IPPC to change police homophobia investigation process!

At last some progress. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has announced it is to change its method and practise for investigating Police Homophobia!!!

Good! Perhaps we will get the HOMOPHOBIC CORNWALL police force investigated WITHOUT whitewash now!

Read this article:-

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5711.html

...and IN PARTICULAR read the comments.

Cornwall: Probably the most homophobic police force in the United Kingdom!

Cornwall Gay PRIDE day: Press Release.

Press release begins:

Fear of Police reprisals causes Gay PRIDE members to leave.

Some members of the 2007 Cornwall (UK) LGBT Gay PRIDE steering group have stood
down out of fear of homophobic police reprisals against them as gay persons.

The Cornwall PRIDE group had previously voted on three separate meetings to
exclude involvement by (Cornwall*) police on this years PRIDE day, due to gay
community growing concerns about police attitudes towards gay persons. Just
days before the PRIDE day on the August bank holiday, police arrested of one of
the organisers, and held him in custody for over 16hours.

Genuine anger expressed by some at comments in the national LGBT Pink Paper
newspaper by Arron Piper, Cornwall police diversity manager that arrest of a
member of the Cornwall Pride steering group did not put in jeopardy the PRIDE
day.

‘PC Piper was wrong, and it is exactly this sort of deliberate public
misinformation by police causing distrust in Cornwall police in the informed
sectors of the local gay community’ said a Cornwall PRIDE steering group member.
The Cornwall Gay PRIDE day very much put in peril by arrest on false
allegations, a member of the PRIDE steering group just days before the PRIDE
day.

(The person who originally made allegations against a gay man has made numerous
phone calls & texts to people apologising, telling them they have withdrawn the
allegation, explaining they had felt pressured into making the allegation by
police and the accuser’s now x-partner).

Arron Pipers misinformed response seen as further demonstration of lack of
police understanding regarding strength of feeling and anger in parts of
Cornwall’s fractured and vulnerable gay population.

“I personally believe this false allegation was used by police as payback for
open honest justified criticism of police by gay people voting to exclude police
from the Cornwall gay PRIDE day. As a gay person, I do not trust the Cornwall
police force on any gay issue,” said one of the PRIDE steering group who is now
considering leaving Cornwall altogether.

Some PRIDE members had suggested cancelling the 2007 Cornwall Gay PRIDE beach
day because of hostile police action. However, it was felt this would only have
suited elements in the Cornwall police force.

There is also genuine irony in Arron Piper announced in the national newspaper,
Pink Paper three new police diversity officers in Cornwall.

Appointment of new Cornwall diversity officers last year are as a direct result
of an Independent Police Complaints Commission enquiry in 2006 into Devon &
Cornwall Constabulary conduct following complaints against police from one gay
man. The very same gay man police ironically targeted and arrested just days
before the 2007 Cornwall gay PRIDE day.

The gay man arrested days prior to the Cornwall PRIDE 2007 day is Malcolm
Lidbury, (search Malcolm Lidbury on Google) writer, artist, and a vocal and
successful gay equality & HIV/AIDS campaigner in Cornwall for almost two
decades.

Gay Times magazine named Lidbury as one of the top 200 gay persons in Britain in
1995. Readership of the national newspaper LGBT Pink Paper in 1997 voted him as
one of the historically 500 most influential persons on modern gay life in
Britain. Lidbury won an Advertising Standards Authority complaint against the
multi-million pound Cornish based business ‘Trago Mills’, when Trago advocated
in adverts the ‘castration of gay men to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS’. He was
also a former trustee of Cornwall AIDS Council, a member of the Cornwall & Isles
of Scilly Health Authority steering group on gay men’s health and he was
directly responsible for winning several official enquires into prejudicial
treatment by local Cornish authorities of gay people in Cornwall. Lidbury was
one of the main primary organisers and driving forces behind this year’s 2007
Cornwall gay PRIDE beach day.

Lidbury’s complaints in 2004 & 2006 to the IPCC about the Devon & Cornwall
Constabulary resulted in twenty-two recommendations of needed improvement in
police service, but informed gay people feel the IPCC recommendations have been
treated with contempt by the Cornwall police force.

Local LGBT support organisations in Cornwall are practically non-existent.
Many gay people in Cornwall are unaware of high level of homophobic incidents in
the county ignored by police.

In 2005, the Lord Justice Kay Criminal Justice award research established there
were 354 homophobic incidents reported to the Devon & Cornwall Constabulary, but
only 13 of these were ever finalised in Court. Many more incidents are never
even reported to police due to legitimate and justified gay community concerns
about known continuing negative policing attitudes towards gay persons in
Cornwall”.

…and this is not the 1st time police intervention has threatened an LGBT
community equality activity in Cornwall.

In 2004, Lidbury was asked to assist in a LGBT forum for the Criminal Justice
Service research on policing in the Cornwall gay community. Following a press
release by Lidbury, Cornwall police hostile intervention caused cancellation of
the 2004 LGBT forum from its original venue location. When Lidbury made a
formal complaint to the IPCC in March 2004 about a catalogue of police
misconduct that is when friends of Lidbury identify Cornwall police vendetta
against him started in earnest.

