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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 539-ix House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE NORTHERN IRELAND AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
"Hate crime" in northern ireland
Wednesday 3 November 2004 ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE JUDITH GILLESPIE, INSPECTOR ROBIN DEMPSEY, MR DAVID WILSON, MR BRIAN DOUGHERTY, MR IVOR PAISLEY and MR PHILIP MOFFETT RT HON JOHN SPELLAR MP, MR BILLY GAMBLE, MR CONAL DEVITT and MR TOM HAIRE Evidence heard in Public Questions 624 - 740
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Wednesday 3 November 2004 Members present Mr Michael Mates, in the Chair Mr Roy Beggs Mr Gregory Campbell Mr Iain Luke Mr Stephen Pound The Reverend Martin Smyth Mr Hugo Swire Mr Bill Tynan ________________ Memoranda submitted by Police Service of Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Policing Board Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Assistant Chief Constable Judith Gillespie and Inspector Robin Dempsey, Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr David Wilson and Mr Brian Dougherty, Northern Ireland Policing Board, and Mr Ivor Paisley (Deputy Chief Executive, Cookstown District Council) and Mr Philip Moffett, Manager, Cookstown District Policing Partnership, examined. Q624 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming to help us with our last evidence session on hate crime. If I can start with you two from the PSNI, the trends in racial and homophobic incidents have been upwards. How confident are you that you can arrest those upward trends? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Perhaps I can start by saying that the upward trend is indicative of two things that are happening - an increase in the number of incidents but also an increase in confidence in reporting and perhaps an increase in our competence at accurately capturing exactly what is going on out there. It is only within the last few years that we have started to accurately record hate crime and indeed in recent months that we have started to record sectarian crimes and crimes against disabled people. We are coming to grips with a much more comprehensive picture of what is really going on out there. Having said that, we not only record crimes but also incidents so, whilst it would look like our clearance figures with regard to the overall incident picture are quite low, when you compare them to crimes committed it gives a truer reflection of what is going on. That is not to say that those detection figures could not be improved; of course they could be. We could do much better and that is one of the reasons why we are hoping in next year's policing plan that we will have a specific target in relation to detections for racial and homophobic crimes. Q625 Chairman: At the moment you have no targets? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: At the moment it is simply to set a base line in terms of an accurate reflection of what is going on. Q626 Chairman: What I really want to know is how confident you are that you can stop this upward trend. You have said it is in the reporting, and I understand that, but it is also the number of incidents that is going up. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Yes, that is true, but we would start to get quite concerned, in particular in the area of homophobic crime, if the number of incidents reported started to go down again. That may seem a strange thing to say but this is very much to do with confidence in reporting to the police. We know that there is a significant level of under-reporting in particular of homophobic crime for a whole lot of reasons. We would be concerned if that dipped considerably. An upward trend is not necessarily an altogether bad thing but clearly we have to address the upward trend in the crimes. Q627 Chairman: Let us just get back to basics. An upward trend in reporting is one thing. It is the upward trend in incidents that we are concerned about. That is not things getting better; that is things getting worse. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Of course; I agree with you there. That is why we are looking at analysing exactly where the incidents are happening. The picture at the moment with regard to homophobic crime is that it is concentrated in a small number of areas - in Belfast, in Moyle and in Lisburn as well. They tend to be the places where members of the lesbian and gay community congregate for socialising. If we can work with local police on detection and education initiatives there we can make a significant impact on this. Q628 Chairman: Are you doing that? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Robin and myself are working at a corporate level in terms of the education and training of police officers but there are initiatives going on at local district levels as well, engaging with members of those communities as to which are the nights, for example, that are recognised as gay nights within pubs and clubs when you have a bigger preponderance of gay people associating in those areas. That is when we need to have higher visibility and policing patrols. That is just a very practical example of what we can do. Q629 Chairman: You have put out some figures last week and I see that in Belfast alone there were 129 incidents of racial or homophobic abuse reported, which is about five every week. How much of that is homophobic and how much is racial? Inspector Dempsey: In terms of the whole picture across Northern Ireland I can tell you in relation to incident reporting that we have had quite an increase, even in the first two quarters of this year, in the number of incidents reported to the police. We have seen an increase from 180 to 299 in racially motivated incidents and an increase from 36 homophobic incidents in the first two quarters of last year to 53 in the first two quarters of this year. What we have already talked about is incidents and crimes. We are confident that we are getting many more incidents, both homophobic and racial, reported to the Police Service that would not previously have been. Obviously, there is a concern that there is a rise in incidents and attacks and crimes and, if I can give some evidence in relation to the number of initiatives we have presently going, we have 18 corporate initiatives across the Police Service for racial incidents and 11 corporate initiatives for homophobic incidents. Those are initiatives that are aimed at protecting people, supporting people, providing information and linking them in with the other agencies that can offer support. We have 43 local initiatives across all the districts throughout Northern Ireland that are being taken forward by the district commanders and maintained by the minority liaison officers. Q630 Chairman: The racial problem in terms of numbers of incidents is much greater than the homophobic problem? Inspector Dempsey: Certainly in relation to the numbers at this stage we are getting more racial incidents reported. There are particular difficulties in homophobic incidents. We would expect the numbers to be lower in respect of reporting those. Q631 Chairman: The Metropolitan Police have a special hate crime unit and other police forces publish annual reviews on hate crime. As this growth seems to be very steadily going upwards do you have any plans for developing similar approaches within PSNI? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: As Robin has already mentioned, each district has a minority liaison officer. In South Belfast they have increased the number of minority liaison officers because of the particular difficulties they have had there. They have a minority liaison officer now in each sector area, not just within the district. If you wanted to call that a hate crime unit you could effectively call it that, but at the end of the day it is up to each district commander to decide how they deploy their resources within their area. Each district is different. As I have already mentioned, Moyle has particular difficulties with regard to homophobic attacks. Dungannon and South Tyrone district, for example, have particular difficulties with regard to migrant workers, the Portuguese community and eastern Europeans coming in to work in various factories and processing plants there. Each district therefore is different and each district commander must meet the policing needs within their district. What I would say from a corporate point of view is that we have taken a lot of time and energy to train minority liaison officers within each district and to deal at a corporate level with the issues that engage with minority groups, be they lesbian, gay groups, minority ethnic groups, or indeed disabled groups or older people, for example, so there is a range of duties that they are engaged in. Q632 Chairman: Of your minority liaison officers how many come from minority groups? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: None at the moment. We have currently within PSNI 17 police officers who are members of minority ethnic groups and additionally two members of support staff who would be classed as minority ethnic members. That represents 0.23 per cent of the Police Service and minority ethnic groups within the Northern Ireland community generally are approximately 0.85 per cent of the community, so we are not quite representative yet. However, we are working very hard to attract applications from those groups. Q633 Chairman: Do you have any members of the PSNI from the Chinese community? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Yes, we do. Q634 Chairman: How many? Inspector Dempsey: We have one, I believe, Chairman. Q635 Chairman: How many applications have there been from the Chinese community? I am asking this question for a particular reason. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: I do not have those figures available. Q636 Chairman: That is quite understandable. What the committee would like is if you could let us have the figures of how many applications you get a year from within that community. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Chairman, you may be interested to know that in our discussions around next year's policing plan we did have a discussion with the Board about perhaps including a performance indicator around attracting applications from minority ethnic groups. That was part of the discussion. I am not sure at this stage whether it is going to end up in the policing plan but it certainly was part of our discussions for next year's policing plan. It is after all a proxy confidence indicator in terms of the confidence of those communities in the Police Service. Q637 Chairman: Has hate crime featured as a significant area of concern in any of the public meetings which the Policing Board hold? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Yes, there have been a number of presentations to the Policing Board on the picture of hate crime within Northern Ireland and I believe they have been the subject of a number of specific questions afterwards. Q638 Chairman: What I actually meant was the public. When you have these public meetings is this one of the things where the public at large can ask questions? Mr Dougherty: Unfortunately, Chairman, at the public meetings of the main Policing Board the public do not have the opportunity to question the Chief Constable per se, but at local District Policing Partnership level they do. Q639 Chairman: When you have public meetings they can question you? Mr Dougherty: Yes. They can use the members of the Board to direct questions to the Chief Constable. Q640 Chairman: My question is, is hate crime something that figures in these public meetings? Mr Dougherty: Yes, it does. There have been at least two presentations that the PSNI have made to the Board and also quite a number of independent members have raised the issue. Q641 Chairman: I am trying to get from you not what the PSNI feels about it but whether, when you are holding public meetings, the public can say what it is they are concerned about. Is a significant concern hate crime or are they more concerned about traffic and burglary and mugging old ladies and all the rest of the things that the public are concerned about? Mr Dougherty: I would say, Chairman, that it is a significant concern of the local community. Q642 Reverend Smyth: How many members of the public actually attend the public meetings? Mr Wilson: We do not have that information to hand. Q643 Reverend Smyth: Would I be right in saying that it is very insignificant? At least, that is the report I have been getting in Belfast. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Certainly in my experience of the last Policing Board meeting - and I hope I am not interrupting my Policing Board colleagues - the public gallery was full. At the last public meeting that was held outside Policing Board premises in Omagh, again the public gallery was full. The next Policing Board meeting, to be held tomorrow, is in Armagh and we expect that it will attract considerable local interest. Q644 Reverend Smyth: Are they taking the opportunity to ask questions or put issues? