scubadiver
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Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 1850
Location: Currently Andover
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 Posted: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject: Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 |
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A fellow Reading FC supporter forwarded this to me...
http://www.star-reading.org:80/index.php?option=com_content&task=view& id=193&Itemid=26
| Quote: | You've probably never heard of Section 27 of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006.
Four weeks ago I hadn't! But it transpires this is the latest weapon being used by police as a blunt instrument to control football supporters en masse.
This section of the VCRA, section 27, is a piece of legislation which allows police officers to order individuals to vacate a specific area in order to defuse situations - essentially to issue a dispersal order to individuals. The aim of it was that in the event of trouble Police could make the individuals involved leave the area and not come back for a specified period.
To quote from the Home Office's own guidance document "The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 provides the police with a power to issue a direction to an individual aged 16 years or over who is in a public place to leave a locality. The direction will prohibit their return to that locality for a specified period not exceeding 48 hours. The power should be used proportionately, reasonably and with discretion in circumstances where it is considered necessary to prevent the likelihood of alcohol related crime or disorder. The aim of the new power is therefore to minimise the likelihood of alcohol-related crime or disorder arising and/or taking place."
From the same guidance document, these powers should be used "where an individual’s presence is likely to cause or contribute to the occurrence, repetition or continuance of alcohol-related crime or disorder in a locality and it is necessary to remove the individual from the locality for the purpose of removing or reducing the likelihood of there being such crime or disorder in the locality."
But recent events demonstrate that these powers are being grossly misused by the Police. Instead of being used against at individuals and targeted at reducing alcohol-related disorder, and in a way which is "proportionately, reasonably and with discretion", it is being used in a broad-brush way against groups of football supporters, when there is no disorder and no evidence or intelligence of it.
In recent weeks this tactic has been used to remove around 80 Stoke supporters from the Railway Inn pub in Irlam, Greater Manchester, on their way to Old Trafford. The landlord and many others have confirmed that a quiet atmosphere was interrupted at 1.15 pm by a number of officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) who entered the premises and told fans they would not be allowed to leave the pub, that they would be allowed to visit Old Trafford, and would be forcibly taken back to Stoke. Each was then issued with a Section 27, and transported back to Stoke - whether they live there or had started their journey there or not!
Stoke City fan Lyndon Edwards, who is making a formal complaint to GMP and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, said “I asked for it to be stated on the Section 27 form given that I was not intoxicated and that there was no evidence of any disorder on my part. This was refused so I refused to sign the form. I was told to sign it or I would be arrested. We were then loaded onto buses and had to sit there for what seemed like an eternity.”
“There were no football chants being sung at the Railway Inn and no evidence of disorder whatsoever. If there had of been we would have left the pub and made our way elsewhere.”
Since that precedent, this tactic has been used by different Police forces against different sets of fans - including by South Yorkshire Police against Plymouth Argyle supporters visiting Doncaster - where Reading visit in six weeks time.
On Saturday, December two groups of Plymouth supporters were escorted out of the county by police – under threat of arrest – and forced to miss the game. The fans were told police had “intelligence” and were served with a Section 27. No arrests had been made and eye witness accounts tell us that the atmosphere was quiet – no singing, shouting, or drunkenness.
This is a frightening development in policing techniques, where the fact that individuals are football supporters is deemed to be sufficient evidence alone that they are likely to cause alcohol-related disorder.
STAR believes that policing of football supporters should be based upon common sense and that any action against supporters should be only as a result of definite intelligence or evidence. This development in "policing by stereotype" is an attack on the vast majority of peaceful and law-abiding supporters who are, in the eyes of the police, likely to commit crime simply because their chosen leisure activity is attending the country's national sport.
Every football supporter should be aware of this development, as we are all at risk – the mere fact that you are a football supporters who travels to away matches and who has a drink before the match makes you, in the eyes of certain Police forces, “likely to cause or contribute to the occurrence, repetition or continuance of alcohol-related crime or disorder.”
The Football Supporters’ Federation is working to publicise and fight this policy – STAR fully supports their efforts.
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fish5133
Site Admin
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 2568
Location: One breath from Glory
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| Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 11:25 pm Post subject: |
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Are they thinking of starting the Home Internationals again? 
Following what happened in Manchester the last time Celtic/Rangers played there the police will need more than a few coaches to transport the entire drunken Scots fans back across the border.
The Police cannot stop you from carrying out a lawful act. Having a pint in a pub is a lawful act.
Obviously just testing it out on footy fans as they are probably the most common groups of people that meet together regularly in largeish numbers. I bet you wont see rugby fans getting the same treatment though
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JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12 |
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