Theft of items at climate camp

Dear Mr Hansen,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

Thank you for your request received by Kent Police on 7th August 2008 and
I note you seek access, in summary, to the following information:

· Police action at Climate Camp

Your interest in Kent Police is appreciated and pending a specific
response to your request, I enclose a sheet, which summarises your rights.
Should you have any further inquiries concerning this matter, please write
or contact me on telephone number 01622 654429 quoting the reference
number above.

Yours sincerely,

Lorraine Watson

FOI Administrator

Enc. Your Rights – A Summary

>>> David Hansen <[FOI #1642 email]> 07/08/08 13:00
>>>
Dear Sir or Madam,

Please provide a list of all items stolen by yourselves from people
at the climate camp. Please indicate what "crime" these "weapons"
were supposed to be used for.

Please note that providing this information will in no way
interfere with your "investigations", or any attempts you may make
at malicious prosecution of your victims. The information will
anonymous and not relate to any particular allegation.

Please note that you should already be assembling this information
anyway, so assertions that it is too expensive to gather will be
deemed to be a refusal.

To give you a start here are some of the items which have been
stolen. I have seen most of these in photographs of your display of
stolen items when you tried to smear the campers. I have added some
notes for each item.

Crayons etc. The stolen items have been replaced by the Liberal
Democrats (and perhaps other people)

Freedom of Information Team
Data Protection Unit
Kent Police
Force HQ
Sutton Road
Maidstone
Kent ME15 9BZ

E-mail: [1][Kent Police request email]
Tel: +44 (0)1622 654429/654413
Fax: +44 (0)1622 654437
Internal: 19-4429/4413
[2]http://www.kentonline..co.uk/kol08/artic...

Board game. [3]http://www.waronterrortheboardgame.com I'm sure the
manufacturers are delighted by your theft. Publicity like that is
invaluable.

Rubber gloves. I take them with me when camping for a week in a
fixed camp.

Wet suit and life jacket. Safety items for use on the water.
Stealing these items has increased the danger people face, though
as the campers have rather more of an understanding of safety than
your organisation I imagine they will replace the stolen items.

Radios for medics, flares and smoke grenades. All safety items and
your theft of them has increased danger. The Medway and Thames can
be dangerous waters to navigate and flares and smoke grenades are a
sensible precaution. Are you proud of increasing danger? Will you
proudly tell your children about your theft of safety equipment?

Ropes. Useful for holding up tents.

Knives. Useful for cutting anything from ropes to vegetables.. I
have several large and sharp knives. I have never wanted to stick
one in a human, horse or dog and I'm not on a camp where only vegan
food is being served. A knife is a very old tool, thousands of
years old, it is only a weapon if used as a weapon.

So far the only people going equipped for violence at the camp (and
actually being violent) have had the letters POLICE written on
their clothing. Presumably this is a code which allows rioters and
potential rioters to identify each other. Have you made any attempt
to apprehend these rioters yet and thus carry out your claimed
objective of providing a police service?

Batteries and poles for wind turbines. Your theft of these items
has caused reduced amounts of electricity to be available at the
camp. However, the campers have overcome this and every other
attempt by yourselves to distract attention from the most important
issue we face.

Bolt croppers. Useful for cutting things. The last thing I cut with
a pair was a large electricity cable, while installing some
electrical equipment.

Bike locks. Useful for locking bikes, I have one of exactly the
same model as shown in your display. Of course locking bikes is not
a guard against bike thieves, like the ones seen in
[4]http://blip.tv/file/1149491/ (turn up the sound to hear the
thieves
speaking to the camera operator).

Hammers and saw. Fourth photograph at
[5]http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/4... Very useful for
setting up camp equipment.

Water supply and waste pipes. Fifth to eighth photographs at
[6]http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/08/4... Very useful for
setting up a sanitary camp. It appears the attempted theft of these
items was prevented. Have you made any enquiries to find out who
tried to steal these items?

Please note that "replies" which involve attachments in proprietary
file formats are not acceptable. A reply which is not in plain text
format will be deemed to be a refusal to answer.

Yours faithfully,

David Hansen

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Hansen,

We are very conscious that a response to your request is overdue and for
this failure in our service we apologise. This is due to an unexpected
increase in the number of requests made to the Authority. I can confirm
that your request is receiving attention and you can expect a full
response shortly.