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: At the last Policing Board meeting when the public gallery was full there was for the first time a question asked from the public gallery. That was in relation to the issue of parades as it happened, but it is setting a precedent and we welcome that. Q645 Chairman: If we could turn to our Cookstown representatives for a moment, one vital function of your job is making arrangements to get the views of the public on matters concerning the policing in your district. When you do this where does hate crime figure? High or low or medium? Mr Moffett: In terms of hate crime issues, Chairman, unfortunately it is quite low down in terms of the survey work that we do locally. For example, the transport survey for 2003 which we are mandated to do featured approximately three per cent of hate crime locally. We tried to follow that up with focus groups. Q646 Chairman: I am sorry; I am not making myself clear. We know about the percentage. What I am trying to get out of you is, in the whole range of policing, when we are talking murder, when we are talking about robberies, when we are talking about car crime, when we are talking about traffic offences, are your people, when you come to find out what they think, very worried about hate crime or is it something that only figures quite small? Mr Paisley: Perhaps I can answer that. There are perhaps a number of reasons why it does not feature highly. Q647 Chairman: The first answer is that it does not feature highly? Mr Paisley: It does not feature highly, no. We have been in place in Cookstown for 18 months. I suspect that during that initial consultation period there were not a significant number of hate crime incidents. We are now going through the process of consultation to determine the policing priorities for the incoming year, April 2005 to March the following year. One of the difficulties we have in dealing with hate crime is that, certainly in the mid Ulster area and Dungannon South Road(?) area, many of those who are the victims of hate crime are migrant workers. They are not empowered in the sense that quite often they come in for a limited period and go away again. They are probably not confident about reporting incidents and in a sense there has perhaps not been to date a satisfactory engagement with them. I think that the figures of hate crime that we have gleaned from our colleagues in the PSNI are significantly increasing. We would see our role as engaging with them so that we can identify that as a priority in the incoming year, April 2005 to March the following year. Q648 Chairman: So you are only really just getting involved with the problem? Mr Paisley: Correct. Q649 Mr Beggs: If I could go back to the PSNI, when Inspector Dempsey was here in May he said that there was no agreed definition of "sectarianism". What progress have the police made in defining sectarianism? Inspector Dempsey: Certainly when I was last with the committee and gave evidence at that stage we were in the process of agreeing a definition and we consulted with a number of interested parties and started to involve the organisations. As a consequence of that the Police Service have now agreed not just the definition as to what we perceive sectarianism to be but also how we record it and on 20 September we put in place recording procedures, along with disability and religion, to ensure that sectarian incidents were being recorded. Q650 Mr Beggs: Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary noted the need for the police to collect data on sectarian incidents in its 1999-2000 inspection report. Can you tell us why the PSNI still do not collate such data and give us some indication of when you expect to begin collecting such data? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: As Robin has said, we have started to collect that data since 28 September this year. We have been monitoring sectarian incidents on probably a less scientific basis in relation to those incidents, for example, at interface areas or where there has been a clear sectarian motive for an assault. As it happens, last year there were over a thousand sectarian incidents and for the comparable period this year there have been over 700, so sectarian incidents have decreased. However, that is absolutely no cause for any complacency because 700 incidents is still 700 incidents; it is a lot of sectarian incidents going on there and we need to tackle that as well. We are introducing a much more comprehensive and scientific recording system from 28 September which should help us to identify the trends and patterns there. Q651 Mr Beggs: Can the witnesses from the Policing Board tell us what it has done to encourage the PSNI to begin collecting such data? Can you explain why the policing plan 2003-2006 contains no performance indicators for the PSNI in relation to sectarian incidents and how the Board will hold the PSNI to account for progress in this aspect of hate crime in the future? Mr Dougherty: Today, Mr Beggs, we have just commissioned research into the views of non-heterosexuals and minority ethnic groups. We have put out a tender process and we hope that by June 2005 we will have an extensive survey which will allow the local community to give their views on such attacks. Mr Wilson: In terms of the policing plan, Mr Beggs, we do not have performance indicators prepared and we do not collect the information. We have now started to collect it and sectarian incidents will be in next year's policing plan. We had a joint strategy day last Wednesday and the whole gamut of hate crimes is in next year's policing plan in terms of monitoring the numbers and increasing protection, so it will be featuring heavily in next year's policing plan now that we can collect the information. Q652 Mr Beggs: Coming back to the PSNI, Larne District Command Unit already collects data on the number of sectarian incidents and included performance indicators and targets for responding to sectarian incidents in its 2003-2004 policing plan. Can you indicate whether any other DCUs have followed this lead? If not, why not? Inspector Dempsey: Certainly a number of district commands across Northern Ireland, Larne being one of them, and I would also cite Belfast, Moyle, Ballymena, Limavady and Coleraine, have been collecting information on sectarian incidents on a local basis, something that has not been happening, and the reason why police have not given statistics is that it has very much been a local policing initiative because it identified that there are sectarian incidents and by recording them and identifying them it has allowed them to police them in a manner where people identify other incidents. What we have done now is put in place a process and a procedure that will now see statistics on sectarian incidents right across Northern Ireland and we will at last start to feed that information out in respect of all district command units. Mr Wilson: Larne had indicators on sectarian incidents because in the DPP public consultation surveys the Policing Board Commissioners of Larne responded and said that paramilitary activity and sectarianism was one of their major concerns. I think Carrickfergus was the other area where that happened and that is why in Larne's local policing plan that particular performance indicator and target appeared. Local policing plans relate to local issues and that was a survey which resulted in that. Q653 Mr Beggs: Our evidence shows that there is under-reporting of hate crime incidents, whether they be racial, homophobic, sectarian or related to disability. Can you indicate why victims of such attacks do not feel confident about reporting attacks? What has PSNI done, or does it intend to do, to encourage more comprehensive reporting? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: There can be a lot of reasons why victims of hate crimes would be unwilling to come forward to the police. First of all, they may perceive that the police will not take this seriously. They may be unwilling to disclose their sexuality in case of homophobic incidents. They may have been repeat victims and they feel what is the point in reporting to the police. That is something that we intend to look at in the area of repeat victimisation for the forthcoming months, because if we can address repeat victimisation I think again we can have quite a significant impact on hate crime. There may be a perception that the police will not accurately record hate crime and that is something that we are very keen to deal with, to make sure that in our hate crime policy and in our reporting procedures we are robust in recording every single hate crime incident as a true reflection of what is going on out there. Also, there can be language and cultural barriers in terms of recording crimes to the police, which is why we now have offered a 24/7 interpretation service for English when it is not their first language. That was introduced on 1 September this year and already we have had a significant number of calls to use that service. Q654 Chairman: Which languages? Inspector Dempsey: We have had an interpretation service for the police over the last three years. On 1 September we introduced three new services. One was telephone interpreting, which allows police officers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to access an interpreter by phone. Q655 Chairman: In which languages? Inspector Dempsey: In whatever language is required. It is a base of hundreds and hundreds of languages. We also have a local face-to-face interpreter service based in Belfast. We have accessed the telephone service 62 times during September, we have accessed the face-to-face service 47 times and we have also put in place a new contract for signage for the deaf and we have accessed that six times. What I would like to say in relation to reporting is that some of the initiatives that I talked about earlier are based around reporting. We recognise that people may not directly want to come to the police, so we have been putting in place third party reporting, Crimestoppers reporting, and we are developing internet reporting, so we want to make the Police Service as accessible as we possibly can to allow people to come forward. Q656 Chairman: I am very interested in how you are cracking the language problem. You do not have a Chinese interpreter on board 24 hours a day, do you? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Yes. Inspector Dempsey: The way the service works is that we have contact with a mainland based telephone interpretation service. You dial a number. Q657 Chairman: What about face-to-face delivery? Inspector Dempsey: Face-to-face we have the service provider based in Belfast and that has a database of over 160 interpreters and those interpreters can be accessed across Northern Ireland. There is a delay in getting an interpreter. That is why we have a telephone service, to ensure that we can get information quickly and then follow it up with a face-to-face interpreter. Q658 Mr Beggs: Do you agree that the police and government approach to hate crime has been reactive rather than proactive to date? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: I am not sure that we would agree that because a lot of the initiatives that have been taken forward within PSNI, both at corporate and local level, are proactive initiatives, putting information out into communities, in leaflets and on our website as well. We certainly have not been reactive, albeit that it has to be said that the issue of hate crime has only become a major issue for PSNI within recent years when we started to collect accurate information about hate crime. Perhaps you could have said some years ago that we were reactive but certainly not now. Inspector Dempsey: A number of initiatives have been police-led partnership initiatives where police have identified the need and brought their partner communities on board not just in respect of crime but also in respect of quality of life issues for these people who do not have a basic understanding of the provision of tactical services, and so on, so the police have certainly taken the lead in many of those initiatives. Q659 Mr Beggs: The Community Safety Unit is currently developing a multi-agency approach to recording and analysing hate crime. Will the PSNI participate fully in this initiative? How do you see the police role in this developing? Does the PSNI have any concerns about the initiative? Inspector Dempsey: Certainly we have been involved in that scheme right from the outset. We would have been one of the groups of people involved in setting up this research project to start with. The scheme is based on a secure internet site where people from a statutorily involved organisation can access a secure web server and input details of hate crime. If somebody comes to the Housing Executive and reports an attack they will input the information and it is co-ordinated centrally. Certainly from a policing perspective, and we have looked at other areas like Edinburgh that have a similar scheme, it provides more information for the police because we will get information on reports that we will not get directly and that allows us to access that information and use it to prevent further attacks, so we welcome this initiative. Q660 Mr Swire: Your moves to improve the ways that people can report crime are obviously very welcome. Nonetheless, Patrick Yu of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities told this committee that the number of racial incidents recorded by PSNI is "only the tip of the iceberg". He went on to assert that a lot of people from ethnic minorities have "no confidence in policing because when they report crimes to them, they have not reacted or responded punctually. Alternatively, when they interview the victim, they do not take race as a factor when they encountered racially motivated attacks or harassment". What is your response to these criticisms? