We have freedom of speech- part two.

A case of poor quality policing in full public view.

You may recall seeing a news item some few weeks ago regarding Mr Julian Foulkes who was arrested in his own house and carted off to Medway custody suite where he was incarcerated for nine hours or so and then cautioned. I relate the history of this in my piece:

This story was told by the Daily Telegraph on or around 10 May this year and it would appear that indignant feelings from the public at large were fairly widespread. The story received some attention in the press although it did not gain quite the traction I would have thought.

Mr Foulkes was exonerated. The next stage for him was to commence legal proceedings against Kent Constabulary which he did with the aid of the Free Speech Union. In the last couple of days, Kent police have admitted liability in this matter, (how could they not?), and agreed to pay around £20,000 plus Mr Foulkes’ reasonable legal costs in compensation for their entirely unjustified actions.

I recall mentioning in my earlier piece that the Kent plod would settle and that this matter would not go to court. I privately thought at the time that it would take some eighteen months or so to arrive at a resolution, therefore the speed at which Kent Police have dealt with this matter is surprising in the extreme as it is almost always the case that police services’ actions in such matters are glacially slow.

There is an established procedure for acting against police services and, in brief, it goes like this:

• A person feels that Mr plod has acted unlawfully which leads to that individual deciding to seek redress for loss suffered as a result at their hands.

• An initial complaint is made to the IOPC or the force’s professional standards department.

• They review this complaint and must initially respond within 15 days, but can take up to a year to investigate and then provide a “defence.” It would appear that one should be prepared to wait a long time.

• If the individual is not happy with the police response, then the next step is to consult a solicitor. Apparently, many firms now specialise in litigating cases of alleged police misconduct.

• A solicitor will draft a letter of claim which would normally outline the complaint in detail. It appears that this task can be undertaken whilst the IOPC are still investigating. This is known in the parlance as a “pre action protocol.” Again time limits apply for the respondent.

• A phase of negotiation can then take place. This is intended to avoid court action and often the police will negotiate to avoid court as, during a hearing, every matter in the case will be laid bare for all to see. This is especially the case when the plaintiff has video evidence of wrongdoing. This is called “alternative dispute resolution.”

• Sometimes a settlement cannot be reached and if this is the case, then it’s off to court. This can take time and is costly.

So, what might have happened in the case of Mr Foulkes? I suspect that several things may have occurred:

There was a reasonably significant amount of publicity adverse to police in this matter. A popular daily broadsheet newspaper took up the story and so did the Free Speech Union. The plaintiff was a retired special constable, who arguably would have been aware of just how far he can go in terms of his speech. This allowed a degree of traction to be created that was favourable to the plaintiff.

The facts of the case became apparent very early. In particular I noted the alleged offence for which Mr Foulkes was arrested and the fact that there was no complainant. I must say that I think that the handcuffing aspect was more important than it might seem.

Police services seek to avoid poor publicity where they can, but in this case I suspect that their legal advisers thought that the matter was so egregiously poorly handled and the adverse publicity it generated so great that a swift resolution was necessary. In any event a senior constable telephoning Mr Foulkes to apologise is a fairly strong indicator of where Kent police thought they were with regard to this matter.

And so it is that Kent police have correctly eaten humble pie. We can be charitable and say that they took a mature approach to the matter and settled it quickly and with the minimum of fuss and cost. Quite right too and so they should.

The wider picture however, is a worrying one. Around 30 people per day are arrested for supposed hurty words on the internet. To give a specific example, West Yorkshire police were approached in November 2024 and asked the following:

1) How many people have been arrested for posts on social media? Social media includes things like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
2) How many people have been charged over social media posts?
3) How many people have been convicted over social media posts?

