Back in September 2015, Bill Longmore the Police and Crime Commissioner for West Mercia was whining loudly to the Press about cuts in the force’s budget. Mr Longmore bemoaned the fact that successive cuts to the West Mercia Police budget had meant that the force now had ‘nothing left to cut’. He gave the impression that the force had cut back to the bone and that there was nothing left for anything but essential policing tasks.
The problem is, that although West Mercia may well be short of cash to do proper policing work, such as preventing and investigating crime, there still seems to be oodles of taxpayer dosh in their pockets to spend on various bits of politically correct guff.
One of my contacts in the West Mercia area has alerted me to an example of West Mercia Police’s wasteful politically correct guff which shows exactly where that force’s priorities lie, Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be in line with what the ordinary citizen wants. When surveyed, residents of the West Mercia force region stated that they wanted something done about rural crime, business crime, cyber crime and neighbourhood policing. However West Mercia officers have ignored what many citizens have said they wanted, and have instead chosen to spend what could be a considerable amount of public money on ‘hate crime training’ for a small community group in Hereford. What an utter waste of money at a time when the police in the area are pleading poverty, and when there are a growing number of local policing challenges including a pretty nasty unsolved murder.
My source has alerted me (many thanks) to an article in the Hereford Times about the Newton Farm Community Association being given training in order to be ‘third party hate-crime reporting’ responsibilities. Even though the police in the area, due to budgetry issues may well be about to lose their station and move to a cheaper joint police/fire brigade site, it seems that there is still untold thousands of pounds available to pay for diversity parasites and their pet projects. As is usual policy for this blog, the original quoted text is in italcs whereas this blog’s comments are in plain text.
The Hereford Times said:
“A NEW initiative to tackle hate crime has been launched in Hereford.
The Newton Farm Community Association, at The Oval, will act as a third party reporting centre for victims of hate crime who will be able to go there to report their ordeal.
I think the words that the journalist should have used in this sentence is ‘alleged ordeal’. Just because someone says that they are being targeted because they are of a protected group, doesn’t mean that they are automatically telling the truth. One of the major faults of the ‘hate crime’ area is that it creates classes of people who get better policing than those who do not fit into any of the ‘protected characteristics’. Therefore a gay person may get a better police response if they made a complaint than a straight person would for the same or similar offence. Someone, even if they are lying through their teeth only has to utter the words ‘racism’, or ‘homophobia’ or ‘Islamophobia’ to get a superior policing service which is denied to others. This in my view departs from the idea of equal justice. Do we have specially trained people in community centres to help those who’ve been burgled or mugged or subjected to some other sort of crime? Of course we do not, therefore why waste taxpayers money in this way just so that the diversity box can be ticked?
Staff have been trained to take reports of hate crime and the information they take can then be passed on to police who can investigate and offer further support.
Now we come to the issue of ‘how much’? Some basic research (sources below) on the cost of training people in managing and recording hate crime shows that it’s a nice little earner for those who do the training. One organisation charges £115 per hour, plus expenses, to instruct an organisation’s staff in the subject of ‘Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel Training’. The same publicly funded organisation charges £700 per day for teach local authority housing providers about ‘hate crime’. Personally I think many people living on some of our more challenging estates would prefer that money to be spend on proper policing and not on putting yet more money into the coffers of dubious PC organisations. Another area, Dewsbury which has done the sort of training that the Newton Farm Community Association’s staff seem to have been put through, spent £1,300 on training secondary school pupils in ‘hate crimes awareness’. Although the Hereford Times and West Mercia Police have not disclosed how much has been wasted on their diversity sections latest pet project, I think that I can safely guess that it was more than should have been wasted on stuff like this. Having some experience and knowledge of public sector courses, I’d say at a minimum £500 must have been spent on this exercise in diversity box ticking and it could even be that several thousands of pounds of public money that looks like it might have been wasted here.
It will be the second centre in the county to offer such service.
And the waste goes on.
Rebecca Ashton, office manager at Newton Farm Community Association, said:
“We are glad that we are able to offer people a safe space in which to report hate incidents. We believe that everyone has the right to feel safe and we are proud to be helping West Mercia Police to tackle hate crime and ultimately reduce these unacceptable behaviours as much as possible.”
