Humberside Police

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Humberside Police is a UK police force covering the districts of North-East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire, along with the urban area of Kingston-upon-Hull.[1]

In 2013, Humberside Police disclosed evidence that the force had illegally monitored Janet Alder, at the time of an inquest held in 2000 into her brother Christopher Alder's death in a Hull police station in 1998. A lawyer working with the family was also targetted.[2]

Policing anti-fracking protest

Refusing to answer FOIs on tactical policing

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According to Netpol in 2014:

The Freedom of Information Act also provides a specific exemption, under section 31, for disclosures that might “prejudice the prevention or detection of crime”. Thus, when Rathlin Energy insisted in 2014 that it had been “asked by the police to deviate from the Traffic Management Plan” for its site at Crawberry Hill “because of protester activity”, Humberside Police refused to tell us what this meant because it was “tactically sensitive” and therefore exempt. [3]

Prevent strategy presentations linking anti-fracking protesters and extremists

screenshot: Presentation on Prevent showing the link made between anti-fracking protestors and extremists from the Driffield School and Sixth Form

The Drill or Drop blog reported that the Driffield school newsletter, published in June 2016 and sent to parents, included this statement within its Prevent strategy:

‘At present nationally, the greatest resource is devoted to preventing people from joining or supporting the so called Islamic State (IS) group, its affiliates and related groups. More locally, the East Riding’s main priorities are far right extremism, animal rights and anti-fracking.’ [4]

The Prevent strategy published by the school included contact details for Humberside Police's Prevent officer. While it's not clear how involved Humberside were in the strategy's drafting, the West Yorkshire Police force has played a very vocal role in the Prevent programme. The Times Educational Supplement (TES) has reported on how the police there hosted in September 2015 more than 100 teachers from local schools, who were told that anti-fracking protesters should be now viewed as potential extremists under the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. The move received widespread criticism. [5]

External resources

Notes

  1. About Us, Humberside Police, accessed 26 July 2013.
  2. Ian Herbert, Anti-racism smear scandal: Police targeted the sister of black paratrooper who died in custody, The Independent, 27 July 2013.
  3. Kevin Blowe, Freedom of Information Request, Raithlin Energy Traffic Management, Netpol request, 17 November 2014
  4. Ruth Hayhurst, Challenges to police links between fracking opposition and domestic extremism, Drill or Drop, November 28 2016. Accessed 6 December 2016.
  5. Russell Scott, More police forces and councils labelling peaceful anti-fracking protestors as 'extremists' alongside ISIS and far right, Spinwatch, 02 December 2016.

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