A West Yorkshire Police officer who arrested an autistic teenage girl on suspicion of committing a ‘hate crime’ after she told her “You look like my lesbian nana” has been ordered to undergo reflective training following an investigation by the police complaints watchdog for England and Wales, reports the Mail.
Following a six-month investigation, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has ruled that some of the language used by the female officer towards the 16-year-old “was inappropriate and was not conducive to de-escalating the situation”.
The IOPC concluded that the officer’s actions “fell short of the expectations of the public and the police service as set out in the Code of Ethics”, and that “it would be appropriate for the officer to undertake reflective practice – to reflect and learn from the incident to prevent any issues identified from re-occurring”.
In a statement, IOPC Regional Director Emily Barry said West Yorkshire Police had also been told to send a letter of apology to the girl and the family “in an attempt to remedy any dissatisfaction”, and that the force had now done so.
During the incident last August the girl, who also suffers from spinal disability scoliosis, had been driven to her home in Leeds by officers after attending the city’s Gay Pride celebrations alongside her sister. She made the remark after arriving home, and was promptly arrested on suspicion of a “homophobic public order offence”.
In a widely circulated video filmed by the girl’s mother, she can be seen cowering under the stairs in her home and punching herself repeatedly in the head in distress, while her mother remonstrates with police officers. At one point, the female officer can be seen glaring aggressively at the teenager with her fists clenched. When her mother asks that she stop doing so to help calm her daughter’s behaviour, and explains that she has autism, the officer replies: “I don’t care.”
Later during the video the 16-year-old is dragged crying and screaming towards a police van by a group of seven police officers.
Following the teenager’s arrest, the FSU wrote to the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, pointing out that we didn’t think her speech met the criminal offence threshold for ‘homophobic hate speech’ under the Public Order Act. (You can read that letter here).
The female police officer at the centre of this incident may well have felt irritated or insulted by the girl’s remark, we said, but there was no evidence that the comment was malicious, and irritation is not grounds for the arrest of an autistic child. We also reminded Chief Constable Robins that if, as appears to be the case, the girl made the remark to the female police officer when they were both in the girl’s home, then the Public Order Act’s domestic dwelling exemption surely applied.
Shortly after receiving our letter, West Yorkshire Police announced that it would be taking no further action against the teenager.
It’s obviously good news that the force has been told to do the right and apologise. But does the female officer in question need “reflective” training – or free speech training?
The fact that West Yorkshire Police now finds itself in this situation is symptomatic of a wider problem with policing in the UK: too often, the police are prioritising the investigation of potential ‘hate crimes’ and neglecting actual crimes. According to the latest available figures, the force has the second-highest crime rate in the UK, with more than 90% of cases going unsolved in the area. Of the 14,272 total burglaries recorded by the force during 2022-23, for instance, 80% were closed without a suspect being identified, and just 6% (856) resulted in a suspect being charged or summonsed.
As we point out in our recent research briefing – The Urgent Need to Teach the Police about Free Speech – police training is at least part of the problem. We used freedom of information requests to assess how well the police in England and Wales understand freedom of speech. What we found was that a majority of police forces conduct almost no training on the topic, while a huge amount of time is devoted to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training.
78% of the forces who responded to our requests currently provide no training on Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights or our own common law free speech protections when investigating and recording ‘hate crimes’. Conversely, 56% of the forces we surveyed said EDI is inextricably embedded in police training.
In this context, it’s hardly surprising that forces like West Yorkshire Police are wasting their time arresting people for alleged ‘hate speech’ before then quickly releasing them without charge.
If the government is serious about wanting to rebalance the operational priorities of the 41 police forces in England and Wales, then as per our report, it’s essential that police training be beefed up to include extensive instruction on Article 10, ensuring that officers understand their legal duty to uphold freedom of expression as a foundational value in a liberal, democratic society.
You can read the FSU’s report here.
