Criminally Confident

[mothandrust]

Criminally Confident

The demonstration against the arms fair in London's Docklands on Tuesday saw the usual gathering of pensioners, Quakers, anarchists, peaceniks and tutting liberals (my category), waving banners in blood-red paint. From a distance it looked like Sesame Street was doing a show-and-tell special on imperialism. Closer inspection would reveal a cop-to-demonstrator ratio of 1:1; this wasn't crowd control, it was more like mentoring.

I had been asked along by Campaign Against Arms Trade as a speaker, which entailed being backed up against a brick wall and addressing a crowd penned in by metal barriers, via a megaphone held above the phalanx of the Met's fluorescent jackets. Everything went swimmingly: local residents' speeches were met with particular appreciation, news teams scribbled notes, and peace songs were faintly sung. I thanked the organisers and headed for the Docklands light railway to go home.

As I walked up the entrance ramp I was stopped by police. "I am afraid I can't let you past me until I have searched you, as I have reason to believe that you could have articles intended for criminal damage," said an officer.

"What good reason?" I asked.

"We watched you address the crowd."

"I am being stopped for what I said in a speech?" I spluttered.

"Oh no. Not because of what you said. It is because you look overconfident."

That was the official reason, I was "overconfident"; bless them, they even wrote it on the stop-and-search slip the police have to provide. Under the title "Grounds for Search", the officer wrote: "overconfident attitude of Mr Thomas".

How can I walk past the police in an overconfident manner that might indicate criminality on my part, I thought, short of wearing a black-and-white stripy jumper, with a bag marked "SWAG", shouting: "Do your worst, flatfoot!" How do the police differentiate between "confidence" and "overconfidence"? Maybe there is a training programme at Hendon, perhaps an ID line-up room for the overconfident full of the Tory frontbench, where new recruits point at Michael Gove shouting: "That one! Definitely that one!"

Perhaps there are briefing sessions where the significance of "overconfidence" is explained by Sir Ian Blair with the aid of a Venn diagram: "Circle one is Osama bin Laden, circle two Ronnie Biggs, and finally drug dealer Howard Marks is circle three. What is in the shaded area where the circles coincide? Cockiness. They all cock a snook at authority. That and a cavalier attitude towards health and safety."

Surely, if overconfidence is now part of the police's forensic arsenal, Jeremy Clarkson could never leave his house. He would be over the car bonnet with the cops rifling through his manbag before you could say "He's just Richard Littlejohn with a copy of Motor Sport magazine". And if the cops were really after the overconfident, they would have a wagon permanently stationed outside Peter Jones in Sloane Square.

There is a definite sense among campaigners that the police conduct stop and search for no other reason than that they can. I recently saw police search a clown in central London. She was wearing a colander on her head and dressed in rainbow tights. I am not an expert but I believe Raffles preferred black slacks. And I would guess that most criminals avoid wearing a colander; it not only draws attention to them, but it tends to put the balaclava out of shape.

I could be wrong, it could be a double bluff; maybe clowns have pulled off a multitude of heists. The late Charlie Caroli might have done the Brinks Mat job, shoving the bullion down his baggy pants before wandering off to shove shaving foam into someone's face.

Bizarrely, I have worked quite a bit with the authorities on arms issues, finding and reporting three companies offering illegal torture equipment at the last Docklands arms fair, then appearing before a parliamentary select committee on arms dealing. Last May I cooperated with police after I found electroshock torture equipment being demonstrated at the police and security trade fair in Birmingham.

In fact customs were even tipped off on these pages only weeks ago about possible breaches at this Docklands fair: a warning that proved accurate as two arms companies were thrown out of the fair for allegedly offering leg irons - an offence under the Export Control Act, as reported in the Guardian yesterday. Perhaps those arms dealers slipped past the police by being underconfident, possibly dressed as Dickensian clerks, wringing their hands and muttering "Good day t'yer, guv'nor" when they touch their caps.

· Mark Thomas is a comedian and political activist, and author of As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade
http://www.markthomasinfo.com

follow up article:

Criminal Policing

Back in the heady days of September 2007 I was at an arms fair in the Docklands in London, though to avoid confusion I should add I was outside speaking against it, rather than inside browsing. The crowd I addressed was a mixture of Quakers and crusties and for my troubles the police stopped and searched me as I left the event, an incident that I wrote about in Cif.

