The HMS Ark Royal, for years a literal flagship of the Royal Navy, will be scrapped as soon as possible, 4 years before it was due to be decommissioned.

Why am I upset about this? Because I am the current Mayor of the HMS Ark Royal on Foursquare.

When I joined Foursquare on the day it was launched in Manchester (thanks to a tip off from @martinsfp) I could wander around becoming mayor of all I surveyed. Now that there are thousands of Foursquare users in my city, I’m down to a paltry 6 mayorships. And then Cameron comes along with his budget cuts and cruelly dispatches 16.6% of them.

I’m considering a march on Parliament.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Juvenal / Alan Moore

I think this is the last time I’m going to post about this. Pseudo-political wittering was not the intended use for this blog when I started it. However there has been a bit of a development since my initial post describing my thoughts on how the police use anti-terror laws to stop and search people. When I say people, I really mean me. Specifically me, in Clapham Junction on the 7th of March 2009. I know, I’m not a great philanthropist.

After the incident I wrote to a high ranking officer in the Wandsworth borough of the Metropolitan police to complain, making clear that I think randomly stopping members of the public with no reason for suspicion is complete waste of police time and the cause of unnecessary disruption and upset. I have since received a reply and engaged him in a brief email exchange in which I asked a few pertinent questions and a few impertinent ones as well.

My main gripe was that although I was told that I was stopped at random, the officer ticked the box stating I was stopped on grounds of “behaviour”.

You can see that there is no “random” box to tick. So as I am on record for suspicious behaviour I wanted to know what happened to that data.

Some of my questions were answered and some were artfully dodged. You’ll notice I’m not naming the high-ranking officer in this post. This is because he declined to go on record and asked that the contents of our email exchange were not discussed on this blog. In fact as soon as the word “blog” was mentioned he clammed up and told me he couldn’t help me further. (Bloggers! Aaaaaaaagh! To the hills!)

As I have no journalistic reputation to speak of, it probably wouldn’t harm me to post the email exchange in its entirety. However, I do have some respect for people’s wishes so I will only tell you some of the questions I asked and describe the answers I received.

My first question.

What happens to the record that I was stopped on grounds of “behaviour”? How long are the records kept? Are the records public? Can they be used by the police or any other government body in any capacity or investigation not linked to terrorism?

The response was rather shocking: turns out that stops are placed on the police stops database and are kept for seven years. They are not public records but they can be used by the police and certain government bodies in any other capacity not linked to terrorism.

So for seven years there will be a record that I was stopped on grounds of suspicious behaviour and any government agency can use the data whether they are investigating terrorism, littering or whether or not I am separating my paper and plastics. Great.

After seeing a report that all the section 44 stops by the Met and British Transport police in 2008 resulted in not a single link to terrorism I asked the following question.

How many stops under section 44 by officers of your borough have led to successful arrests under terrorism charges or confiscation of items linked to terrorism?

The high-ranking officer told me he could not divulge this data. Perhaps that means there is data to divulge?
I rephrased my question:

I previously asked how many stops had led to arrests or confiscations. If you cannot divulge this number, can you tell me simply if the number is more than zero or not?

The high-ranking officer declined to comment.

It may be true that there have been successful arrests but surely they would want to shout about this? It is noticeable that in the public records published for 2008, there is no separation of arrests made as a result of section 44 stops. The figures only include searches under section44, not people who were stopped and questioned without being searched (as in my case) and the arrest figures include D&Ds, possession, weapons, assault, robbery etc. Seems like somone wanted to minimise the appearence of the stop figures and maximise the apparent results.

I’ve found a great set of figures released under the freedom of information act that states between January 2003 and February 2008 there were 191,478 searches by the Met under section 44 resulting in only 2108 arrests. Crucially, it doesn’t say how many of these arrests were on terrorism charges or how many links to terrorism were found.

I really would love to know this figure for sure, even just within wandsworth, but I suspect I know already. A big fat zero. If I were a dedicated social activist I would request themore detailed information myself under the freedom of information act. I still might but to be honest my feeling of righteous indignance is waning over time. I guess I’m more of a social inactivist.

In addition, this senior police officer denied that teams of officers in his borough were sent out on shifts specifically with the main intention of performing section 44 stops. He also denied that he had instructed his officers to use the section 44 stop and search powers whenever possible. Both these statements contradict what the officer told me during my stop but hey, I’m willing to take his word on it.

In response to my question as to what percentage of those stopped under section 44 were blond, he gave me some PR guff about community relations, standard operating procedure and briefing and training processes in place to ensure no discrimination blah blah blah. I want figures. Like this or this or this. Or even this.

So what are these laws being used for? If it’s not to combat terrorism directly is this just a huge data collection exercise fuelled and legislated on the back of public fear? Are the lives lost due to terror attacks of recent years being exploited to make it easier for the government to put names to faces on CCTV? I’m starting to sound like a paranoid loony now so I’ll wrap up.

So to the end of my brush with The Man. If it happens again I certainly won’t be giving my name or address. You never know if they might use it to prosecute me for failing to separate my recycling.

If you are stopped under section 44 you DO NOT have to give your name address or any other details. You don’t have to explain what you are doing. Section 44 is for stop and search only.  Here are some guidelines from Liberty as to your rights under section 44. And if you are really curious as to who my email correspondence was with, try Googling the phrase ‘useless bureaucrat’ and hit I’m feeling lucky.

Last Saturday, after a quiet potter around Victoria, my girlfriend and I got the overland back to Clapham Junction. As we were walking through the shopping area next to the station she decided to pop into a shop called Accessorize, which, for those of you not familiar which the chain, is pretty much my idea of what hell will be like. All sequins and bangles and tat; filled with cackling, legging-clad high street fashionista. No thanks.

