Briefings • PSPOs

How will councils use the ASB Act?

The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act went live on 20 October. A Manifesto Club report last month found that powers will be used to ban rough sleeping, ball games and ‘inappropriate dress’. Here is the latest news on how councils and police are planning to use the new powers: Poole Council has obtained an order prohibiting street drinking and begging. Norwich City Council to ban skateboarding and rollerskating in parts of the city centre. Colchester Council plans to ban ‘boy racers’ from gathering in a retail park after 6pm. Stoke on Trent Council is planning a similar measure. Bath City Council…

Blog • Football Fans Not Criminals

Wrexham fans fight back against ‘bubble matches’

A guest post by Peter Lloyd, author of the Manifesto Club report on ‘bubble matches’. The football ‘bubble match’ phenomenon may be fading, thanks to increased opposition from supporters and with some major clubs, notably Newcastle United, Sunderland and Hull City, siding with their supporters to overturn the imposition of bubble conditions. This has been reinforced through greater awareness of bubble matches in the mainstream press. ‘Bubble matches’ take freedom of movement and freedom of choice away from law-abiding citizens who are football supporters, travelling to some away matches. The fans are forced to travel on designated coaches from a designated starting…

Blog • Busking • Take action!

Westminster Council – stop the prosecution of young musician Dan Wilson

A guest post by Jonny Walker, director of Keep Streets Live On Wednesday 20 August at 10am a talented young musician who has represented Great Britain in the world loop championships appeared in court in Westminster answering criminal charges of ‘illegal street trading’ and using a speaker in the street, for a 10 minute busk in Leicester Square early this year with a couple of CDs of his own music with a sign saying ‘suggested donation £5’ and giving details of his Facebook page. This was his fourth court appearance relating to this one incident of spontaneous live music and he now…

Blog • On-the-spot fines

The injustice of fining parents for a family holiday

Parents are organising against the increasing habit of fining families who take their kids on holiday in term-time. Fines for truancy have grown astronomically – from 3,483 in 2004-5, to 32,641 in 2011-12, to the record 52,370 in 2012-13. In many councils the majority of these fines are issued to holidaying families (two thirds of the total in Kent, for example). Prosecutions for truancy have also grown, reaching 8000 in 2012-13. One couple recently received criminal records for taking their kids on holiday to Australia. It is likely that fines in the 2013-14 school year will be greater still, after a regulatory…

Free movement - visiting artists

Malaysian photographer refused entry: Testimony from Jemima Yong

Jemima Yong, a talented young photographer and performance maker, was recently detained in London Heathrow Airport, denied entry and sent back to Singapore, 18 hours after arriving in the UK. Jemima is a Malaysian citizen and a permanent resident of Singapore. She studied and lived in the UK for five years. Jemima had not done anything illegal on arrival but the Home Office believed that she might break immigration laws whilst she was here. She reveals to the Manifesto Club the deeply flawed system employed by the UK Home Office to justify a decision made on individual discretion. Her crime? Jemima only…

Blog • On-the-spot fines

Fined for drying a bench in Glasgow

I have just received a letter from an elderly gentleman in Glasgow, who was fined earlier this year while in the process of drying a bench. He has arthritis and wanted to sit down; he had one handkerchief but the bench was still wet, so he left the tissue for a minute to go to a cafe opposite to get some more tissues and finish the job. Yet no sooner had he stepped away from his bench, he was approached by a warden who slapped him with a fine for littering. He explained that he hadn’t left the tissue, he was only…

Blog • Busking

Leicester Sq busking crackdown funded by private company

The band King’s Parade were arrested while busking in Leicester square in May. Reports from a Westminster Council meeting (1) now reveal the context for this arrest. The crackdown on busking in Leicester square is part of Operation Spotlight, which is funded by the private business association the Heart of London. The minutes report: ‘Operation Spotlight is a HoLBA (Heart of London Business Alliance) funded initiative aimed at deterring performers/buskers, pedicabs with amplification, persistent beggars and ticket touts.’ The council minutes reveal that this business association, in effect, bought police time, including a police sergeant, two PCs and a noise officer to…

Blog • Vetting

Teachers told: ‘Carry CRB check at all times’

I just received an email from a teacher, reporting that the teaching agency he works with told him: ‘carry your CRB copy with you at all times’. That is, he would be expected to produce his criminal records certificate not just on the first day of a job, but at any time in the course of working life. (Over coffee in the staffroom? In the middle of a class?). This request to carry one’s criminal records check on your person is a sign of how this piece of paper has become an index of trustworthiness; you could be challenged at any moment…