Law and order: hate crime

By Richard North - November 14, 2024

So far, we’ve not had any visits from the Plod at Turbulent Towers, at least not for anything I’ve written on the blog or my Twitter account where, to be on the safe side, I identify as my Parrot, Ollie.

This maybe because I’ve not been so incautious as to publish anything that might offend the Plod or it might be simply that they’re after the high-profile account owners, such as the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson (pictured), who has been making a big deal out of a visit from a Plod duo on Remembrance Sunday, about a tweet she had posted a year ago on Twitter.

Over the last two days, the event has been chewed over multiple times, so I don’t need to go into the background. It is pertinent to add, though, that Pearson wasn’t told which of her tweets had offended, nor the name of her accuser (aka “victim”), merely that she was under investigation for a non-crime hate incident (NCHI), accused of stirring up racial hatred (or so she thought).

From a later statement issued by the Essex constabulary to the Telegraph, the reason for the visit was clarified, whence Pearson learnt that the Plods were investigating her under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to material allegedly “likely or intended to cause racial hatred”. In other words, she deduces, her tweet was being treated as a criminal matter, rather than a non-crime hate incident.

From her narrative, though, she has quite evidently led a sheltered life and has not had much to do with the sharp end of British policing, and it shows. She treats us to a potted version of her reaction to the visit, which is recounted at length, in these terms:

“Today,” I began, trying to compose myself and aware of people on the other side of the street stopping to stare at the woman in a dressing gown addressing two coppers, “we are commemorating hundreds of thousands of British men, most of them roughly the age you two are now, who gave their lives so that we could live in a free country, not under the jackboot of tyranny. And you, YOU come here on this sacred day… You know, those soldiers, they could never have imagined that their country, our country, the country they died for, would ever become a place where the police would turn up at the door of a person who has done nothing wrong…”

She goes on to say that “I think that’s roughly what I said, adding that “It’s what I felt, anyway”, which probably means that she was nowhere near as articulate as she asserts.

However, she tells us that, as she spoke, warming to her theme – which was freedom – she “realised how truly appalling this was”, how un-British in the most painful way, this unwarranted intrusion of the state into her private life was.

By now, in her column, she has worked herself up into a near-frenzy, calling the Plod on her doorstep a “humiliating public reprimand for some casual comment online that had done what, exactly? Hurt whom, exactly? Stirred up hatred how, exactly?”. It was, she said, “bloody outrageous”.

One can agree that it was pretty naff for Plod to come calling on a Sunday – whether Remembrance Sunday or any other. Even bailiffs aren’t allowed to do that, but as for a “humiliating public reprimand”, that is going way over the top.

The trouble is that Pearson is so full of herself that it becomes hard work trying to deduce the exact reason for the visit, and she still hasn’t finished, delivering this text in her column:.

“Don’t you think you’re wasting police time?” I asked the two young coppers. The one with a beard on the right had shuffled sideways and was now some distance from the door after my stirring Remembrance Day peroration, perhaps hoping to stay away from the blast area should your columnist self-combust. A very real possibility given the provocation.

She continued, according to her remembered narrative: “If my Twitter post was a year ago, why has it taken 12 months for you to come here and accuse me? What have the police been doing all that time?”.

According to Pearson, there was an “awkward silence”. They were only doing their job, she writes. She knew that and “almost felt sorry for them” but reflected on “how sinister and odious that job has become”.

Only now do we get to the purpose of the visit. One of Plod asks for her phone number and email address “in case they needed to call me in for an interview”. She gave him her email only, but – if she had been in listening mode, she might have understood what was going on.

This is one of the tiresome routines that the Plod go through, in this case checking her details as a precursor to calling her in to the police station for a formal PACE interview, where the usual purpose is to trap garrulous “suspects” – rather like Pearson – into incriminating themselves so they can mark up a “crime solved” for their records.

But such mundane routine is not for Pearson. Rather, she treats us to another self-regarding dissertation:

What did those young officers feel as they left my home? Any tingle of shame for defiling Remembrance Sunday with authoritarian behaviour that would not have been out of place in the regime Britain gave her treasure and the flower of her youth to defeat? More likely, they went to Costa round the corner to grab a coffee and have a laugh at the crazy woman in the dressing gown who had ranted some stupid stuff about living in a free country: the unthinking commissars of wokery and censorship.

Actually, she got it right the first time. The Plod were simply doing their jobs, in this case confirming personal details and address, for someone else to pick up on a case which – we learn – had been passed to them from another force. In all probability, the doorstep Plods would have had no details other than the basics, and probably neither knew nor cared.

In that context, Pearson, in her apparent ignorance, did precisely the wrong things and, but for working up material for her column, was completely wasting her time. Her outraged oratory would have sailed over the heads of the doorsteppers.

What she should have done – if she had been correct in her recollection that she was under investigation for an NCHI – was to save her ammunition, and simply refuse to engage. Politely – one must always be very polite when dealing with the constabulary – she should have invited them to continue on their way and closed the door on them.

As Pete will tell you if ever you get a chance to ask him, he has had several such visits and simply gives them the polite version of “Foxtrot Oscar” – sometimes not so polite – and has never heard any more.

If, as Essex constabulary formally claim, they were investigating Pearson for an alleged criminal offence under the Public Order Act, then they would have needed to arrange a formal interview at the station, which must be done in writing.

This is now what they claim the visit was about, stating: “An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act. As part of that investigation, officers attended an address in Saffron Walden on Sunday November 10 to invite a woman to attend a voluntary interview on the matter”.

If the Plods go ahead with this, Pearson, as a “suspect” is entitled to have a solicitor present, and that usually qualifies for legal aid. Come any actual interview, the advice is quite often to respond with “no comment” to all the questions, after submitting a guarded written statement denying everything.

Maybe Pearson is right to raise a hue and cry but, from her privileged position she gives no clues as to what ordinary mortals, with no backup and little resource, should do to protect themselves in her situation.

The crucial thing to realise is that the Plods’ powers are actually quite limited, although they frequently don’t know their own rules and constantly overstep the mark.

They can’t come in your house without an invitation – unless they have a warrant – and you should not normally let them in. And they can’t arrest you, even if they often threaten it, the actual powers being set out in PACE Code G. Anybody under potential threat should have a working knowledge of the code, and access to a full copy.

But, above all, when dealing with the Plod, you need to keep your gob shut. These high-flown polemics are all very good for well-protected columnists of a national newspaper, but the chances are, the more you say, the more likely it is that you will incriminate yourself, even – or especially – if you are not guilty of any crime.

While under investigation, you say nothing but name, rank and number, unless otherwise advised by a lawyer, never plead guilty to hate crime accusations and, if necessary, make your arguments in court in front of a jury, if it gets that far.