Lidbury has since his original March 2004 IPCC complaint had his home raided and
searched by Cornwall police twice, Nov 2004 & Aug 2007. On each occasion,
numerous witnesses exist contrary to false allegations made against Lidbury.
These defence witnesses completely ignored by police, and witnesses have
sometimes expressed feeling intimidated by homophobic Cornwall police conduct
and attitudes.

However, witnesses came forward in droves, providing forty-eight defence
statements to Lidbury’s solicitor. Witness statements Cornwall police then
deliberately attempted and proceeded to obstruct from the legal process.

Not one single defence witness went forward voluntarily to the highly distrusted
Cornwall police. Such is the depth of justified distrust in this police force
on gay issues.

Cornwall Police seized Lidbury’s computer and directly caused collapse of both
of Lidbury’s private businesses. Police later had to admit, both in civil court
and in an Independent Police Complaints commission enquiry in 2006, that there
were no illegal images on Lidbury’s computer.

Despite this eventual admission by police, Lidbury has never received any
compensation for total destruction of either of his two businesses by Cornwall
police.

There is genuine fear expressed about deep continuing homophobic attitudes
within the police in Cornwall at all rank levels

“I recently sat in on a police interview of a gay victim of an attempted
blackmail. You could have cut police animosity towards the gay victim with a
pickaxe. Cornwall police dismissed the case, completely ignoring a gay eye
witness ”, said Sue, a women’s member of the Cornwall PRIDE steering group and
also member of women’s OUTBACK group.

Peter, an 18 yr old youth member of the Cornwall PRIDE steering group said:-
“On two separate incidents Cornwall police have refused to take a statement from
me as a gay person and direct eyewitness regarding abuse incidents where a gay
person was the victim, but that’s just what Cornwall police are like".

"I myself abused by Cornwall police in a botched ‘stop and search’ with public
strip search carried out in a chapel coffee morning. According to police,
because I had ‘blue hair’ at the time".

"I do not trust by experience, Cornwall police on anything regarding gay people.
As a result I voted for NO involvement of the HOMOPHOBIC Cornwall police force
in the 2007 Cornwall gay PRIDE day”.

Close friends of Lidbury say Cornwall police are conducting a particularly
vindictive vicious smear campaign and vendetta against him. Cornwall police
have lied, bullied, intimidated, falsified, withheld documentation, obstructed
…this resulted in enquiry findings of twenty-two recommendations by the IPCC in
2006, as a result of Lidbury’s complaints against Devon & Cornwall constabulary.

“False allegations have been made against Mr Lidbury where there have been
numerous other people clearly and equally involved in lawful behaviour.
However, police have singled out, arrested, targeted, and persecuted Mr Lidbury
relentlessly over a four-year period. I believe this is a deliberately
orchestrated vendetta by Cornwall’s police to silence him as visible gay critic
of continuing problems of homophobic policing. It is odious and sinister on the
part of what I sincerely believe is a deeply prejudicial Criminal Justice
Service in Cornwall.” Said a friend of Lidbury, who does not wish to be
identified.

According to some gay people in Cornwall, the problem is one of a gross lack of
honesty, impartiality, integrity, and transparency of conduct operative
throughout the Cornwall force when it comes to local police denial of ingrained
prejudicial handling, treatment, and hostile attitude towards gay persons, gay
equality laws, age of consent, and gay lifestyles.

…unfortunately, the IPCC seem content to look the other way, as do even some gay
organisations like the Devon based ‘Intercom Trust’, choosing to ignore
institutional abuses happening in Cornwall.

In Sept 2005, a two hundred-signature petition mainly by gay persons in Cornwall
was sent to Ian Bynoe, commissioner of the IPCC. It identified NO trust
expressed in local Cornwall internal police investigation unit on gay related
issues of police misconduct.

In Sept 2006, a Truro Crown Court Judge Rucker condemned equality campaigning on
HIV/AIDS awareness & gay rights as “Evangelical Proselytising”. The same judge
indicated in his summing up that equal age of consent for gay men came into
effect in 2004. The Judge was wrong; it was in fact 1st Jan 2001.

In 2006, Devon & Cornwall police headquarters threatened, to take legal action
to prevent publication and distribution of ‘Fagbutts’ a local newsletter
campaigning for gay equality. Direct written quote from police: “The
Constabulary will not tolerate such publications nor the distribution of such
publications and will take robust action against you should such documents be
published and distributed in the future” Michael Stamp Senior Force Legal
Officer. This indicative of depth of Police homophobia in Cornwall.

A yawning chasm exists between lip service, spin, and platitudes spouted by
Cornwall County Council, Devon & Cornwall police and Justice Services about
equality & diversity law and fair treatment of gay persons.

The brutal reality is one of institutional misconduct and poor delivery of
equality of service to gay people in Cornwall. Those like Lidbury who have
experience of homophobic attitudes, misconduct by Cornwall police, and have
dared to be critical, find them-selves isolated and on receiving end of a
targeted vicious vindictive police instigated homophobic vendetta.

The remaining core members of Cornwall LGBT PRIDE steering group are to meet
soon to discuss beginning planning next years Cornwall Gay PRIDE Beach Day. The
prevailing homophobic attitude within the Cornwall Police force will undoubtedly
be a topic of priority discussion.

Press release ends: