As we swing in to the heights of the holiday season, caroling teams in the UK had better employ a police look-out less they are deemed a nuisance by grumpy home-dwellers that end up reporting them for creating a disturbance.
The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill contains a clause that a court can grant an Injunction to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNA) if someone “has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance” to any person. The new injunctions would replace Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and would be easier to obtain.
Fortunately, the said legislation is still in committee and has the potential for amendment but, having initially cleared the lower house of Parliament it demonstrates the sweeping level of legislation the government is prepared to endorse for the purpose of protecting the intolerant.
Philip Johnston, writing for the Daily Telegraph said anti-social behaviour won’t be stopped by another acronym, but suggested that more police on the street are needed. The new IPNAs, he said, would be deployed against “easy targets” while others “get away with terrorising their neighbourhoods”.The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill contains a clause that a court can grant an Injunction to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance (IPNA) if someone “has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance” to any person. The new injunctions would replace Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and would be easier to obtain.
Johnston was referring to a legal opinion by Lord Macdonald QC, the former director of public prosecutions. This directive says the new powers would amount to “gross state interference” with people’s private lives and basic freedoms. MacDonald said: “Of course political demonstrations, street performers and corner preachers may be ‘annoying’ to some – they may even, from time to time be a ‘nuisance’. (But) the danger in this Bill is that it potentially empowers State interference against such activities in the face of shockingly low safeguards”.
Active opposition to the bill working its way through Parliament is a group called Reform Clause One whose catch phrase is ‘feel free to annoy me.’ Group Director Simon Calvert said: “This is a crazy law. It will not deter thugs and hooligans who are normally already breaking lots of other laws anyway. But it will give massive power to the authorities to seek court orders to silence people guilty of nothing more than breaching political correctness or social etiquette.”
And clearly the wording of the law will encompass street musicians, preachers and carol singers as the wording is so broad that anybody engaged in something somebody else finds offensive can be targeted. This has already been seen with street preachers in three high-profile cases this year. Reform’s website also lists actual examples of groups that could legally be targeted including church bell ringers in Great Barfield, ‘Outrage’ gay-rights activists, and a boys football team in Swinton.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, Director of Christian Concern and a frequent voice of sanity in the fog commented: “This legislation is a threat to free speech and could easily end up penalising people simply for expressing unpopular opinions. We all have to deal with annoyances. This is part of day to day life. But to use annoyance as a ground for an injunction verges on the absurd. At a time when we’re seeing street preachers more frequently arrested for no good reason, this legislation threatens to make the situation even worse.”
So far the dissenters have been unsuccessful as Home Secretary Theresa May, the one tasked with carrying the ball on this, pushes ahead. However Ms. May in a committee speech acknowledged that many groups had weighed in with opinions and identified problems, with the result that she then conceded the bill should not have moved forward as is.
The problem is that the Prime Minister’s cabinet, in which she has very high standing, has already advanced it so you have to wonder why the Conservative Party leadership pushes legislation forward and then immediately comes out and says it is flawed.
The Home Secretary is definitely a progressive thinker and the problem they all have, whether claiming to be conservative or otherwise, is that they see government and legislation as the solution to any problem. They never consider that simply leaving things alone and letting, in this instance the police; use some common sense in deciding if any action is necessary.
This brings us back to the carol singers! The lookout checks for police presence and any neighborhood signs threatening to report anyone that declares the birth of a saviour. Feeling safe they belt out: “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus, lay down His sweet head.” Then they call for legal support, making sure an IPNA hasn’t been issued against them, before knocking on the front doors of houses and wishing the unsuspecting residents a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