Does Ms Ashton ever give a thought to whether actually having ‘hate crime’ legislation is a good thing or whether this legislation fits in with the concept of equal justice? Probably not, I’m afraid. Surely, if someone is killed or injured by an assailant, does it make any difference whether or not the attacker chose their victim because of skin colour or sexuality or whether it was unrelated to these ‘protected characteristics’? The person who is the victim is still dead or injured but the law considers it worse if the victim is black or gay. How fair is that? Not fair according to a growing number of people, including myself, who are questioning the whole concept of ‘hate crimes’.
A hate crime is any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice based on a person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, disability or individual characteristic that makes someone appear different.
Note well that this is all based on the perception of the individual making the allegation. The alleged victim could be spouting a whole load of wrong headed assumptions about why they were targeted but they would be given the red carpet treatment by the police, however, someone who was robbed and wasn’t able to claim ‘protected victim status’ would not get such a welcome by the police.
Adrian Symonds, equality and diversity officer with West Mercia Police, said: “Our concern is that all crime is under-reported but especially hate crime.
Now there’s a post that desperately needs to be cut and the money spent on real policing, or on someone doing a more worthwhile job.
“We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of reporting. We want people to come forward to report hate crimes in the confidence that they will be listened to and that we will act on the information they give us. No victim of hate crime should have to suffer in silence.
Whose figures are you basing your statement that there is unreported ‘hate crime’? I do hope that your data doesn’t come from one of the notorious dishonest grievance mongers, such as the Tell Mama organisation, who abound in this particular area of policing.
“The best way to stop hate crime is to report it, whether that is to the police, at the CAB or one of the other methods available to victims.”
Shouldn’t that advice be report ALL crime to the police, not just ‘special’ ones Mr Symonds ?
Inspector Nick Semper, hate crime lead for Herefordshire, added: “There are many reasons why a person may not feel comfortable talking to the police about a hate crime so this is why we are always looking to make it easier to report such offences in a place where they feel more comfortable.”
Does anyone else out there agree with me that it would be preferable to see Inspector Semper prised out from his pointless ‘hate crime’ position and put to task doing some proper police work like say catching burglars for instance? Inspector Semper is yet another example of a police officer spending time on stuff that is bascially non-police work, but which pays as good as real police work.
Having looked at the accounts of Newton Farm Community Association at the Charity Commission website, it’s obvious that this is not a wealthy organisation, even though it is grant-aided, which gives me the very good grounds for suspicion that West Mercia Police rather than the community association itself has picked up the tab for this latest bit of police diversity waste. I’ve no doubt that like many small charities this association does good work for those it tries to serve, but the limited resources of the association and of the police may be better used for other purposes rather than helping Inspector Semper to tick another diversity box on his CV.
The whole concept of ‘hate crimes’ has been extremely corrosive to Britain’s justice system. The growth in acceptance of specialist ‘hate crimes’ has contributed to a two tier justice system where people are treated advantageously because of an accident of birth as in race, gender or sexuality or who belong to religious groups that are currently trendy amongst the Liberal Left. In Britain for example, an obsession with ‘hate crimes’ has brought about the situation where it is unlikely that a person who burned a Bible as part of a protest would be prosecuted, but burn a Koran for a similar reason and it will not be long before the cell door slams shut behind you.
To conclude although this is just one particularly egregious example of police wasting money on politically correct projects, it should be remembered that police forces up and down the country are wasting taxpayers money in this way. It should also not be forgotten that for every pound spend on rubbish like this project, is a pound that cannot be spent on proper policing.
Links
Original Hereford Times article on West Mercia’s latest waste of taxpayer money project.
http://www.herefordtimes.com/news/14131791.New_initiative_to_tackle_hate_crime_in_Hereford/
Police and Crime Commissioner for West Mercia saying that there is little left to cut
Sample costs from the fake charity ‘Stop Hate UK’ showing that they charge £115 per hour for ‘hate crime’ training, money that many people would consider better spent elsewhere.
http://www.stophateuk.org/hcsp-hate-crime-scrutiny-panel-training/
Example of what has been spent in Dewsbury on ‘hate crime’ training in secondary schools . If £1,300 is being spent on school training in ‘hate crimes’ how much higher must be the costs for other forms of ‘hate crime’ training? A lot more I would guess.
Abbreviated accounts for Newton Farm Community Association from the Charity Commission.
From the fake charity StopHate’s own website (http://www.stophateuk.org/what-is-hate-crime/)
“If you think it is, it is. Whatever they call you, call us.”
Completely subjective.
Exactly! It’s the subjectiveness of these ‘hate crime’ complaints that cause so much problems and provide so many opportunities for mendacious grievance mongers.