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Obviously, it is disappointing to hear that said, but the level of reporting of racial incidents I would compare almost in some cases rather like domestic violence incidents. It can take a large number of incidents prior to the police being called before the victim feels empowered to come forward and call the police. Whilst it might be the 20th or 30th incident for the victim for them finally to report it to the police, when the police arrive to them it is the first incident. We have to make sure that police officers are trained to recognise that when a racial incident is reported it is probably not the first and they have to deal with it as sensitively as they can. Inspector Dempsey: What we have been doing is reviewing our whole approach to hate crime. We have had from 1997 racial incident reporting structures and we have had 2000 come forward. In recent months we have examined our whole response, and what we are doing is developing and will be publishing shortly a new hate crime policy. It is absolutely crucial that people feel supported by the police when they report an incident because people within these communities tend to speak to other people within the communities and if they are not confident when they have a bad experience it can be very damaging. Hopefully, what we have seen in respect of increased reporting is a greater confidence in the police. We have a very close relationship with many minority ethnic support groups and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender support groups. Obviously, that relationship is very important so that the police can hear what their views are, that the police are directly engaging with these people to find out what their concerns are. We see the new hate crime policy as a key way to reinforce the minimum standards that the police force set out to ensure that we are consistent and effective in our response. Q661 Mr Swire: You accept some of these comments and criticisms? Inspector Dempsey: Those comments are nothing new. We have heard them before. The police certainly have worked very hard over the last two years. The relationship with these groups is much better. We are aware much more of the issues. We are certainly not saying that everything is great and good. We have an awful lot more to do and continue to do what we can. Mr Wilson: If I can add something, Chairman, in terms of the research that Brian mentioned in the local tender offer that appears in the media today, we intend to get an accurate picture of the level of under-reporting of these incidents by asking victimisation questions. We also intend to assess satisfaction with the PSNI when people have been victimised and try and get what the reasons are for not reporting because it is in our interests that these victims come forward and report the incidents. In line with the Board's legislative responsibilities this research will attempt to put some figures on under-reporting, the reasons for under-reporting and assess satisfaction with the PSNI in terms of these types of incidents and we will bring recommendations to the Chief Constable as required. Mr Dougherty: It is important to point out that the mechanisms are in place that will allow us to get a good range of views and opinions through the local district policing partnerships and also the existing strong community infrastructure that exists in various parts of the Province. We also intend to target relevant organisations and groups to ensure that they respond. Q662 Chairman: Do you find more difficulty with some ethnic minority groups than others in getting their confidence? Inspector Dempsey: If people are coming to reside in Northern Ireland they are coming from certain countries. Depending on what their experience has been with the police service in their particular country it can be a very real barrier to coming forward and reporting. Q663 Chairman: Which groups would you put into that category? Inspector Dempsey: We have seen a number of people coming from countries like Zimbabwe and Iraq where their experience of the police has not been particularly positive and I expect their view of the police in Northern Ireland is no different. We obviously have to convince them that it is otherwise. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Also, Chairman, trust and confidence need to be earned. We cannot expect it and therefore we do have to make a special effort with regard to the communities that Robin has already mentioned, and that is where our proactivity would come in. We cannot expect them to come to us because they may have had negative experiences of policing in their own countries, so we do have to be proactive and go to them. Q664 Chairman: It is very interesting you say that because it brings me back to one ethnic minority group which I think, Mr Dempsey, we discussed last time you were here, and that is the Chinese community. They of course have been in Northern Ireland a very long time. Yes, they are growing. We have heard from them that they are very frustrated that they do not have a better relationship with you. We took evidence in private last week from some of the victims, including one very moving piece of evidence from a person in that community who has been suffering racial hatred and abuse and crimes for the last nine years, reported it to the police. The police would not come; it took 40 minutes or an hour to come. They damaged the doors, kicked them down in the house, windows were broken, and then one person allegedly said, "There is no big deal with a few children throwing a few stones. No-one got hurt". I believe it is a two-way street. I think they have to come to you or to us. I questioned the group that we met to see whether or not they had ever been to their Member of Parliament about these things and they said no. I said, "You should". I was not thanked by my Northern Irish colleagues for saying that but that is the sort of thing we are here for if there is a problem between citizens and the police. Given that there is a problem and given that perception is everything in Northern Ireland, even when we are talking about the ethnic minority problem, how do you think you can better get across this barrier? Let us just refer to the Chinese community for the moment because they are a large minority group. They are also a very stable and settled one who have been there for some time and are contributing mostly to the economy. I am sure I speak for all my colleagues. We were surprised that this went on being a source of resentment in that they did not believe you were on their side. I am not saying that to criticise you; I am merely reporting what was said. Do you acknowledge it is a particular problem and what plans have you got to do something about it? Inspector Dempsey: Certainly you met with a group of Chinese people and it is impossible for me to comment on the particular case that you refer to, not having the details, but after you corresponded with us the last time we sought a very urgent meeting with the Chinese Welfare Association because, to be honest with you, we were quite concerned about the comments which had been raised, some of which had not been mentioned to the police before despite the fact that we meet with them regularly on both a formal and an informal basis. We sit on the Chinese Welfare Association Advisory Group; I am a member of that myself, and some of the comments are not comments that we would hear from them. However, in saying that, when we hear things like that we are very concerned because it is very important that people are confident in how the police deal with these incidents, and certainly when you hear comments like that it is disappointing because we certainly are striving to do what we can to support and protect people as and when we can. Q665 Chairman: They may, of course, say different things to us than they do to you, for a number of perfectly understandable reasons. I would like to give you the name of this person at the end so that you can go and try and make some contact because it was very moving and this person was very distressed at the time she --- and I have given her sex away; I did not mean to do that. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Provided she is happy with you passing her details to us. Q666 Chairman: I am sure she will be if I do it privately. The longer this inquiry has gone on the more sense we have had that you have a particular problem. I am not saying this as a criticism of you but just so that you understand that they feel there is a very significant problem in the relationship between them and yourselves. I said to them, and I do not mind saying this in public, that it is a two-way street; they have got to do their bit as well. When you are talking to pressure groups it is different from when you are talking to ordinary people and you sometimes get a very different story. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: There is, as I am sure you aware, a concentration of the Chinese community in South Belfast and South Belfast have been working particularly hard to engage with that community and also to make sure that when incidents are recorded there are appropriate quality controls put in place to make sure that they are not disposed of lightly. For example, there are not any racial crimes written off without the superintendent's say-so in that area, so the superintendent actually acts as a quality control filter and after 28 days reviews all reports of racial crimes in that area. There are certain initiatives that we are doing but on the other hand, as you rightly say, it is a two-way street and we would ask that incidents are reported at the time rather than some weeks later when there is very little that we can do about it. Having said that, when they are reported at the time, we have to do something about it at the time, so I acknowledge that it is absolutely a two-way street. Chairman: I will give you the name of this person afterwards. Reverend Smyth: I want to emphasise that aspect because it is not just the Chinese community. You will find you have got a fair record, if you keep logs at all, of the frustration when people's houses have been broken into, when there are incidents and they phone for the police and it takes a long time for the police to answer. It is a similar situation in some areas in England as well. When you said about response, I can think of one case at least when the folk came to me and it was reported by myself to senior officers and there was no follow-up at all. I wonder if you have records of any proceedings taken against anybody over that ten years of carrying out racist crimes. It is usually put down as "monetary gain" rather than racism. Q667 Mr Swire: This question is to Cookstown DPP. Following on from the questions about representatives of minority ethnic communities, do the GLBT population or people with disabilities have any representatives in your organisation and, if not, have you contemplated taking any action to consult specifically with the minority community in your area? Mr Paisley: Was the question, do we have representatives on our District Policing Partnership from disability groups? Q668 Mr Swire: Yes, or representatives of the GLBT population. Mr Paisley: The GLBT population is? Q669 Chairman: Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual. Mr Paisley: In terms of the disability groups we are very well represented. There are three white disabled members of our District Policing Partnership. In terms of the gay and lesbian community, I suspect that west of Oban people who are gay and lesbian are still to a large extent closet gay and lesbian. I think that most people in rural Northern Ireland are quite secretive about their gender if they are gay or lesbian. I suspect that is a tradition and I suspect it is through fear. Mr Wilson: Perhaps I could just add on behalf of the Policing Board that there were nine successful independent applicants who came to the Policing Board for appointment to all DPPs across Northern Ireland who were of a non-white ethnic group. Eight of those nine were appointed. There are eight independent members of DPPs across 25 established DPPs in Northern Ireland who are from a non-white ethnic group. Q670 Chairman: Can you tell us which communities off hand? Mr Wilson: I cannot, no. Chairman: We would like to know that if you could please let us have a note. Q671 Mr Swire: My next question is to the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Your submission to the committee refers to research which the Policing Board has commissioned into the views of minority ethnic groups and non-heterosexuals towards the PSNI, the Policing Board and District Policing Partnerships. What are the findings of the research? Mr Wilson: The tender document has gone out this morning in the newspaper to carry out the research but the results will not be published until 2005. We are at the tender stage in the research, so there are no results available. What I will say is that we have set up a steering group for both projects. Mr Patrick Yu from NICEM and a gentleman from the Coalition on Sexual Orientation are on the steering groups of both research projects so that we can try to get their views and experiences and get the methodology as good as we can get it. Within four weeks we hope to have appointed someone to carry out the research and we will be publishing the results of the research by June 2005. Q672 Mr Swire: Let me just get this straight. The research is not available until June 2005 or the research has not been commissioned yet? Mr Wilson: The application for tender is in the newspaper today. Inspector Dempsey: If I could add one thing, the Police Service are presently writing to all victims of racially motivated incidents in relation to quality assurance, so every victim that has reported to the police is getting surveyed in relation to the quality of service and how they perceived that the police dealt with them. This is separate from the research that has been commissioned and we will obviously be looking at that very closely to determine how they feel the Police Service dealt with them. Mr Dougherty: From a Policing Board perspective we are keen as well, as I mentioned earlier, that the consultation is as widespread as possible. We use accessing mechanisms that are there in terms of local consultation and target specific groups like the Tsai Pak(?) community in Londonderry, for example, and the Rainbow Project also based in Londonderry, to ensure that we get a fair reflection of their opinions. Q673 Mr Luke: I have two questions for the PSNI. We have already taken evidence from NICEM. In their evidence to us they have made claims of institutional racism in the PSNI. What would be your reaction to that allegation? