he mentioned that the major parties would “each draw on their traditions”. I thought this was a good way of putting it. It needn’t be seen as ideological, but people from different parties have different values and habits of thinking, and these perspectives could produce some policies to choose from. Policies that were different from each other.

I just haven’t seen it yet. This was my effort on a small, local and tentative initial scale, but I think we need a proper national debate. This is the one time in our lifetimes when we can have an election that is just about crime. We should savour this chance. We should use this opportunity. This is the time to differentiate what parties, independents and candidates actually mean and propose to do. This is a time where our votes can actually make decisions between different ways of viewing the world.

Without this, are we not just voting for our favourite colour?

Posted in Perspectives | 3 Comments

Candidate Statement of Gillian Radcliffe

Posted on 30/07/2012 by samchapman

Gillian Radcliffe is standing as an Independent candidate to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire. If you are intending to stand to be Police and Crime Commissioner where you live, you can submit your own Candidate Statement, so get in touch at Editor@TopOfTheCops.com. Others are on the way, and we are looking for 400 words, and a photo of you to which you have rights.

I care deeply about safe communities and fighting crime. I believe the UK enjoys the best police service in the world but there are many challenges in terms of workload and budgets. It believe my substantial experience and qualifications in policing, communications and management of organisations, would be major assets in the role of Police and Crime Commissioner. Much of my career has been devoted to bringing the police, their partners and local people closer together and I continue to be committed to that ambition. My style is open, consultative and fair.

I served as communications lead on the senior management team in South Yorkshire – later being on the management team of Lancashire Constabulary – and I’ve worked as an adviser to detectives and uniformed staff on hundreds of major police operations, from murder investigations and riots through to major sporting events and civil emergencies. I’ve been involved in the management side too, from managing multi-million-pound budgets, large teams and complex projects to work on planning and performance management.

I understand how things work, from the boardroom to the streets. I know enough to be fair about what is realistic and achievable, but also enough to grasp the detail so I can’t easily have the wool pulled over my eyes. I would see my role as a partner and critical friend of South Yorkshire Police and the other agencies who have a role to play in protecting local communities.

I am a truly independent candidate, motivated by a deep commitment to criminal justice and to efficiency and integrity in our public services. I have no political affiliations in this election. I think it would be potentially damaging to use the Commissioner role to play party politics. It needs someone who comes without scores to settle, without partisan agendas to push and who can focus on the local issues and manage competently.

I’ve worked with local authorities, the judiciary, probation and prison services, drug treatments agencies, the health service and other emergency services, as well as local business and voluntary organisations. Because of this, I understand the importance of co-operation and contractual partnerships to deliver the best services to the public. I would want to focus a lot of effort on developing these partnerships in South Yorkshire, looking for ways to push resources to frontline services by exploring shared services for backroom functions.

Through my consultancy work, I’ve gained a solid understanding of the way Government departments work, particularly the Home Office. I’ve helped plan major crime reduction projects across England and Wales and I have given advice to senior colleagues up to ministerial level.

The role feels like an opportunity to bring together my experience of policing, management, communications, partnerships and public consultation in a way that will be of value to the people of South Yorkshire. I hope they will support me and give me the opportunity to serve them for the next four years.

gillianradcliffe4pcc.com

 

Posted in Candidate Statements, Independents | 1 Comment