WYP declined to answer this question as doing so, (they say) would take too long and therefore be too costly. Part of their response is shown below:

One might reasonably wonder what the answers to the questions posed actually are and indeed, whether or not the WYP are being economical with the truth, there being a continued focus on police action regarding so called “thought crime.” I must say that I find it surprising that the police national computer cannot be quickly referenced for matters such as a charge or a conviction. If it so hard to obtain such information, how do the police use this system effectively at all? How do they evaluate the information they hold for “crime prevention purposes”? Indeed, do they evaluate this data- we know that the college of policing haven’t yet evaluated the NCHI data they have collected.

It continues to be the case that police services around this country make a rod for their own backs. They act without thought or, it would appear, proper reference to law and seem to lack common sense. Harry Miller, during a meeting with the Chief constable of Humberside police some years ago, is said to have challenged the lack of common sense of his constables, only to be told that the police didn’t need common sense, only more guidance. I find that answer laughable.

I maintain my previous position that Mr Foulkes’ case was very badly handled. Every constable involved in the matter should have been able to see that no complainant existed and therefore should have been able to determine (in this case) that no complainant equals no offence (ie no reason to arrest) and should have intervened at the earliest stage possible to prevent the act of arrest and subsequent house burglary going ahead. That is how the system should work- those who guard, should guard one another also.

This is especially the case for senior constables who either knew that what they were asking their colleagues to do was unlawful and yet continued anyway, or didn’t know the law, didn’t seek advice and proceeded on the grounds of an assumption. Any way one looks at this matter, senior constables arguably knew there was no complainant, because if there was one then the MPIC would have briefed them accordingly and they would have advised the public. Each of these alternatives brings policing into disrepute and I cannot come up with another plausible one.

Some may argue that this is an “anti police” rant (or something of the kind), but it is not. It is merely a statement of the known facts and an evaluation on the balance of probabilities what was known by Kent police at the time, or could have been known and what best course of action should have been taken. I would ask you to consider what you would do if you were placed in the position of Mr Foulkes. Would you fade into the background and “put it down to experience?” I think that you would not.

By the way, it is a given that police constables “do a hard job.” That in itself is not a trump argument against my points. I would suggest that the Foulkes case makes the job of rank and file police much harder and they quite probably know it even though they will not say so. We are seeing more and more examples of this sort of action which leads to police services looking foolish and inept. It’s time for that to stop.

Anyway, as I mentioned in part one, the citizens of the UK don’t have the freedom to speak and an ever increasing number of laws are being used to curtail this supposed right. I may choose to think about some of these in a future article because there are many. The first amendment of the US constitution was drafted by the founding fathers because they didn’t trust the judiciary and government to preserve the right of citizens to speak (and therefore think), unencumbered by laws that prevent this. This is why they have a more robust society there. We do not have a constitution in this country and I suspect that it may be wise for a more liberty minded government to look at this at some stage. I would suggest that the labour lot are the last people in the world one would want to do this as they would undoubtedly use a constitutional conversation to further stifle the rights of people in this country.

I would welcome comments on this matter and I am willing to have my mind changed by logical reasoned arguments. If your arguments are strong, they will withstand the rigours of examination, just like my own.

Finally- the Free Speech Union is an organisation that anyone can join and offers protection of sorts as well as access to good quality legal practice. I am a member of this organisation and it is an interesting point to make that their membership has grown significantly since the communists, err, labour have come to government.

It would also seem that recording every encounter with police is becoming more necessary. A camera is the witness that never lies and there is nothing whatsoever to stop people from doing this. Even if the constable asks you to stop filming, you are completely within your rights to continue to do so. It is probable that, during any encounter, you are being recorded by the police, (even though they probably won’t tell you this unless prompted, which is against home office advice and force’s policies). Your recording is just balancing the books, so to speak. It is not necessary to ask the permission of anyone to film them in a public place despite many thinking that this is the case.

I referred to the following freedom to information request. You may find it with this information:

West Yorkshire police: FOI date 11/2024; FOI reference FOI 2301496/24

(Note: If you are arrested then you will not be allowed to record using your device and I would also suggest taking some care when you are driving a car as using a hand held mobile device in a car when you are driving is an offence. It is however a good idea to fully familiarise yourself with the law regarding what you can do with your phone in a car and when).