It's day 866 of my campaign but I am very pleased to note that finally we have the Code of Practice regarding the recording of NCHIs which was released in March 2023.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1141888/E02871502_Non-Crime_Hate_Incidents_Web_Accessible.pdf

It's a really excellent document, with a whole chapter dedicated to freedom of speech and clear recognition of the data protection principles which my case is focused on. We still have to wait for the College of Policing to revise its current Authorised Professional Practice guidance and my application will remain stayed until they do. But I can see no reason why they shouldn't simply adopt the Code of Practice. 

The only issue now remaining is what will happen to the NCHIs already recorded under unlawful guidance. Fair Cop is writing to all Chief Constables to asking them what plans they have to review and delete these recordings. 

It's been a long hard slog but I think its safe to say we made it. Thank you again to all who donated. This would not have been possible without you. 

.... and there are further delays. 

Just been informed by my solicitor of the following

By way of an update, my clients understand that the Home Office has announced that due to the Parliamentary changes of late, the publication of the NCHI code has now been pushed back to the New Year. The publication is now anticipated to take place in late January 2023. I shall endeavour to let you know if there is any further change to this.

I will keep you posted. But it looks like this campaign is set to reach 1,000 days!

It is now - astonishingly - day 647 of my campaign. My solicitors have just told me that Wiltshire police have agreed to pay 90% of my costs against them, which are just over £12K.  

My action against the College of Policing remains stayed while we wait for the Code of Practice to be drafted, for Parliamentary scrutiny. This should be later in 2022 or early 2023. The Hate Crimes Guidance will have to align with this Code of Practice.

I am sad that so much time and money has had to be spent to get us to a position of simply re-affirming what should be basic human rights. But thanks again to all of you who contributed. It most definitely would not have been possible without you. 

I will keep you posted. 

Sarah P

It is now day 582 of my campaign. The College of Policing have requested until 15th June for the 'revised' Hate Crimes Guidance. However, they also inform my solicitors that there will be a public consultation on a Code of Conduct around Hate Crimes which will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny, and that looks like it will be produced around the end of 2022.

Therefore I fully accept a request to be made for another stay of my judicial review on June 15th. I don't think I have any choice but to agree. If your support and money have been instrumental in pushing forward a very necessary public consultation about all of this, then your money has been very well spent and I thank you again. 

in the meantime, I am glad to see that LawFare continues to have an impact beyond the particular court case - Northumbria University have apologised for redirecting my emails on the basis that I represented a 'safety and well being' issue due to my membership of Fair Cop. The University accepted it had no lawful basis for doing this. I hope the message is getting through. 

I am really pleased to say that on January 31st, Wiltshire Police agreed not to contest my action in judicial review and to delete the recording made against me in December 2019. Even better, the next day they agreed to carry out an 'expeditious' audit of ALL recordings made against me and apply the principles in Miller v College of Policing. 

Given that the second and third set of recordings were even more absurd than the first then I anticipate they will be deleted. If not, I will take further action. This is really good news and while I am sorry it has taken so long, I am grateful that Wiltshire police are taking these necessary steps to restored public trust and confidence. 

On a slightly less optimistic note, the College of Policing have asked for a further stay of my action until the end of May 2022 so that they may 'potentially' review the Hate Crimes Guidance. There is no 'potential' about it. The Court of Appeal has declared this Guidance unlawful and it must be reviewed. The Government has also proposed a new statutory Code of Conduct that will be subject to Parliamentary scrutiny,  but as yet no timescales are known for this. 

I am shocked to note this campaign has been running for 453 days but immensely grateful to the 1,428 people who pledged on average £27 pounds each to help make this happen. I know you are not the 'shadowy Far Right' - you are ordinary men and women who have made it clear, you have had enough of this dangerous, unprincipled nonsense. 

thank you. 

I was delighted today - that after a long wait - the Court of Appeal finally delivered judgment on Harry Miller's appeal against the refusal to declare the Hate Crimes Guidance unlawful. The court allowed grounds 3 and 5 of his appeal and declared the guidance was an unlawful breach of his article 10 rights. 

I have made brief comment on the judgment here https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/hate-crimes-guidance-ruled-unlawful?justPublished=true

I don't know yet what the implications for my case will be. The Court of Appeal did not deal with any of the arguments about data protection or article 8. It may be that we can therefore still proceed and there is a public interest in so doing. I have asked to meet with my legal team early next year and I will keep you posted. 

And the PCC is an 'interested party'. 

We will ask that this application is joined to the application against the College of Police and both will be stayed unless and until the outcome of Harry Miller's appeal is known. That was heard on 8th and 9th March 2021 and we are still waiting for the judgment of the Court of Appeal. 

Also Miss B's application can't go forward until we know what has happened to Harry's.  Her crowdfunder is here

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/miss-b/

It's now almost a year since I made my first application against the College of Policing and we continue to see the police offering overt political support to the ideology of gender identity https://twitter.com/transradiouk/status/1441828900661698560?s=20

But also some very welcome public statements by some of the newly elected PCCs - including the PCC for Wiltshire. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-58498833

So there are very encouraging signs that the debate is opening up but while the Hate Crimes Guidance remains in force, we are all still at risk of being recorded, in secret on the subjective report of someone else, who will not be challenged.

Hopefully my next update will be to summarise the Court of Appeal judgment - if Harry wins then I assume my application will fall away. If he loses then hopefully me and Miss B will continue as our arguments are wider than simply article 10. 

Thank you again for your continued support. It would not be possible to do this without you. 

We are still waiting for the Court of Appeal judgment in Harry Miller's case - just over four months now. This is very frustrating. My application is stayed until that outcome is known. 

However, I am trying to use the time usefully and am pursuing my complaint against Wiltshire police via the review process of the Police and Crime Commissioner. 

