I was tempted to label this post, Fatal Attitudes Towards Crime – Yorkshire, as one of the series.

But this one doesn’t involve fatality or criminals – unless you’re okay with laws that automatically make you a criminal for saying something.

But the story does have the same aspects to it as shown in my post on crime in San Francisco – primarily a voting public and a Police Force that’s apparently read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four not as a warning but as in instruction manual. They actually are all okay with people being made criminals for saying something.

The story begins nicely enough with the Stasi West Yorkshire police bringing home a 16-year old girl who’s had one too many on a girls night out. Unfortunately this turns into a squad of Police using force to arrest her in her own home, as shown in the following video, which has gone viral of course:

The official explanation from the Stasi West Yprkshire Police so far is that she’s been arrested, “on suspicion of a homophobic public order offence”.

AYFKM? As this article is titled, that means, The Stasi West Yorkshire Police have some explaining to do. Ya think?

…her daughter’s crime was to make an innocent remark about her WPC escort: “I think she’s a lesbian like nanna Julie.” The mother alleges the officer responded by telling the girl she would be arrested before calling for back-up. The clip begins after the squad’s arrival, with the girl — clearly in the middle of an autistic meltdown — hiding in a cupboard and beating herself with her fists. 
…
The video ends with the screaming 16-year-old being manhandled into custody where, according to her mother, she remained for 20 hours.  

So all the training these officers have received never included dealing with people on the autistic spectrum? People who range from extreme, non-verbal cases to ones with mere Aspergers Syndrome, which includes not having a filter on what they say.

Now all this is currently under investigation within the Yorkshire Police, including an official complaint laid against them. But even if the bodycam videos do reveal that the charge is correct that simply means that an immoral, unethical law has been enforced by an immoral, unethical Police Force that also has no common sense, no empathy and no decency. And no fucking brains for that matter: the female cop was compared to a lesbian grandmother. Shock, horror. Surely there is some discretion allowed for a cop to just laugh this off?

But there is more to the story in context. First up, the West Yorky cops have “form” in enforcing such law, and it involves a certain someone we’re familiar with here in NZ:

The force twice interviewed women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen for tweeting about Mermaids CEO Susie Green, going so far as to refer the case to the CPS. A couple of years later, the same force arrested her for holding a lockdown-compliant rally after deciding that women’s rights do not qualify as a political cause. 

Kellie-Jay Keen is of course having problems with the NZ Police at the moment, in that they’re suggesting they can’t protect her.

The context also includes the fact that the enforcement of this law goes a lot further than cops simply “doing their duty without fear or favour”, as the old excuse has it:

This special treatment speaks to the sustained influence of TQ+ ideology over the police. West Yorks no longer pays a subscription to Stonewall, having forked out £15,500 for membership of the Diversity Champions scheme between 2011-18. But the charity’s influence lingers long, most publicly in the presence of WYP’s LGBTQ+ Twitter account. 

Most forces in England and Wales have these affiliated accounts. Staffed by activist officers, promoting political and partisan opinions, and often copying Stonewall’s messaging word-for-word, they operate in direct contravention of the College of Policing’s Code of Ethics on impartiality. They also resist any attempt to engage in dialogue: Fair Cop is blocked by West Yorks’ LGBT account (along with most other forces’).

That’s a degree of influence inside the British Police that I don’t think any other group has.

What that article does not record is that all of this crap has accelerated over the last fifteen years under a Tory government: you know the ones, “Conservative”.

Something to remember the next time you’re being warned about Hate Speech laws here in NZ by your friendly National and ACT politicians.