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: I am not sure it is helpful to talk about a definition of institutional racism. Rather what we want to see is positive action to tackle racism, if there is any, within PSNI. Obviously, the Police Service of Northern Ireland seeks to be as representative as possible of the community it serves. In recruiting individuals who are representative of the community it is quite possible that we will be recruiting individuals who hold racist views. If that is the case, that needs to be dealt with and tackled robustly through the disciplinary procedures. There is absolutely no room for racism within the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Q674 Mr Luke: You are taking positive steps to eradicate that? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Absolutely, and in our initial and foundation training areas, in our cultural awareness day, and in fact within our safe call procedures police officers and members of support staff have the opportunity to confidentially report any inappropriate behaviour. We are confident that we have reporting procedures in place that would allow any inappropriate behaviour, be it sexist behaviour, be it racist behaviour, be it homophobic behaviour, to be picked up at the earliest possible stage. Q675 Mr Luke: My next question is to the DPP. District Policing Partnerships have the right to be consulted on local policing plans. What measures have you been able to incorporate into the local policing plan to tackle racism? Mr Moffett: In terms of the policing plan we consult the wider community in terms of our survey which helps to get it adopted locally. It is part of our aim, obviously, to negotiate that plan locally in the district with the superintendent, the command officer of the DCU, and at that stage we will have the opportunity to input that into the local plan and obviously it will be given some consideration from calling ourselves as a partnership. In terms of ourselves, we hope to meet towards the end of this month and then in December we hope to meet with the superintendent to agree the draft plan locally. There is a small indication that it is a concern within the district locally, which has come through our survey, so it will be given confidence in our discussion. Q676 Mr Luke: You are actually in the process of consulting? Mr Moffett: Yes. Q677 Mr Campbell: My question to the PSNI is on the issue of some of the communication representations made by representatives of the Chinese community. Superintendent Hunniford of the community safety branch had a meeting with Anna Lo of the Chinese Welfare Association in the summer. I am just wondering if there have been any developments or announcements following that meeting, which I understand took place during the summer, and I was wondering if you could help the committee in terms of what has happened since then. Inspector Dempsey: I was at that meeting with Superintendent Hunniford and it was directly in response to the correspondence that we received from the committee because we were very concerned about the points that were raised. We met very quickly after we received the correspondence with Anna Lo and Ms Lise Cox, who very much have their own relation to racial incidents, to discuss a lot of the issues that were raised. As I said earlier, we have both formal and informal contact with the Chinese. We meet regularly anyway with the Chinese Welfare Association. We proposed a number of things. We are a member of their advisory group as well. We said that we would plan in co-operation with them a seminar and invite people along from Chinese groups and from the Chinese business community and give them an opportunity to address those concerns themselves. We did this last year and had quite a large group of Chinese, both individuals and business people, come to us at a Sunday afternoon seminar in Belfast. We will certainly give them the opportunity to do that. We regularly attend that meeting and we have asked them to keep us posted as to how they proceed with the police amongst the Chinese community because we were very concerned, to be honest, with some of the points raised and were surprised that we had not had them raised with us before. Q678 Mr Campbell: Paramilitary style attacks are an unfortunate feature of Northern Ireland life. I am wondering whether the police have any performance targets in terms of the reporting of that type of crime and, if you have, can you give them to the committee? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: We do not have any performance targets with regard to paramilitary style attacks. I would say that those attacks tend to be perpetrated by individuals from one community on another individual from within the same community. They would not be perpetrated across the sectarian divide. They are an extremely complex problem because of the fear associated with the victim in terms of disclosing who their attackers are and very often it is the case that they will be aware of exactly who their attackers are but because of fear and intimidation they do not want to come forward and disclose that to the police, which makes it extremely difficult to detect unless we catch these people actually in the act of perpetrating a paramilitary style assault. We have had some successes lately in terms of doing just that, intercepting punishment teams on their way to carry out a punishment attack or paramilitary style assault. However, without the support of the community and the victims it is extremely difficult to detect these crimes. Q679 Mr Campbell: My next question is for the Policing Board. This goes back to the issue the Chairman raised, the issue of perceived animosity within the Police Service toward ethnic minorities. Is the Policing Board doing anything to liaise with ethnic minority representative groups to establish (a) if there is any belief or perception of racially motivated activities within certain members of the police and (b) what the Board can do to help the police eradicate that perception amongst those who may have it? Mr Wilson: The Board has a legislative requirement to assess public satisfaction with the police. It comes from the Police (Northern Ireland) Act 2000 and this current research which we are carrying out is in line with that. The formal research that we are commissioning is the way in which we are going into these areas to see what the issues are about under-reporting but also to assess the level of public satisfaction with the police in line with our legislative requirements. We not only ask the public whether or not race hate crime is high on their agenda but also about priorities and it is currently not high up on their agenda. Things like domestic burglary, under-age drinking, vandalism, things like that, are much higher up the public's agenda. The current two research projects that we are in the process of tendering in line with our legislative requirements are our way of formally engaging with these groups and trying to improve the situation by bringing recommendations to the Chief Constable, where recommendations need to be brought to the Chief Constable, for action and we will follow that up. Q680 Mr Campbell: Just to be clear, it appears anyway to me that there are a large number of areas in Northern Ireland where this issue is not a paramount issue, but there are a small number of areas where it is a very serious problem. Where it is a very serious problem, do you think under the over‑arching outlook that you have outlined that you will be able to delve into that to give some satisfaction to a small number of people who do have a very particular perception? Mr Wilson: Again, within the Board's legislative role I think we do. The Board and the PSNI have been very proactive. We have had policing plan targets now for two years; we have now stepped up our policing plan targets next year to include detections for hate crime, not only to monitor the incidents. We are ahead of the game. We have been proactive whenever there is public concern on hate and race crimes, and two or three years ago it was not at the level it is now, so we do see it as a priority. The policing plan is where we set our strategic objectives for the police service, so we do listen to the public. We get representations from groups; they ask us to put things in the policing plan, and race and hate crime are a few of the issues that we have put in the policing plan, even though the numbers of incidents in the public perception may not necessarily have been in a placing plan normally. So yes, we do listen. Inspector Dempsey: As well as those formal mechanisms there are more informal mechanisms as well. Board members' in their role on a day‑to‑day business and their daily jobs speak to groups to try and get a feeling themselves for how public opinion is veering, and attitudes towards PSNI around hate crime. Those issues are raised at formal monthly board meetings and the Chief Constable has been questioned on a number of cases in terms of trying to meet requirements set out clearly in the annual plan. Q681 Chairman: Very few perpetrators of hate crimes are ever prosecuted. I think your figures say 7 out of 226 incidents. That seems a very low figure. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: In fact, Mr Chairman, I think it has been 18 people who have been charged or summoned ‑‑ Q682 Chairman: I am talking about your 2002‑3 statistics, which is the last full year we have had. Inspector Dempsey: Last year not every incident reported to police can be a prosecution because legislation has not been breached, and we have had some difficulty in accurately saying how many prosecutions there have or have not been previously. Last year, I can tell you with certainty in 2003‑4 we carried out a very detailed piece of research both in respects of racial incidents and homophobic incidents, and what I can tell you is in respect of racial incidents there were 453 incidents reported to police and, of those, 267 were crimes. Of those 267, 45 incidents were cleared, a 16.9 per cent clearance rate, and those 45 were made up of 18 charges or summonses, two adult cautions, three juvenile and formal warnings or start of cautions, two perpetrators were under age and could not be prosecuted, 18 people declined to prosecute and in two cases there was no prosecution directly. I think what we would like to highlight is there were 18 potential prosecutions where the victim would not support a prosecution, 16.9 per cent. The average detection rate for crimes of that nature across the board was 27.4 per cent, so significantly lower. In respect of homophobic incidents I can tell you 71 were reported ‑‑ Q683 Chairman: We will come back to that in a moment. We have not seen those statistics before, at least I have not, and there are very interesting but there are twice as many, nearly, incidents reported, and much better rate in terms of action being taken, 45 as opposed to 7, but still a very low proportion, is it not? If you have got 267 crimes and you are only making 45 prosecutions, if that was an aggravated assault or a robbery or rape you would not be feeling you had performed well, would you? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Which is why in negotiations with the Policing Board we intend to have a target in next year's policing plan to improve the detection rate for hate crime, in particular racial and homophobic offences. Q684 Chairman: I want to come back to that in a moment. I think you said six of them were under age and could not be prosecuted? Inspector Dempsey: Two under age. Q685 Chairman: What age is that? Inspector Dempsey: Ten. Below the age of criminal responsibility is ten. Q686 Chairman: So what do you do with these people, under ten, committing racist crimes? Inspector Dempsey: In the eyes of the law they are not responsible. Obviously clearly the police do not accept that ‑‑ Q687 Chairman: I have sympathy for you but there is a problem if people under ten are getting racist tendencies. Inspector Dempsey: The police will do what they can. They will obviously go and speak to their parents and try and do what they can. We cannot prosecute them so it does create some difficulties. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: You will be aware of research in Northern Ireland which showed racial tendencies, even in pre primary school children. Q688 Chairman: Mostly sectarian ones but yes, that, alas, is a problem. Come back to homophobic crimes. Inspector Dempsey: For the same period 71 incidents were reported to police. 45 were crimes, 8 were cleared ‑‑ that was a clearance rate of 17.8 per cent ‑‑ Q689 Chairman: By "cleared", do you mean prosecuted? Inspector Dempsey: No. In respect of the eight, three were charged or summoned, four the complainant declined to prosecute, and in one there was no prosecution directed, so again there were three prosecutions and four potential prosecutions where the victim declined to take forward a prosecution. Chairman: Well, I think I can say the Committee will look forward to seeing your targets and wish you well in trying to achieve them. Q690 Mr Pound: On that, I have some difficulty in working out the categories within the numbers. We have heard a lot about the case of Baroness Titty von Tramp, who is Robert McCready I think, who is a 6'6" transvestite whose case has been a lot in the papers as one of the visible members of the gay community who was putting his make‑up on in a men's toilet and was jostled. Would that appear as a crime? The East Belfast MLA for the Alliance Party said it was a homophobic crime, and I am not sure what Mr McCready or Baroness von Tramp has said. Inspector Dempsey: That would be an assault. Q691 Mr Pound: So word "jostled" in that context ‑‑ Inspector Dempsey: If there is any physical contact it is an assault. Q692 Mr Pound: So within those categories you are talking about the majority of them cross‑refer to specific crimes regardless of the sexuality of the victim? Inspector Dempsey: That would have been a case of homophobic, the 45 crimes out of the 71. The ones that were not crimes where there was no legislation breached, it could have been a remark made in the street but we will record those. Q693 Mr Pound: I think somebody said to Baroness Von Tramp that she should be in a circus. Now to be honest if I found a 6'6" transsexual putting their make‑up on in the gents I might have said something similar, but would that necessarily be considered homophobic? Inspector Dempsey: It would be, yes. Q694 Mr Pound: I shall be careful in the future! Inspector Dempsey: If I could add to the statistics, one of the things that greatly concerns police is the lack of community support for prosecutions. There are very many incidents we know of where people are aware of who is carrying out these incidents, particularly in south Belfast where they are very close‑knit communities and they know who are carrying out these incidents and they are not coming forward with information to police, so our efforts to prosecute people are getting frustrated and we have certainly been appealing in respect of both interviews and in respect of literature posted through doors to encourage people to come forward and support the police to prosecute. Mr Paisley: If I could comment, on Cookstown district command unit since April five racially motivated attack incidents have been reported to the district command unit. It has resulted in three prosecutions, one of which has been drawn by the complainant, so that is quite a good ratio being brought before the courts. More than half. Q695 Reverend Smyth: There have been these incidents. In how many of them did the police recommend prosecution, and how many were declined by the DPP and prosecuted? Inspector Dempsey: I am not sure in respect of exactly what you are asking, but what I would say is that the police recommended that 18 people were charged or summoned to court; 78 people declined to prosecute. Obviously if the police do not have a complaint it is difficult in most circumstances to take forward a prosecution, and there were a number of cases dealt with by way of adult caution or restorative caution. Q696 Reverend Smyth: I was raising it because there have been occasions when the DPP have not prosecuted on the grounds they did not think it had been a successful prosecution, and I wanted us to try to get that out. Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: The director will apply an objective test to all prosecutions, not just those involving hate crime, and in the case of racial incidents there were two cases where no prosecution was directed. In the case of the homophobic incidents there was a case where no prosecution was directed, but the same objective test would be applied across the board. Q697 Mr Tynan: Obviously you want to all do all you possibly can to assist to have the legislation in place where you could make a real dent as regards the prosecution figures. Could you tell me how you see the operation and in what way you think the new Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) 2004 Order will impact and assist in eradicating or prosecuting hate crime in Northern Ireland? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: It is too early to assess the impact at the moment but I can say that I think the fact that the legislation is there sends out a very clear message that crime is unacceptable but crime that is motivated by prejudice is particularly unacceptable, and I think it has been a success story in terms of including the wide range of hate crime within that legislation that crimes against people with disabilities is also recognised as entirely unacceptable. It is too early yet to assess the impact of that legislation but I would be optimistic that it will have a positive impact in terms of the enhanced sentencing powers of the courts when the crime is proven to be motivated by prejudice. Q698 Mr Tynan: Some of the questions asked of us is why should the minority groups in Northern Ireland feel there would be better results in this legislation when the existing laws seem to be applied in a feeble way. What would your reaction be to that comment? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Again, I would go back to what Robin has said about community support. What I would say in terms of our general crime rate in Northern Ireland is that crime generally is falling in Northern Ireland, and there is no doubt about that. In burglaries and vehicle crime in particular there has been a substantial fall in the amount of crime. What we have to improve on is our detection rates across the board, not just with regard to hate crime but violent crime and property crime, so what I would say is that if there is a suggestion that the legislation as it exists is being applied feebly I would say look at our figures, because undoubtedly there has been a success rate in terms of addressing volume crime and we need to get getter at making more detections in the hate crime area in particular. Q699 Mr Tynan: Could I ask the same question of the DPP and the NIPB. How do you think the recently introduced Criminal Justice (No 2 (Northern Ireland) Order will help in the fight against hate crime? Have you a comment to make on that? Mr Paisley: In relation to the DPP our role is to consult with the police, to monitor their performance and that is simply our remit, and whatever legislation is in place we would be supportive of the system that is there. We would hope that it is effective in dealing with hate crime because it is certainly on the increase. Mr Wilson: We continue to hold the Chief Constable and all the staff under his control to account for upholding any law which is creative. We certainly have been proactive in the area of hate crime. In strengthening the legislation inclusive of sectarian incidents we have already set targets for next year's policing plan so we will continue to hold the Chief Constable accountable for upholding that law and any other law. Q700 Mr Tynan: So you think the legislation will help? Mr Dougherty: I think the members of the Policing Board have been proactive in trying to gauge how successful models of supposed good practice have been on the mainland and in terms of those being transferred to Northern Ireland we are quite keen to learn from the mistakes that have been made and add value to our own mechanisms? Mr Wilson: It is probably too early to say whether or not the legislation will help but we will continue to seek performance information from PSNI to support the trends we already have and at that point we can probably make a judgment, and we will continue on an on‑going basis to monitor the performance of PSNI, and at that point we can tell whether the legislation is helping or not. Q701 Mr Tynan: Could I ask a further question on the PSNI. How difficult do you think it will be under a new legislation for a PSNI to obtain evidence which the courts can take into account that an offence has a religious, racial, sexual orientation or a disability motivation? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: The good thing about the benefit of hindsight is that the legislation in Northern Ireland is different from the legislation introduced in England and Wales in that we still have the substantive offence. Even if you do not prove a racial or homophobic or sectarian motive you can still prove the substantive offence, be it assault or criminal damage, disorderly behaviour or whatever, so even if you do not prove one of those additional motives you can still fall back on the substantive offence. In order to prove the racial motive it is too early because we have not had any of these cases through the court yet, but clearly if there are circumstances in which there is racial graffiti or racial language used that needs to be very carefully recorded by the investigating officer in the witness statement, so where there are circumstances that clearly make it clear that the offence is motivated by prejudice, then that needs to be very carefully included in the statements of evidence. Q702 Mr Tynan: So you think the new legislation will make it easier to obtain evidence that the courts can act on? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Yes, I think it will. Q703 Mr Tynan: Are the PSNI developing any new training? You spoke of training in a number of contributions you have made today as regards training. How do you indicate the training that has been done, the changes that have been done? Has it improved from before and is it dealing specifically with hate crime? Inspector Dempsey: There are a number of things that we cover in training. Training obviously is delivered to the police officers we establish, and the student officers in the police college and locally at district level as well with the district trainers. Some of the initiatives that we have is that all student officers are trained both in respect of cultural awareness and racism, and obviously in addition how they should deal with victims of crime including victims of hate crime. One of the things clearly that we need to do is ensure, particularly with talking about new policies, that people are aware of the impact those policies should have and how they are expected to deliver the service or deliver the policy out on the ground. One of the recent initiatives we have taken is we have developed a guide to culture and diversity which is a publication which deals with all the main minority ethnic groups and other minority and vulnerable groups across Northern Ireland. It is a guide which aims to create some understanding and respect for those difference groups. It talks about issues, if are going to a particular home, that you can be aware of. Certainly it is not a definitive guide, it is guidance and that is what it is, but we have issued that to every police officer and every member of our support staff. So it is things like that that we can do, but obviously that is not a substitute for getting people into the class room situation and instructing them. We involve the various different minority groups in our training, we bring in members of the minority ethnic groups, members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual transgender groups, and we involve them in the training, so it is not a case of police officers standing in classroom situations and telling people what we think they need to know, but we are actually involving people who have their own personal experiences in that training, and that is important as well. Q704 Mr Tynan: So how long have you been involving the minority groups in the training process, and in the people advising you? What kind of training is required? Is that a recent innovation? Inspector Dempsey: Certainly when we are developing training we will consult with the different groups. We also have in addition independent advisory groups, one for disability, one for minority ethnic groups, and we have a Belfast LGBT forum which meets quarterly or more frequently as and when required. Those groups are monitored by police in respect of policy, training issues, and issues of concern to those particular groups and we very much listen to what they tell us. We are also developing a corporate diversity strategy as well run by our corporate diversity branch, and that is key obviously across that bit of the organisation as well. Q705 Mr Tynan: Just to clarify, you have the GLBT involved in the training? They advise you when training is required? Inspector Dempsey: Yes, they are involved both in an advisory capacity and practically. We would have role training in college, for instance, and it would be members of those groups that would come in and participate on that. Q706 Mr Bailey: Addressing the PSNI, earlier we spoke about the number of officers from minority ethnic backgrounds but perhaps more specifically what measures are being taken to make the police more representative in the areas such as disability and sexual orientation, as well as ethnic minorities? