EGN NEWS DESK
When I rang Northamptonshire Police in regards to the allegation that one among their officers had threatened to disrupt a committee assembly of democratically elected native councillors, a recorded message instructed callers that they might be requested about their “protected traits” below the Equality Act.
Christian Concern’s authorized arm is supporting a criticism by Conservative councillor Anthony Stevens to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) in regards to the alleged behaviour of Northants cops.
Christian Concern stated on May 20 that the criticism launched by Cllr Stevens, 51, from Wellingborough, referred to as for an investigation into the “strategies, motives and conduct” of officers at Northamptonshire police.
“The proof included a collection of incidents the place officers brazenly said that they needed to ‘take away’ Cllr Stevens as an elected councillor due to his free speech beliefs,” the organisation stated.
“The story includes arrests, interrogations, media censorship, and collusion between cops and Labour party activists.”
The Mail on Sunday had already damaged the story of the IOPC criticism a day earlier: “Anthony Stevens, a Conservative councillor in Northamptonshire, was arrested final yr after posting a picture from a video – first revealed by The Mail on Sunday – of a Christian preacher having his bible wrested off him by police on the street.
“The father of two was held for 9 hours, throughout which he was additionally quizzed about his on-line assist of one other politician (King Lawal, a Conservative member of North Northamptonshire Unitary Council) who criticised homosexual delight occasions. Mr Stevens, 51, a member of Wellingborough Town Council, was launched and later instructed that no additional motion could be taken towards him.”
The paper went on to report that days earlier than Mr Stevens was arrested, a Northamptonshire Police detective phoned the previous native Tory mayor for Wellingborough, Jonathan Ekins, and allegedly instructed him Mr Stevens must be “eliminated” as a councillor “due to his views”.
In an announcement to the IOPC, Mr Ekins claimed that Detective Constable Amelia Thompson had instructed him Mr Stevens was about to be arrested “for a severe offence”.
In a later name, it was alleged that Mr Stevens had breached his bail situations by attending a council committee assembly concurrently a Labour councillor who had complained about his tweets. Mr Ekins says he was instructed that if Mr Stevens have been to show up at one other assembly attended by the Labour councillor, he could be arrested “on the spot”.
Mr Ekins stated: “My response was, rightly, to remind DC Thompson that she could be welcome to attempt however that, as chair of the committee, I’ve the precise to…instruct safety officers to take away the police for public disruption of a democratically constituted assembly.”
A Northants police spokeswoman despatched me the identical assertion she gave The MoS: “This investigation is topic to a reside criticism and till that matter is concluded, we’re unable to remark additional.”
I requested her whether or not an officer could be suspended if she or he had been accused of threatening to disrupt a Stonewall assembly. She stated fairly moderately that complaints are handled on a case-by-case foundation. But lets say for a second that this had occurred and {that a} criticism towards an officer had subsequently come from an LGBT group. Can any goal journalist significantly doubt that this could lead to a direct suspension in any UK police drive?
Northants police could also be extra blatantly politically right than most forces with its upfront message about “protected traits” below the Equality Act, however the current behaviour of many cops across the nation absolutely signifies how far forces have departed from Peelite rules, which have been ethically Christian in character.
It is properly price studying historian Norman Gash’s description of Robert Peel’s founding of the Metropolitan Police as Home Secretary in 1829, particularly in view of the choice by police forces to permit antisemitic marches across the nation because the October 2023 Hamas terror atrocity in Israel. The extract under may ring a bell with victims of the police pampering of eco-fanatics that has prevented law-abiding members of the general public from attending to work and elsewhere:
“On the night of 29 September 1829 Londoners noticed the brand new Metropolitan Police, of their blue uniforms and iron-framed high hats, on their beats for the primary time. They have been inevitably objects of curiosity and, with some sections of the general public, of outright hostility…Once the early difficulties and unpopularity have been over, the respect and belief which the London police gained from the general public was proof of the worth of the ‘preventive’ precept simply because the nickname of ‘Bobby’ or ‘Peeler’ was a tribute to the person who was the founding father of the drive. From being a hated and ‘un-English’ importation, the Bobby on the beat by the early Victorian interval had been accepted half-humorously, half-affectionately as a British establishment, an immediately identifiable determine within the mythology of standard jokes, cartoons, and avenue ballads” (Peel, Longman, 1976).
Commenting on the criticism towards Northamptonshire Police, Christian Concern chief government, Andrea Minichiello Williams, summed up why the organisation is supporting Cllr Stevens: “The thought of the police storming and arresting a councillor throughout a planning committee assembly is farcical, however on this case it was a real and actual risk and subsequently terrifying for these concerned. Be assured that if that is occurring in Northampton, it will likely be occurring in different components of the nation. The tradition being set within the police drive wants to alter.”
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based mostly in Lancashire.
