Report Warns Police Training Ignores Legal Protections for Free Speech

British police officers on patrol in an undated file photo. (Anthony Devlin/PA)

British Police forces are failing to train officers on the importance of free speech, according to a new report by the Free Speech Union.

The report (pdf), entitled “The Urgent Need to Teach Police About Free Speech,” argues that police training is informed by critical social justice ideology and that there is a “deficiency in the way the police are trained on free speech issues.”

The Free Speech Union, set up by up by the associate editor of The Spectator Toby Young, supports self-styled defenders of free expression in England and Scotland.

The organisation submitted freedom of information (FoI) requests to all 41 English and Welsh police forces, asking them to send copies of any policies or training materials they held concerning their duty to comply with Article 10 of the Human Rights Act: Freedom of expression.

It found that 32 forces answered, though seven declined to answer on cost grounds. Of the remaining 25, 11 claimed to hold no information on the duty to comply with Article 10.

This meant that 78 percent of the police forces who responded are providing no training on Article 10, or inadequate training.

‘The Police Don’t Know Anything About Free Speech’

“The principal cause of the free speech crisis in British policing appears to be that the police simply do not know anything about the laws protecting free speech,” wrote the FSU.

It pointed to several recent cases that highlighted the police’s failure to take into account freedom of speech.

In October 2022, the Metropolitan Police admitted it “fell below standards” following two wrongful arrests of a female Christian evangelist Hatun Tash who was abused by Islamists at Speakers’ Corner in London.

It also mentioned the case of in July 2022, when a women’s rights campaigner was visited by officers from Wiltshire Police investigating a hate crime report that accused her of being “untoward about paedophiles.”

Also in July 2022, Hampshire Police visited the home of Darren Brady, an army veteran they accused of causing “anxiety” by sharing a picture of the “Progress Pride” flag rearranged as a swastika on Twitter.

EDI

The report added that for the 56 percent of the police forces it surveyed, equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is “inextricably embedded” in police training.

The FSU asked police forces whether they collaborated with external third-party providers to deliver EDI training. Thirty-two forces answered this question and sixteen (50 percent) said they collaborate with at least one third-party provider to deliver EDI training.

One EDI training company called Pearlcatchers was paid £193,000 to deliver EDI training to Essex Police. In one tweet, the company urged the public to “be more alpaca” because the animals were “naturally inclusive.”

Another FoI request shows that much police EDI training now focuses on teaching officers critical social justice ideology—such as Critical Race Theory and Gender Identity Ideology—as “if they were settled matters of fact.”

Another EDI training PowerPoint, supplied by Avon and Somerset Police, covered topics such as “Masculine Agender” and “Feminine Genderqueer” identities and supplied guidance on how officers should use the pronouns “E/em” and “Fae/faer.”

The PowerPoint instructed officers that: “Your anatomy doesn’t determine your gender identity and neither does the ‘gender binary’... In reality, gender is much more like a spectrum—it isn’t set in stone and some people have fluid or fluctuating gender identities.”

“Primed by partisan EDI training to see any criticism of gender identity ideology as intrinsically ‘hateful’ and in the absence of the Article 10 training informing them that such speech is legally protected, the British police have taken to arresting gender critical speakers without a second thought,” FSU wrote.

It said that, overall, police involvement with LGBT lobby group Stonewall, which gives training on “micro-incivilities,” different “lived experiences,” and “how to be a straight ally,” is declining.

LGBT+ Staff Networks

It found that “secrecy” surrounds the influence of the police’s LGBT+ Staff Networks on EDI training. Thirty-one out of the 32 forces who responded to FoI requests stated that they had an LGBT+ Staff Network and at least nine forces (29 percent) reported that their LGBT+ Staff Networks were involved in the delivery of EDI training.

Though the report found that it is “almost impossible to discover” what that LGBT+ Staff Networks’ involvement in the design and delivery of police training consists of.

The organisation said that to address the “free speech crisis in British policing” the government should make sure that police training is “rebalanced, with less time devoted to EDI, particularly where it is delivered by questionable third party organisations, and more time devoted to Article 10.”

The Epoch Times contacted the College of Policing for comment.