I opted to wait outside and catch up with the weekly wittertainment from Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s brilliant film review podcast.

I was leaning against the shop window whilst listening and trying to decide which made me look the least silly: chuckling out loud or grinning inanely whist stifling chuckles. Kermode moved on from his amusing rantings and descriptions of Renee Zellweger (like a hamster squinting at the sun ) and moved on to reviewing the Watchmen movie. He was comparing it rather unfavourably to the film adaptation of another Alan Moore graphic novel, V for Vendetta – a film I like very much. It was while my thoughts were on Alan Moore comics, police states, fascism and the abuse of public fear to enforce totalitarianism that I was approached by two uniformed police officers.

I smiled a greeting and paused my podcast.

The first officer, one Colin Swan of the the Wandsworth Borough Police told me that he and his colleague (unnamed) were stopping and searching people under Section 44 of the anti-terrorism act and that he would be asking me a few questions and searching me.

I’m not normally anti-police and I certainly didn’t have anything to hide but I was furious. Was leaning against a shop window suspicious behaviour? What grounds did he have to search me? So I asked him.

“We’re conducting random stops in this area” came the reply.

Random eh? A bit of background for those who don’t know me. I am a lapsed catholic of mixed Anglo-Indian heritage. I have dark hair and my skin colour, while not the out-and-out brown of an Indian subcontinental, could be described as beige. I don’t think I’m being cynical when I say that I suspect the last factor had something to do with my being approached. I was tempted to ask Colin Swan how many blonde people he had “randomly” stopped that day but thought better of it.

Instead, quietly fuming, I handed over my driver’s license and stated that I strongly objected to being questioned in this manner. The unnamed colleague (who appeared to be more senior) decided they wouldn’t need to search me after all. Maybe I wasn’t giving off enough of a Muslim “vibe”.

The human rights organisation Liberty explains section 44 of the terrorism act as follows.

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to stop and search anyone in a specific area.
Before Section 44, the police could only stop and search individuals if they had ‘reasonable grounds’ and certain criteria were met. That is no longer necessary, and we have seen Section 44 powers used against anti-war, anti-weapons and anti-capitalist protestors.
The power to stop and search under anti-terrorism powers should only be used when there is evidence of a specific terrorist threat. It should not be simply an addition to the day to day powers of officers policing protests.

After further research, that last paragraph appears to be the writer’s opinion rather than any official guideline. A recent BBC article states that “officers have been advised to use the power sparingly” but Act 44 itself seems to imply that the policeman may stop and search whomever he pleases, regardless of whether he suspects terrorism, provided authorisation has been given to use these powers in that area. Indeed, act 45, which deals with the exercise of power states:

The power conferred by an authorisation under section 44 may be exercised whether or not the constable has grounds for suspecting the presence of articles of the kind which could be used in connection with terrorism.

My mood was slightly elevated by the unwitting interruption of events by my mate Adam, who saw me and had already bowled over and and shouted an enthusiastic “Alright!” before he registered the police presence. The dawning realisation on his face was priceless; I reckon he thought he had just associated himself with a shoplifter. He laughed out loud when I told him what was going on, which cheered me up and boosted my confidence.

Inspired by Adam’s laughter and perhaps the spirit of Alan Moore heroes like V, I started to address some questions toward the unnamed, senior officer about the motives behind the policy of using Section 44 anti-terror legislation this way. Admittedly, my subversive action was a little more polite and middle-class than the aforementioned superhuman anarchist’s but I used some long words (some of which I understand) and a haughty, indignant demeanour to my advantage. In the conversation that took place, while officer Colin Swan wrote out a stop/search record very slowly and with scant regard for spelling conventions, a few interesting points came to light.

Firstly, officers from Wandsworth Borough police have been instructed by the Borough Commander, Stewart Low, to use the powers afforded to them by section 44 whenever possible. Not whenever appropriate. Not whenever necessary, but whenever possible. I asked the unnamed officer to repeat this several times and he confirmed it each time.

So keen are Wandsworth Borough Police to be seen to be attempting to combat terror that each team of two officers is given a quota of stops they have to perform each day. Woe betide Colin Swan or any other officer who returns to the station after a shift without the required number of stop/search slips.

“But Sarge, there was an aggravated burglary to attend,” our poor, naive Colin might argue, hoping logic and common sense will prevail over bureaucracy. No such luck.

Is this the best use of police time? Is it an effective method against terrorism? Or is it just time-wasting and posturing that makes a mockery of the terrorism act and will cause police and general public alike to take the act less seriously?

Centre Right has some interesting stats on the use of Section 44 in London in 2008

• Number of people stopped nationwide by British Transport Police using s 44: 160,000
• Number of people stopped in London by the Metropolitan Police using s. 44: 200,000
• Number of people amongst the 360,000 stopped under s. 44 and found to have any terrorist material or links: 0

I shouldn’t be too hard on PC Colin Swan and PC Noname. They were quite polite and had the decency to be a little sheepish about the whole thing. PC Noname even went as far as telling me he didn’t agree with the policy and advised me to write an email to Borough Commander, Stewart Low. I think I shall, although its very tempting to just start a Google bomb on the useless bureaucrat.

As for good old Colin, he might not be the world’s greatest speller but he was good enough not to pepper-spray me when I asked him, “Is this what you joined the police for?”

In response to my impertinence he didn’t club me to the ground a la Stephen Fry’s Gordan Deitrich, he simply looked a bit forlorn and said, “No”.

For those of you who are still interested after wading through this rambling post, here is a copy of my stop/search form. I’ve blanked out my details.