I am also trying to get hold of a copy of the report of Paul Giannasi (National Hate Crime Lead) that Wiltshire Professional Standards relied on to dismiss that complaint. I made the request on May 17th so time has passed to either receive the report or the reasons for refusal. 

If I do not hear further by July 16th I will refer the police to the Information Commissioner. 

It's a slow and cumbersome process, but we keep on keeping on. 

We are still waiting for the outcome of  Harry Miller's appeal, which was heard on March 8th and 9th 2021. I have written about this here.

But it was announced yesterday on April 25th that the Home Secretary has called for a review of the Hate Crimes Guidance and the reporting of 'non crime hate incidents' which is excellent news. It shows that the Government may have noticed which way the wind is blowing. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/priti-patel-orders-police-to-stop-recording-hate-incidents-that-are-not-crimes-hhqkgf7p0?shareToken=b523ce76d29bfc58bffcb9affdcb62ea

I am sure that part of what has helped the Government wake up to what is going on is the strong grass roots support for Harry Miller's court case, along with me and Miss B. 

Fingers crossed we will soon have the Court of Appeal judgment in Harry's case which will add further impetus to either scrapping or very significantly re-drafting the Hate Crimes Guidance.  If Harry loses, Miss B and I will continue. 

Thank you for all your support so far. 

The College of Police have now replied to my grounds for JR - is disappointing that they do not seem to engage with the Article 8 or data protection arguments but repeat much of their resistance to Harry Miller's appeal. 

Harry will be in the Court of Appeal between 8-10 March - we aren't sure of exact dates yet - and we agree with the College of Police that the outcome of that hearing will be important for my and Miss B's application. If Harry wins, we will not need to proceed as the hate crimes guidance will be declared unlawful. 

However, if Harry doesn't win, we will want to proceed as our legal arguments are different - although of course we all want to rely on Article 10 as very important. 

Hopefully the court will now consider all the documents in front of it and agree that Miss B and I should have permission to apply for JR BUT that our applications will be 'stayed' while we wait and see what happens in the Court of Appeal. 

Thank you for all your support so far and I will update you as soon as I can. 

My application has been made and the College of Policing have 3 weeks to reply, then hopefully we are listed for a permission hearing. It seems unlikely that anything much will happen for the next six weeks on my case - but of course for Harry Miller's case the Court of Appeal date is looming in early March. If he wins and the College of Policing don't appeal, that may well have implications for my action. We shall see! I hope to attend the hearing and be live Tweeting. 

My concerns about the elastic definition of 'hate' and its weaponisation have been brought into sharp focus in recent weeks. I was suspended from Twitter on 25th January for alleged 'hateful conduct'. I could discern nothing hateful in the tweet cited, so I appealed. My appeal was upheld on 28th January 2021 and I was told my account would be restored but so far I remain suspended. 

Joanna Cherry QC then paid a heavy price for tweeting in support of me when I was suspended. A number of prominent accounts repeated the lie that I had been suspended from Twitter for 'transphobia' and 'Anti Semitism'. As I feared, being reported to the police was weaponised against me as if the police had investigated and found me 'hateful', rather than simply recording someone's subjective perception of what they had read. 

I think this is a clear example of the very dangerous road we are going down. Does society seem any more safer or cohesive to you, now that we have given primacy to the offended perception of only certain groups? It does not to me. Quite the reverse. 

Thank you for all your support so far and I will update you when I can. 

After some quiet time over Christmas, it looks like things are now moving fairly swiftly. My statement is nearly finished and the grounds are being drafted. I've had the odd and surreal experience of asking a friend to confirm via a statement that they don't find me or my tweeting 'hateful'. 

Hopefully my application for permission to apply for JR will be heard along side Miss B's. I don't know what the timescales look like between the application and the decision, but hopefully its a matter of weeks not months. 

I will let you know as soon as the application is made and hopefully can share with you the grounds. 

Still haven't heard anything back from Wiltshire about whether or not they will delete the hate incidents but we will keep chasing. 

I hope that the new year is better for all of us, but at the moment it does seem quite like the old year... 

As of today, December 8th 2020,  Wiltshire have confirmed that they are continuing their internal investigation. Therefore I haven't exhausted my remedies so can't apply for JR against them. My solicitors have asked for their timescales as to when this investigation will conclude and if they refuse to delete the recording, we can consider what our next steps will be regarding legal action. 

Therefore,  am going to proceed against the College of Policing in judicial review and the plan is to issue around the same time as Miss B, a 14 year old who is also challenging the guidance as unlawful - you can visit her crowdfunder here. 

Please do donate if you can, or share the link. 

Our cases are clearly similar so it would make sense for them to be heard together and hopefully we will increase each other's chances of getting permission to go on to a full court hearing. 

And hopefully the Keira Bell judgment will give further impetus to our assertion that it cannot possibly be 'hate' to discuss matters of such crucial importance; not only for our democracy and freedom of speech but about the lives and bodies of our children. 

Hopefully things will be moving forward swiftly in the new year. Thank you so much for getting me almost half way to my stretch target of £60K.  

Today, 20th November, was the deadline for response to my letter before action sent to both Wiltshire Police and the College of Policing. Both have written to my solicitor requesting 'more time' to reply as this matter is 'complicated'. 

I agree. And I suspect would be a lot less complicated if anyone had bothered at the outset to give proper thought to the implications for society of a 'hate crime' guidance that permitted the secret recording of people's political views. 

I have said I think it only fair to allow them some time to consider these issues. But I am also aware that there are very strict time limits in JR and the parties cannot agree to extend them. So I have suggested no more than a week for them to gather their thoughts. 

I will keep you posted and thank you all again for your support. It means a lot.