Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400-405)
25 JANUARY 2005
CHIEF CONSTABLE
MATTHEW BAGGOTT,
ASSISTANT CHIEF
CONSTABLE ROBERT
BECKLEY, DETECTIVE
SUPERINTENDENT DAVID
TUCKER, MR
KEN MACDONALD
QC AND MR
NICK HARDWICK
Q400 Mr Green: What is the police view
on that?
Assistant Chief Constable Beckley:
We concur. We have supported and been very public about supporting
the creation of the offence because we do not believe it is right
that the protection of the law is afforded to, say, Sikhs and
Jews but not to Hindus and Muslims. So we support the law. In
a previous life I was responsible for the National Race Hate Literature
Index, around which I had a lot of links with the CPS. The bar
is very high; incitement to hatred is a very hard case to prove,
but in that respect, for even a handful of cases over a year or
two, I think it would be a necessary and useful offence.
Q401 Mr Green: I am interested in the
contrast there. It does not seem intrinsically a very sensible
way to pass a law in a sensitive area if what it is going to do
is raise expectations well beyond what is likely to be fulfilled.
It looks like gesture politics.
Assistant Chief Constable Beckley:
I think we have managed, over time, the expectations on the incitement
to racial hatred. This has become an area where the rational debate
has gone out of the window slightly; people are not actually discussing
it, it has become slightly polemic. The reality of it is, as with
many pieces of legislation, it is one bit of the jigsaw that provides
protection to our communities in general. It is only a small bit,
but, nevertheless, what we regard as quite an important piece.
Q402 Mr Clappison: Two very quick questions
for the Director of Public Prosecutions. You mentioned the incitement
to racial hatred, which is a similar offence (I think the law
has been amended actually to include religion in the racial element)
but do you accept that there is a distinction between racial criticism
and religious criticism, because it is difficult to see that there
could be a legitimate criticism of somebody because of their race
but there could be a legitimate criticism of their religion? Is
that something which you will take into account in your test?
Mr Macdonald: I do not think we
will be able to because if Parliament says incitement to religious
hatred is an offence, it is an offence. You are certainly right
that one of the arguments deployed by people who are opposed to
this offence is that protecting a belief system is very different
from protecting a racial identity. In the United States, for example,
you could not have this legislation because of the First Amendment
guaranteeing free speech. Under European Convention jurisprudence
the right to free speech can be curtailed appropriately in the
interests of public order and protecting people, and so on. Clearly,
this is an appropriate curtailment of it. The answer to your question
is that if the law is passed then prosecutors will deploy it where
they can, and we will obviously prosecute appropriate cases rigorously.
The point I am trying to make is that it is very important that
the communities that this law is designed to protect understand
what this law will achieve and what it is not designed to achieve.
It is not designed to prevent people being rude about Islam.
Q403 Mr Clappison: I have seen, and I
think other people have seen as well, that there does seem to
be this understanding, in certain quarters at least, that this
will be the effect of it and you are saying it will not be. Do
you think it is important then, at this stage, that people should
be aware that it is not going to have that sort of effect in order
to avoid misunderstanding later on?
Mr Macdonald: Whenever I talk
to representatives of the Muslim communities I make this point.
I have discussed this with Sadiq Khan and he understands very
well that it is not going to have that effect. The point is to
get this across to the communities. If we have a difficulty two
years down the line, in a sense, it will be our own fault for
not being clear about what we are doing.
Q404 Mrs Dean: Mr Tucker, the Secretary
General of the Association of Muslim Police was reported as saying
that it was a lucky day if he could walk into a police station
in traditional dress without being stopped on suspicion of being
a terrorist. With that in mind, how confident are you that police
officers from religious minorities receive proper treatment from
the Metropolitan Police Service?
Detective Superintendent Tucker:
I know the Secretary General very well and clearly there are issues
on which he does not conform to the stereotypical policeman, and
that is sometimes difficult for colleagues to adjust to. I think
it is a question of evolving the service that has people from
a broad range of backgrounds so that is no longer the case, and
that will take some time. I am confident that ACPO and the senior
management within the Metropolitan Police Service are absolutely
committed that the Metropolitan Police Service and the police
service in the UK is as welcoming to people from the whole range
of backgrounds as it can possibly be. I am confident that we are
making significant progress.
Q405 Chairman: Mr Baggott, the ACPO evidence
is very critical of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy
of the four Ps—prevention, protection, pursuit and preparation—because
it misses out communities, which ACPO say you explicitly wanted
as part of the strategy. If the Government counter-terrorism strategy
had a fifth strand on communities what would it look like and
what difference what it make to the issues we have been discussing
today?
Chief Constable Baggott: It may
not be explicitly there but I do believe that the citizen focus
and neighbouring policing agenda set out in the White Paper, the
National Policing Plan, is incredibly important in maintaining
some real momentum over the last couple of years. There has been
an immense amount of learning—whether that is through the
priority policing area work or through the community cohesion
work or reassurance work—about the way in which you can
deploy police officers in the right numbers in the heart of vulnerable
communities in a style of policing that delivers relationship
building and confidence. I think that is an incredibly important
part of any terrorist strategy because it is about the hearts
and minds of people; it is about accessibility, it is about a
whole range of confidence building issues that simply have to
be the bedrock of what is built upon it. So it may not be there
explicitly in that strategy and, certainly, I think there is a
gap there, but in relation to where the police service is going
I think there is a real change taking place about the way that
local policing takes place. I was looking at the evaluation done
by an independent academic called Geoff Berry of a policing style,
actually, in the West Midlands, and he speaks about the policing
role having become "agents of community cohesion, brokers
of change" actually working in not simply law enforcement
but fundamentally brokering arrangements between faith groups,
between community groups, understanding those problems —an
incredibly powerful way of dealing with local concerns. So it
is there but it is there probably on a bigger scale than actually
is simply in that specific strategy.
Chairman: Can I thank all of our witnesses
for, I think, a tremendously useful session. Thank you very much
indeed.
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