When the police conduct a stop and search they have to fill out a form giving their reasons and hand a copy over to you. On mine they wrote that Mr Thomas appeared to be an "influential individual" – a quote I intend to use in future publicity – and had attempted to walk past the police with an "over-confident manner" – always a sure sign of criminal intent. Maybe I am wrong, perhaps there is a forensic linkage with having an "over-confident manner" and criminality, perhaps the police routinely chase suspects through our metropolis shouting, "Stop him, he's got a jaunty demeanour!" But I got the distinct impression the police were stopping me because they thought they could.

My rakish over-confidence might be the reason I was stopped but the official purpose was to look for items I might use to commit criminal damage (the arms fair had been subject to a paint attack earlier in the day). So exactly what tools did the police hope to find rummaging through my wallet? Unless my wallet possessed some Tardis-like qualities it was unlikely that a large crowbar might clatter out from between a photo of my daughter and my British Library card? Wasn't this intrusive as well as unlawful?

Although protesters are often targeted for stop and search, often claiming these are unlawful, they seldom seem to put in official complaints. So with the help of solicitors at Fisher Meredith I brought a complaint against the police. Being Britain the first step in a complaint against an official body is for the very body you are complaining about to investigate itself. And lo the police did find themselves innocent.

In official interviews the officers who conducted the stop and search described me as "pleasant and conversational throughout the incident" and thus were "surprised and disappointed that Mr Thomas has made this complaint". Please note that it is me that has disappointed them in this complaint, we had a bond in those moments you see, a brief passing moment of pleasant intimacy, then I let them down. I don't return their calls, ignore them in the street and am later seen being searched by other police officers. In their logic my decent behaviour exonerates their bad behaviour.

So had I been rude or surly would this have implied guilt on their part? If when stopped I had responded by saying, "Fuck off copper", would they have blinked and spluttered, "Oh blimey, you got me bang to rights guv'nor ! It's an unlawful search, an' no mistake." How else are we meant to respond to the police if not politely? If innocent people respond rudely they become guilty by default. Suffice to say the police deemed there was "no case to answer".

So pressing on, the issue was put before the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC). Now the IPCC generally attack the police with all the effective ferocity of a moth taking on a lightbulb. So I was somewhat taken aback when at the end of last year they declared that they "consider[ed] the stop and search of Mr Thomas and the subsequent search of his wallet was unlawful". And that "it would appear that the officers had misinterpreted their powers under PACE (Police And Criminal Evidence Act)". In an earlier point in the investigation the police said they had stopped everyone at the demo with a bag, this the IPCC said was "an indication that the officers did not consider whether or not they had reasonable grounds to suspect each individual may have been in possession of items to use in criminal damage".

Fifteen months after the event the police have been found to be acting unlawfully. So what sanctions do the police face? "The appropriate way to address the failure in standards is that the officer is given words of advice," says the IPCC, "Such advice is neither given nor received lightly and is delivered by a senior member of the officer's management team." I am sure you will agree this is a daunting sanction.

The debate about the use of stop and search – be it protesters or young black and Asian men, be it in the case of stopping knife crime or deterring terrorism – is one that has understandably perhaps been fixed on the police results rather than the times they get it wrong. But it is in the cases where they get it wrong that attitudes towards police are sharpened and the rights we feel we have as citizens practically defined. So I am writing to the police requesting a formal admission of liability on the part of the commissioner and damages for assault and false imprisonment.

The Convention on Modern Liberty will begin in London on Saturday 28 February at 9.45am at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way London WC1. Other sessions, with live screenings from London, will take place at Trinity Centre, Trinity Rd, Bristol; Student Council Chamber, Oxford Road, Manchester University; Cambridge Union, Bridge Street, Cambridge; Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Strathclyde, Montrose Street, Glasgow; Peter Froggatt Centre, Queen's University, Belfast. The venue in Cardiff is yet to be confirmed.

link - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...stop-and-search

[faust]

Saw this link posted in the comments section for the above article:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImC2orpcA4I...feature=related

Enjoy!

[---]

:DI invited Darren P to the site last year, I remember him registering, he's a member as far as I know.

[mothandrust]

Quote:Saw this link posted in the comments section for the above article:D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImC2orpcA4I...feature=related

Enjoy!

nice - to see the cops with their tails between their legs. arrogant little shits