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: In terms of the area of disability we only have recently started to collate information on police officers with disabilities, and unfortunately in the Northern Ireland context we have always had a disabled police officers' association which has been, as I say, unfortunately a function of the situation which we have been in for the last thirty years, so there is considerable support there already for disabled police officers, as I say, just simply because of the context in which we have operated. In relation to the Lesbian and Gay Police Officers' Association, there is the beginnings of an LGBT police officers' association within PSNI and we are trying to foster that, but many police officers are still not comfortable about declaring their sexuality and nor should it be any of our business to ask them what it is, but it is about making sure that there is an atmosphere that is conducive to people feeling comfortable whatever their background is working within PSNI. Q707 Mr Bailey: Do you think any changes in the current legislation would be helpful to target minority ethnic communities for recruitment? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: Certainly one of the key things which happened some years ago was the removal of the height requirement for police officers and that happened right across the United Kingdom police services, because that was one issue that undoubtedly indirectly discriminated against certain minority ethnic groups. That has gone now and as a result we have attracted some applicants from the Chinese community, and we have already referred to one who we have already within the ranks of the organisation, but I think we can work a lot harder in terms of attracting applications from minority ethnic groups and getting them to the stage where they are going through the recruitment process. It is a testing process and we need to look to see if there are any stages of the process which disproportionately discriminate against minority ethnic groups. We did find, for example, that there were stages of the process which were disproportionately discriminating against women, and one case in point was the fitness assessment. That has been removed so we are alive to these issues and we will take steps if we do find that they are disproportionately discriminating against a particular group or groups. Inspector Dempsey: Just to clarify the record on something I said earlier, I previously had said there was one member of the Chinese community and it is in fact four members in the Police Service from the Chinese, one black, one Indian and eleven others. Mr Dougherty: Also, the Policing Board closely monitor the conversations of PSNI recruitment processes ‑‑ Q708 Mr Bailey: You have anticipated my next question which was how do you think the PSNI could be made more accountable for ensuring that the police are more representative? Mr Dougherty: In terms of representation on the Policing Board it is probably the key debate in terms of political argument within the police at the moment, but we do have a Human Resources Committee that closely monitors the conversation after each stage, and we are keen to try and get a police service that is reflective of the wider community in the province. Q709 Mr Bailey: Back to PSNI, is there a service within PSNI which provides information, advice and support for officers from minority ethnic backgrounds, who are from the GLBT community or disabled? Assistant Chief Constable Gillespie: I have referred to the seminal LGBT police officers' association. There is also a black and ethnic police officers' association at the same stage. It is a very early stage but our corporate diversity manager who has a specific responsibility to engender these issues is encouraging that and working towards taking those support groups forward. Having said that, there are also support groups for officers who feel that in any way there has been a harassment or any form of discrimination. Each district has a liaison officer to support those officers who feel that they may have in any way been treated unfairly, and I referred earlier to our safe call confidential reporting line. We also within our code of ethics make it very clear that treating people differently in terms of their race, ethnic origin, religion or political opinion and all dimensions of diversity is simply unacceptable. So it is made very clear, and there is a specific responsibility on supervisors to tackle any behaviour which is inappropriate in that way. Q710 Mr Pound: Are restorative justice programmes used for people accused of hate crimes? Mr Dougherty: There seems to be a diversity of opinion in terms of restorative justice in the province. Within nationalist areas it is particularly more prevalent. Q711 Mr Pound: Can I just say that I was deliberately phrasing my question to avoid going down that particular avenue. I simply wanted to know are the programmes in use? If they are, what do they involve? If they are not, do you have any thoughts? Inspector Dempsey: What I can say is that the whole concept of restorative caution is something we have used for youth offending for some time. Within Northern Ireland we are one of the leading authorities on it. There were three juveniles dealt with in the 2003/4 programme for restorative caution, and certainly we are looking at that at the minute, and there is an opportunity to use that concept in respect of both adult perpetrators in respect of hate crime. The start of conferencing, as it is called, is really about an opportunity to bring the perpetrator and the victim together to provide an opportunity for them to say what the impact has been, and we have found it to be particularly effective in respect of youth offending where we maybe have brought a younger and older person together and the younger person has had some concept of the impact of what has gone on, so we certainly see an opportunity to use it. We have used it for youth offenders and we can see an opportunity to use it for adult perpetrators, but it is something that needs to be delivered by somebody who is very highly skilled and trained and who is aware of the particular sensitivities of using it. Q712 Mr Pound: So you are not currently using it in the hate crime concept? Inspector Dempsey: No. We are using it for youth offending. We can potentially use it for adult offenders, and the whole concept even is something that can even be used within communities. It is not something that is tied down specifically to two individuals. So we have a training facility across the organisation. We also could use that within particular community circulations as well. Chairman: Thank you very much indeed for helping us. If you would like to clear the table as quickly as you can, we will get the minister in to contradict everything you have just said ‑‑ or not! Thank you very much.
Witnesses: Mr John Spellar, a Member of the House, Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office; Mr Billy Gamble, Office of the First and Deputy First Minister; Mr Conal Devitt, Community Safety Unit and Mr Tom Haire, Criminal Law Branch, Northern Ireland Office, examined. Q713 Chairman: Minister, I am sorry we are late in calling you but if your government will call votes in the middle of our meetings, we are likely to run late! It is nice to see you, as always. One of our difficulties right through this inquiry has been the difficulty in actually establishing the extent of hate crime. We have had evidence in which your officials have noted the role which the Community Safety Unit of the NIO would play recording incidents motivated by hatred based on religion, race, sexual orientation and disability. How is that establishment of accurate figures progressing, and can we be assured that monitoring hate crime will be comprehensive and robust under these arrangements? Mr Spellar: Thank you, Chairman, and thank you also for the initial apology but I would say quite frankly, if when MPs came to see me as a minister I kept them waiting as long as this Committee has kept me, under the rescheduled time, they would be legitimately complaining quite strongly that I was not treating them with proper respect as members bringing a delegation. I understand things can run on but this is three quarters of an hour after the rescheduled time and I have been waiting out in the corridor, and I think we need to order our affairs a little better in that regard. I do take your point, however, in the introduction that we need to get accurate data in order to understand the extent and also the spread of crime, and hate crime. We also need to break that down between whether there is an increase in crime or, indeed, whether there is an increasing willingness to report that crime, and I am deal with an analogous position, for example, on disorder in various town centres with the introduction of CCTV cameras and we are identifying more offences and offenders and capturing them and, therefore, that is an advantage. But of course it leads to a temporary upwards movement in the statistics. I do not believe there is more disorder taking place but I do believe we are getting a better handle on it, and that relates similarly to hate crime. There has undoubtedly been an increase and PSNI are monitoring that and also the Community Safety Unit are developing mechanisms for getting further understanding and getting more detail on that. At the same time I think we do have to acknowledge, and this is obviously a tribute to the work you will have heard about from the previous presentation from the police, that we are getting a greater willingness and greater confidence from those who are the victims. There is still a problem which we are trying to overcome about their willingness then to proceed, and when I looked at the number of cases that have then led to conviction, one of my concerns and the police concern as well is about the willingness to further proceed. That is not unique to Northern Ireland; it is a widespread problem. So I think we are getting a better handle on the figures and a better understanding of what lies behind them, but at the same time there is work that is being undertaken. For example, I do not know if you were advised in the earlier session about the system that will be coming in, the monitoring and recording of hate crime in Northern Ireland which will be coming in in two stages from next month, a manual system and an IT‑based system in April of 2005, but that will obviously give us further refinement on those figures. Q714 Mr Tynan: We heard evidence from officials in September about the introduction of several government strategies regarding good relations, race equality, sexual orientation, and the on‑going work through Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Can you provide us with an update on the progress of these? Mr Spellar: Certainly. On the good relations policy, that and the strategic framework is being finalised and I am hoping to have focused discussions with local political parties over the next few weeks. There is a degree of good will behind that but there is also some argument on some of the areas, and that has obviously got to be taken into account because we need a policy that will be signed up broadly across the community. Now, the finalised race equality strategy will be published later this year, we hope, alongside that good relations framework and that will take into account the views expressed during the public consultation and also the specific consultation we have been having with the minority ethnic communities, and also we have been involved in dialogue with the Northern Ireland race forum as well, and that will cover a whole range of policy issues that impact on the daily lives of citizens from minority ethnic communities in Northern Ireland. The gender policy unit in the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister has established a sexual orientation reference group to assist in the development of the strategic action plan on sexual orientation, and I understand a final draft action plan will be prepared by the end of December. Q715 Mr Tynan: Whilst strategic plans are vitally important, and we accept that, have you a mechanism in place to judge the success of implementing these strategies in relation to hate crime? Mr Spellar: I think that the key area here, and I do take your point that there are quite a number of areas we are looking at, particularly when you have such a diverse range of interests in Northern Ireland and quality impact assessments and so on and, therefore, a lot of this process of policy development takes longer for understandable reasons, but I can still understand the frustrations of those who are looking at the development of that policy, but I do not see that we are just doing this in series. I think there is quite a bit of work being