Police are to stop recording hurt feelings and ‘causing offence’ on Twitter as criminal offences under a major crime shake-up by the Home Office, in some rare good news for free speech online. The Telegraph has the story.
In an article for the Telegraph, Chris Philp, the policing minister, said it would stop police wasting time investigating “trivial” reports of people offended by rude text messages or chasing up neighbour disputes which had been settled by the time officers arrived.
He said the changes would save police officers 443,000 hours a year on bureaucracy and filling in crime reports so they could instead concentrate on investigating complex crimes and supporting victims. That is equivalent to putting more than 200 officers on the beat for an entire year.
“Police time is valuable,” said Mr. Philp. “I want to see officers chasing criminals and keeping the public safe, not filling in unnecessary forms.”
The changes in the way crimes will now be recorded have been recommended by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) as part of a productivity review and are expected to be backed by the Labour party.
Police chiefs have complained that past changes to the Home Office’s ‘counting rules’ – the way offences are recorded – has led to incivility, petty disputes and double counting of offences inflating crime rates. Some critics will, however, demand safeguards that recorded crime rates are not artificially massaged down.
There will be four major changes to the way offences are recorded from next month, starting with the abolition of ‘double counting’ of offences. All reported crimes for a single incident will now be recorded under the ‘principal offence’ rather than as multiple entries for different offences – as already happens with murder.
This would mean that where a victim was stalked by an offender who caused criminal damage in the process, the single crime of stalking would be recorded and investigated as the principal offence. Similarly, the case of a woman raped after being stalked or harassed would be recorded as a single offence.
Officers will be told that they should no longer record “offensive” or “rude” letters, emails, text messages or other communications as crimes as long as they are not malicious.
“Creating hurt feelings or offence should not generally be treated as a criminal matter, except in very specific and limited circumstances,” said Mr. Philp.
Thirdly, it will no longer be counted as a crime if there is, for example, a public disturbance or a fight between two neighbours which is then resolved by the time the police arrive. At present, this would have to be recorded as a crime if a witness had reported it to the police as a threat to violence.
Both the changes would require sign-off by a supervisor such as a police sergeant.
The final amendment would make it easier for officers to cancel the recording of a crime where there was sufficient evidence that none was committed. The sign-off required will vary on the gravity of the offence.
About time. But why was upsetting people on Twitter ever a crime or police matter at all?
Worth reading in full.
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“covid ravaged care homes”. That should be neglect ravaged “care” homes. These care providers need to develop a spine and tell the government where to shove their “vaccine” mandate.
My sister-in-law, a qualified nurse, had worked at the same care home for seventeen years. In April she and three other care staff resigned on the same day, due to the owners introducing their own vaccine mandate. Since then the government has shoved its big fat nose into the sector and will no doubt be making a bad situation worse.
Indeed, that is the only viable response.
If Care Homes don’t refuse the industry will collapse anyway. Of course this has always been part of the plan. The devastation in the wider population as care homes start to close for good will be immense.
Possibly some might, but I suspect that many are terrified of the prospect of losing any insurance cover or being sued to bankruptcy by the usual flocks of ambulance-chasing legal vultures.
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I’m sure that’s true. But we know the “vaccines” don’t work anyway, and staff will still test positive (as many vaccinated people are doing now). And the deaths of elderly residents will still be classed as covid deaths even if they’re not, by lazy, frightened GPs who haven’t even clapped eyes on the patient. I doubt any lessons will have been learned from lockdowns #1 and #2.
It’s not that lessons aren’t been learned. It’s that the same people with the same agenda are still running our show.
So, mandatory jabbing for the relatives then?
Oh yes. And will they be paid for their services? Or get a discount on care home fees? Doubt it.
Indeed they should be! It would be a turn up to be allowed more that a 45 minute visit anyway.
Just say no.
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I’m going to say a dreadful thing.
I’m glad my father’s dead.
I’m glad, because he spent his last two years in a care home that was as good as a care home can be, and it was still bloody awful.
The thought of him in a short-staffed killing home is so utterly, utterly dreadful that the reality would have driven me mad.
Because it would be no use my volunteering to help out, would it? Better for them to watch my father dying amidst neglect and chaos than to allow an unvaxxer near him.
If you have a God, pray hard for the victims of this savagery,
I felt the same about my father, who fortunately died before this shitshow began. It would have killed my mother not to have been able to visit him and knowing he was being neglected by a skeleton staff, PPE’d up to the max.
I’m sorry about your experience with your father. But if his care was ‘bloody awful’, then it wasn’t ‘as good as a care home can be’, speaking from my personal knowledge.
And that is the point – this sort of provision is demanding at the best of times, and depends upon the skills of the staff and management. If the government goes poncing around with this idiocy, it can only make the achievement of high standards more and more difficult.
It would be bad enough even if the clams about the snake oil were based in reality. Given the known problems with provision, the only rational conclusion is that the government are intent on destroying the sector and forcing care responsibility back onto relatives.
It wasn’t the staff’s fault really. He was in the dementia wing with other demented people (much worse than he was), and that’s what convinced me that dementia is worse than death. The staff were in an impossible situation.
What it’s lime now I really, really can’t bear to imagine.
The owners of care homes will appreciate some free labour. Just as firms appreciate those working-from-home saving on their office costs, all that electricity and water…
Just as the councils welcome all the people litter-picking….
You mean the residents’ families who weren’t allowed to see their loved one’s for 18 months?
During the first lockdown, the care package providers for my m-i-l told us that if the family continued to visit her at home then they would withdraw the care package for her. This was in spite of the fact that we were following the government guidelines on supporting vulnerable people (and even wearing masks). As a result, we didn’t see my m-i-l for six weeks. The care providers then experienced a staffing problem so we were called in to help put my m-i-l to bed at night. One day we were called to ask if we could help get her up at 7 o’clock the next morning.
It appears that the rules could be ignored when it suited.
Yes, but if the relatives haven’t been double jabbed themselves, they won’t be able to contribute voluntary care, will they?
Well thats another way of achieving the world Governments aim of reducing the population. Well done to Boris Johnson and all his supporters
vaccine mandates are irrelevant not least because the vaccines don’t stop people catching and spreading the virus. why not just sanitise the air within the care homes with UV, heat treatment or other within the ventilation ducting – no viral load = no spread
Oh and give the inmates ivermectin or HCQ or whatever protection treatments recommended by real doctors like Kory or McCullough – for more effective than the theatre of ineffective but ”look we are doing something” vax mandates
sanitised air = no/low viral load build up
Because more would live?
This presupposes that the relatives will all be double vaccinated though.
How is that going to work?
I bet almost all have been forced into that already.
The huge rise in deaths at home running for many months now suggests
i. More people choosing to die at home of terminal diseases because of the heartless rules in homes and hospices.
ii. More keeping the elderly at home until it is absolutely impossible to continue, or eschewing homes entirely because of heartless rules there.
iii. A possible/probable link to jab linked heart events, mirrored in the rise of ambulance call outs for heart attacks. It is going to be interesting to see what rises in which conditions have happened over the year ending when jabs began.
iv Perhaps suicides, though inquests lag badly and that’s more doubtful.
If the government wanted to help it could offer to pay the heating bills for all care homes, and for all old folks, over the next winter, thus allowing them to keep the windows open to ensure adequate ventilation. But I guess that’s too simple for them.
Bit of a CO2 emissions dilemma for them there.