done in parallel as well. For example, while we are developing these policies, PSNI will have told you earlier about the work they are undertaking to deal with the perpetrators of hate crime, to build up confidence in the community to report, and also work that they are undertaking in broader education in the community in order to chip away at the basis and some of the origins of that crime, so I think this work has to be done in parallel in the same way that I introduced and have already brought in ‑‑ legislation that gives the courts increased penalties to deal with the perpetrators of hate crime so that the courts can indicate (1) the disapproval of society of these activities but also can indicate their very strong measures that they can take against individual perpetrators and send a very clear message to that criminal community that this will be not be tolerated. Q716 Mr Tynan: But is there a mechanism in place, or will there be, in order to judge the success of the implementation? Mr Spellar: I think the way of judging that will be in terms of reduction of the offences and also in our interaction with the various communities, whether that be the gay community, the ethnic community or, indeed, looking at reduction in sectarian crime as well, and also the disability groups as well, and a group that made strong representations to this Committee which formed the basis of your report and which, indeed, led to us making additions to the legislation to provide the protection for that community. So I think it is looking at the objective statistics and data that we will get from offences but also looking at the increasing confidence of those various communities who are affected by such crimes. Mr Devitt: We are anxious to encourage reporting and I think one of the indications will be the extent to which the variety of communities use these new monitoring systems because building confidence in the overall criminal justice system will result in a higher incidence of recording. Also, the feelings that people have, particularly when they come to Northern Ireland for the first time, about whether or not they are being accepted and whether diversity has been welcome ‑‑ the quality of life in Northern Ireland will be very important in judging the race equality strategy. Q717 Reverend Smyth: We have been talking a great deal about monitoring and the role of the PSNI in monitoring such crimes. For what purpose? Is it just to restore confidence in the community, or should it not be target‑set by them to reduce hate crimes? Mr Spellar: On that, the first thing is to identify the extent and depth of the problem. Secondly, we have to target the perpetrators and to do that (1) by getting the community ‑‑ and not just the ethnic community but those in the wider community ‑‑ to identify those responsible, to remove some of the protection and to get a broad political consensus, which, as you know, in south Belfast has now become a very broad political consensus, including some of the loyalist parties in terms of putting pressure on to the perpetrators in the community in order to stop that activity. It is then to provide confidence for witnesses, or indeed to build on professional witnesses so that the individuals cannot then be subject to reprisals and to identify that, so those are the areas, and I would hope that certainly from my experience of the work that PSNI are doing on this there has been a substantial change both in clamping down on crime but also in engaging much more in the community, having dedicated liaison officers dealing with the community who, therefore, become an established source of communication. All of those are starting to have an impact and, indeed, rates are still too high but it is quite interesting that the rate of increase has slowed very substantially as a result of the response of PSNI, but we and they do not think by any means we have reached the end of the road on that. Q718 Reverend Smyth: You did refer to south Belfast and one of the most glaring basic incidents of racism took place in south Belfast, and it is alleged that the police know the perpetrator and he was certainly set aside by others in his organisation, but there are those who say why was he not brought to justice? Mr Spellar: It does become the case, quite simply, of getting court compliant evidence that will secure a conviction, and one of the difficulties up till now has been in identifying the perpetrators but also having witnesses. You can be very clear. I cannot tell you how many times I am told in the business of Northern Ireland that the dogs in the street know who is responsible for which particular evidence but, as the Chief Constable says, dogs in the street do not have standing under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and we need evidence that is compliant! That is why I stress so much in my earlier contribution about giving confidence to witnesses and also, as I said, looking at professional witnesses as well, and building up community pressure in all of the communities against those who are responsible. So I am pleased at the work we have done but I also acknowledge that we need to be undertaking more of that in order to bring more of the perpetrators to justice, and then the courts have greater penalties to use to signify both the disapproval of society and also to inflict significant punishment on the perpetrators. Q719 Reverend Smyth: You will appreciate that it is the member for South Belfast who has been approached about these things, that people had not raised that issue, and above all about the dogs who did not bark? Mr Spellar: I fully understand that but also I would say, taking particular account of the Reverend Smyth's position as the member for South Belfast, that to some extent in some of the media there has been an attempt to describe this almost as an exclusive problem to South Belfast and I have made clear on a number of occasions that is not the case, and the most recent incident in the last few days has been with Filipino nurses attached to the Royal Victoria Hospital in West Belfast, and there is a growing realisation that what we have been saying for some time is that this is a broader community problem and all communities need to be taking this seriously and need to be taking action. I want to put that on the record. Q720 Reverend Smyth: We as a Committee were surprised to learn that sectarian incidents are not recorded by the police for the purposes of hate crime. Will it be difficult in practice for them to define, monitor and gather evidence to support hate crime motivated by sectarianism in Northern Ireland by comparison with other forms of hate crime? Mr Spellar: Yes, and I think the police probably explained this earlier. If one goes back a few years most, or a considerable amount, of the activity of paramilitary groups was sectarian‑based and therefore it was action against paramilitary activity that was the prime focus of the police. Because of many of the sensitivities in Northern Ireland of which Reverend Smyth is even more aware than me, there is a degree of reluctance of the police to be making that the initial point of the inquiries, but I think as we are looking at developing this broader approach on hate crime and, indeed, as in a number of areas paramilitary activity is reducing, dealing with sectarian action becomes important as well, and that is obviously an area that the police are working on. Q721 Reverend Smyth: You quite rightly referred to the fact that racism is not just limited to South Belfast, and we have been aware from ethnic communities that they are very concerned that police have not been following up complaints. Can you give us any guidance how the concerns of these communities are being addressed by the police and when the allegations are made that they are following them up? Mr Spellar: I would hope that the previous witnesses would have given some evidence on that. The definition of recording sectarian incidents has been agreed by PSNI and its initial consultees, and that has been included in the service hate crime policy which will be issued shortly. Broadly the definitions will be that it will be Catholic, Roman Catholic or Protestant, Nationalist, Unionist, Loyalist or Republican, and so they have taken that on board, they have developed the policy, they will be issuing that shortly and then working on it. Q722 Reverend Smyth: How would it help to reduce hate crime? Mr Spellar: As I said earlier, there are two strands to the policy. One is getting a better handle on the level and extent and depth of hate crime, and you can see that from the work that this Committee did on disability where initial evidence did not seem to suggest this particular problem. The Committee took substantial evidence and looked into it in depth, and came to conclusions which led us to add that into the legislation. That is the evidence‑based starting point for it. But then there needs to be the necessary action which is not just police action; it is also about education in the community and about the role of the courts and the additional penalties that we have prescribed; it is about getting a better understanding amongst the youth as well ‑ all of these then become a further part. It also then becomes about building in protection as well, actually providing limited reinforcement on housing and so on through the work of the Community Safety Unit, the same as we are doing for pensioners, spending about £2 million on improving the safety features of pensioners' homes. So it is a multilayered approach in order to reduce incidents but also to work away at the causes of these incidents as well, and that is partly about education, partly about reinforcing society's disapproval, and then about society taking action about those who perpetrate these offences. Q723 Reverend Smyth: It is obvious when it is racist, one can easily distinguish colour and styles, but when it comes to religious will it be perceived or real religious distinction? Mr Spellar: Well, I think, the definition will be perceived to be sectarian by the victim or any other person. Now, that may arise from what people say or may arise from the objective circumstances and we will need to test that. As I was saying earlier with regard to the increase in the reporting of race crime, we do have to look below the headline figures to see whether that is an increase in the crime or whether it is an increase in people's willingness to report it. In some ways their increasing their willingness to report it is encouraging, but it does lead to an initial higher headline figure but it may be a symptom of us resolving the problem rather than a symptom of the problem increasing. We need to get the data but we also need to look at it with an intelligent eye as well. Q724 Reverend Smyth: You use the terms "perceived" and "real" in the context of the distinction in law in Northern Ireland and I can think of a member of the Roman Catholic community who went to a state school and applied for the RUC and because his perceived religion was Protestant he has been turned down having passed everything on the grounds he gave wrong information. Mr Spellar: If I may say so that is a matter that needs to be taken up directly with the Chief Constable of PSNI. Q725 Reverend Smyth: I will be doing that but the issue is when we talk about "perceived" and "real" when it comes to religious discrimination. Mr Spellar: But remember what I did say ‑‑ that this was about the perception of the victim and, as he could be described in the circumstances you have described as the victim, he would have a perception of that. Q726 Chairman: I think we will draw a veil over that. Leaving sectarianism out of it, is there one aspect or group within the hate crime categories that worries you more than others? Mr Spellar: No. I think they move up according to incidents and you get some fairly disgraceful and horrific incidents, but I think overall we need to be changing the attitudes of certain groups in society to those who are different, and many of those whose attitudes are negative towards those who are different move their particular ‑‑ Q727 Chairman: I have not made myself entirely clear, and I am trying not to lead you. Everybody, all the organisations are doing their best to come to terms with the difficulties that there are amongst the ethnics, the homophobics, the disabled, but is there one group where you feel the struggle is rather harder to get across? Mr Spellar: No. The reason why I was not immediately rising to that issue was that we have had some particularly unpleasant cases of homophobic assault in Londonderry quite recently but also we have had a number of incidences of racial attack, and in both of those I think there is a real need for the police, the courts and society to crack down. These are two different areas where we have had high levels of incidents; in both cases we need to nip this in the bud at an early stage and to take very strong action, and the reason why I did not differentiate between the two is because we have two particular areas where in both cases we will need to crack down for different reasons. Q728 Chairman: I am sure everybody would agree with that and I think the Committee understands the difficulties everybody has over homophobic attacks because of the nature of the individuals concerned and sometimes their reluctance to talk about it. Mr Spellar: Also because of the sheer level of violence associated, as we have seen only this week in London as well, and these attacks can lead to very serious injury or even death but can become a little too fashionable, and we need to crack down on that. Q729 Chairman: Leaving that to one side, yes, it is a problem and, yes, it needs to be tackled but one of the things that has concerned the Committee I think in a growing way over the course of this inquiry is the relationship between the PSNI and the Chinese community. We had a meeting with them and we have come away with the impression that PSNI are not as interested or as dedicated as they might be in dealing with this, partly I have to say, and I have said this to the Chinese community representatives, because they have a rather negative attitude about their co‑operating and taking a positive attitude towards the PSNI. This is a two‑way street and I have made it quite clear. What is your view, sitting in the NIO? Is this something we could all help more over, to get the Chinese ethnic community ‑‑ which after all is stable, large comparatively and has been there for a long time ‑‑ more integrated into Northern Ireland society? Mr Spellar: Indeed, and on Monday the Secretary of State was opening a new facility for the Chinese community, a lot of it sheltered accommodation for elders within the Chinese community who had been placed previously into sheltered accommodation with those from the rest of the community. Of course, many of them have limited or in some cases no English and were feeling extremely isolated, and I think this service that is being provided has been very much welcomed by the community. We have been involved in a number of discussions with them. I would certainly hope that they would have the maximum dialogue with PSNI, not least because there are concerns within the Chinese community as well regarding the activity of Triads within the community and therefore, quite apart from difficulties that they may be having with some from the local community, there is also an internal difficulty as well, both of which require liaison with the PSNI. Certainly, I am interested in what you are saying, though we will obviously look at the report and discuss with PSNI following your engagement with them earlier today. Chairman: Thank you. Q730 Mr Campbell: Minister, we heard from the police just before you that the number of prosecutions of hate crime had increased in recent months but still are quite low. How confident would you be that the Criminal Justice Order is going to lead to an even greater increase in the number of prosecutions, and a higher level of reporting of such crime? Mr Spellar: Well, I think it ties in with what I was saying earlier in that regard, that as we take action and as people are convicted, there is more confidence but also we have to very much look at protection of witnesses within that programme as well. One of those areas that did concern me, for example, was that something like 18 complainants declined to prosecute. I can understand how that happens and that is part of building confidence in the community and that is an area we do have to focus on, but also looking at where we can get objective evidence through professional witnesses in order therefore to bring the perpetrators to justice. Q731 Mr Campbell: On a separate issue, you announced I think last week or the week before new legislation in relation to travellers, and many people in the community in Northern Ireland welcomed that. Some were not so sure. How would you see that new legislation working in practice? Mr Spellar: Firstly, it will contribute to better relations between the travelling and the settled community. Secondly, not one elected authority, whether unionist‑influenced or nationalist‑influenced, objected to the proposed legislation when we put out the consultation. There is a recognition that something needs to be done in order to improve relations between the two communities and this provides the way forward, so I think this will improve relations because it is talking about providing sites for the travelling community but also saying they should not be using sites that are not properly designated; they should not be just camping on public land or other people's land willy nilly and causing nuisance and, indeed, quite often a number of offences as well, so there is that balance to be struck of ensuring that the proper needs of the travelling community are met but at the same time that is not at the expense of the disruption of the settled community, and I think that provides the way forward. Q732 Mr Campbell: Just for the purposes of clarity, for example, this summer in my constituency there would have been the arrival of a number of travellers who arrived at an industrial site close to a seaside resort and there were the problems normally associated with that type of arrival. How would the new legislation deal with that? Mr Spellar: Essentially this would be an unauthorised encampment and therefore the police would be able to take action, but part of that will also be that there will be provision of proper sites so that people will not have the need, or the perceived or alleged need, to be conducting illegal encampments. So it provides for the facilities for the travelling community but also therefore provides the police with the means of protecting the proper interests of the settled community as well. Q733 Mr Campbell: I am still not clear what happens. The police arrive at an encampment that ought not to be there that is either on private land or on business land owned by a local authority, and the police ask the travellers to move on and they decline. Mr Spellar: They will then have the powers to force people to move but that obviously is still going to be subject to consultation as to the final shape of the legislation. But this will be giving the police powers, and not dissimilar to powers they have in England or, indeed, in the Republic of Ireland to move people on from unauthorised encampment. Q734 Mr Beggs: Good evening, Minister. Mr Spellar: I notice you did not say good afternoon! Q735 Mr Beggs: The Stephen Lawrence report emphasised the need for preventative work on racism, and also specifically focused attention on the role of education. Have you any plans for requiring schools in Northern Ireland to adopt recommendations in that report to record and publish data on racist bullying? Mr Spellar: As I was saying earlier one of the key areas for us to focus on at a much earlier stage, along with the actions that we will be taking to stop perpetration of offences, is to better educate people to work away at prejudice and to work away at those attitudes. There has been work undertaken by the council on the curriculum, the Council on the Curriculum Examinations and Assessment, for a revised statutory curriculum which will include replacing the current theme of education for mutual understanding with local and global citizenship education, so work is already being undertaken through the Department for Education in that regard. Q736 Mr Beggs: The integrated education system in Northern Ireland accounts for less than 5 per cent of the school population. Why is the percentage so low, in your view? Mr Spellar: There has been an increase in all of this area, and I am just looking for the exact figures. Mr Gamble: At the moment there are 55 integrated schools in Northern Ireland and the Department for Education each year provides a significant amount of funding, both current and capital, towards the integrated sector, and will accept recommendations in terms of demand at local level for development of schools. I could give you further information if there is a specific in terms of the question, but the general point I would make is that there is significant investment coming from education towards this sector, and at the moment there are 55 schools. Mr Spellar: It is not my department so I will just read the figures to you: the Department for Education funds the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education for this financial year, £486,000, and has provided a total of £3,550,000 to the Integrated Education Fund to provide assistance with the capital costs of new schools in the period prior to their becoming eligible for capital grants. Q737 Mr Beggs: We have been told that 800 children are being turned away from integrated schools each year. Does the government intend to make more funding available? Mr Spellar: The figure I have, and I would like to revert to the Committee in writing on that, is that the total number of children who expressed a desire to attend an integrated school as their first preference choice in 2004‑5 who did not receive a place was 298, and of those 55 are in respect of children seeking places in primaries and the remainder are post primaries. I think the figure you have includes all children who applied for a place in an integrated school wherever that was in their order of preference, but their first preference I understand was 298. What I also understand is of those 298, 208 of those were in respect of applications made to schools that have reached their physical capacity. What I do not know, education not being my department, is whether that related to class‑size limits which is a situation that members of Parliament in GB know about, and quite an on‑going discussion as to whether there should be some relaxation in some schools in order to increase the intake or whether that is, indeed, down to sheer physical capacity and what may need to be done on that, but we should always understand that expansion of some schools also leads to closures of other schools and that can be quite a vexed issue as well, so it is not an instantly straightforward issue. Q738 Mr Beggs: Do you have any plans to promote controlled integrated status? Mr Spellar: The real question is about facilitating integrated status for those parents and children who are wanting to go to integrated schools. As to how that is being handled by DofE I would have to say that I would ask the Minister for Education to write to the hon. Member. Mr Beggs: Thank you. Q739 Mr Luke: Minister, in evidence we have taken from a Professor Tom Hadden he put the case that imposing longer sentences as provided under the 2004 Order would not help resolve the growing problem of hate crime. Have you considered other approaches such as restorative justice programmes as a means of addressing racist, sectarian and homophobic attitudes? Mr Spellar: There is quite a bit of work being done between the authorities and various restorative justice programmes, and of course that often depends on the relationship between the established system, and that is a slightly difficult area to handle but also one that is extremely important to cover as well. They do have a role to play within that, and I hope I had indicated in my earlier contribution that we do not see the increase in penalties that we brought in as the whole story. We see them as important, both as a statement by society and also as an instrument to be used appropriately by the judiciary, but we do not see them as the whole story. Now, I hope I was indicating earlier that both the work we were doing in schools and also the further work that needs to be done, particularly for diverting youth from these antisocial activities and particularly where we have initial, maybe low level incidences of restorative justice programmes, can have a role of getting people to face up to the real hurt and fear that they are adducing in families and diverting them from that particular course. So that has a role and it has a part to play in addressing these problems. All of these hang together. There is not one single or simple solution. Q740 Mr Bailey: Coming back to the Lawrence report, one of the recommendations was that there should be a review of training provision in relation to racism and cultural diversity within the Criminal Justice system. Can you indicate what forms of training are available for people working within the system in Northern Ireland, and what other forms might be desirable or relevant? Mr Spellar: Yes. You will have looked at some of that obviously with the PSNI and obviously with other agencies as well. Awareness and diversity training is delivered to minority liaison officers on an on‑going basis by various groupings, for example the Northern Ireland Interfaith Forum, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual Organisations in Northern Ireland, the Community Safety Branch and members of minority groups and also, I am pleased to say, drawing on its experience from police forces that have had earlier and longer experience of handling these difficulties, there has been established a very good liaison with the police in the Leeds/Bradford area in the Leeds/Bradford hate crimes unit in West Yorkshire, looking at best practice and looking at spreading that work out. So we are looking at a number of areas, looking at the broad approach that is required, not just obviously with ethnic minority problems but other vulnerable groups as well, and I think that is being undertaken across the various agencies. Mr Bailey: Thank you. Chairman: Minister, thank you. It has been a long but useful session and I apologise again for the delays which were beyond the control of this Committee, I am afraid. Thank you for your help. This is the last evidence session and we will now settle down and come to our conclusions, and let you know as soon as we can. Thank you very much for coming. The Committee is adjourned. |