Regards,
Lorraine Watson

Freedom of Information Team
Data Protection Unit
Kent Police
Force HQ
Sutton Road
Maidstone
Kent ME15 9BZ

E-mail: [1][Kent Police request email]
Tel: +44 (0)1622 654429/654413
Fax: +44 (0)1622 654437
Internal: 19-4429/4413

>>> David Hansen <[FOI #1642 email]> 07/09/08 11:57
>>>
Dear Lorraine,

Given the extensive lawbreaking by Kent Police at the Climate Camp
it comes as no surprise to me that Kent Police are also incapable
of obeying another law. Your response is now illegally late.

I refer you to

[2]http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts2000/ukp...

"Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a public authority must comply
with section 1(1) promptly and in any event not later than the
twentieth working day following the date of receipt."

Yours sincerely,

David Hansen

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Hansen,

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST

I write in connection with your two requests for information received by
Kent Police on 7^th August 2008. I am conscious that this response
arrives with you sometime after the twenty working day time limit
permitted by the Act has expired and for this failure in our service I
apologise.

Kent Police have received a number of information requests relating to the
policing of the Climate Camp at Kingsnorth Power station (Operation Oasis)
and this has contributed towards a delay in providing . A huge amount of
information has been created after such a large operation and it has yet
to be sorted or catalogued. As I am sure you can appreciate, this makes
actually locating the information very difficult.

Your two communications to Kent Police make a number of comments.
However, the majority of questions you ask request that Kent Police
provide comment in turn. This is not a form of information the Authority
is required to provide under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act
2000. Even so, and where appropriate, I have included some explanations
that may assist your understanding of our policing of the camp. Our
website already contains a great deal of comment and statements from the
Force on the policing of the operation in the form of media releases,
which can be viewed in our news archive at:

[1]http://www.kent.police.uk/News/Latest_Ne...

We recognise and respect the considerable public interest in our policing
of the camp for climate change and we will shortly be publishing on our
website a compendium of information including material relating to
strategic and tactical considerations and decision-making, costs, numbers
of arrests and articles confiscated during the operation.

One of your e-mails (our ref 6164-2008) asks the following, which I will
deal with as question 1:

a) Please provide a list of all items stolen by yourselves from people
at the climate camp.

b) Please indicate what "crime" these "weapons" were supposed to be
used for.

Please note that providing this information will in no way interfere with
your "investigations", or any attempts you may make at malicious
prosecution of your victims. The information will be anonymous and not
relate to any particular allegation.

Please note that you should already be assembling this information anyway,
so assertions that it is too expensive to gather will be deemed to be a
refusal.

a) No items have been stolen by Kent Police, and so to this extent the
information is not held. However, a large number of items were
confiscated from protestors at the camp during the course of the policing
of the event.

Information relating to all of the items confiscated has not yet been
collected or collated and to do so in response to your individual request
would extend beyond the appropriate level as stated in the Freedom of
Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004. Therefore this
letter does indeed act as a refusal notice for this part of your request.

Constables have a number of powers in law to search persons and confiscate
items which they have reasonable grounds to suspect or believe may be used
in the commission of offences. This will require that the constable
considers each case separately, and must have grounds specific to each
individual instance.

Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 provides a police
constable with the power to detain any person, in any place to which the
public has access, if he or she has reasonable grounds for suspecting that
stolen or prohibited articles (or sharply pointed or bladed articles) will
be found. Any such article found during a search may be seized. Section 1
of the Criminal Damage Act provides a similar power in respect of articles
that may be employed in destroying or damaging property.

Section 60AA of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act empowers a
constable to require the removal of (and if necessary, seize) any items
that the constable reasonably believes the person is wearing, or intends
to wear, wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing his or her
identity. Officers are reminded of the need to include Human Rights and
diversity considerations when determining to employ this power. In
certain cases, a senior officer may grant a general authorisation to
search and seize such items where he or she has reason to believe that
such offences may occur. The granting of such an authorisation must be
evidenced with sufficient grounds and must be justifiable in the
circumstances and proportionate.

Once an article has been seized, it usually follows that no crime can be
committed with that article. Kent Police’s policy during the policing
of this event was to seize items that may be used in commission of an
offence and thus prevent the offence - it being preferable to prevent the
offence than to arrest the person. Once the suspect items had been
confiscated, the protestors were able to continue exercising their rights
to lawfully protest.

Kent Police recognise that the majority of protestors at the camp were
law-abiding members of the public exercising their rights to protest.
However, a significant body of intelligence existed which contributed to a
reasonable belief that some protestors were intent on committing
offences. This included statements on the camp for climate change website
and in the wider media.

Kent Police’s intentions in policing the Camp for Climate Change are
best expressed by the Gold Commander, Assistant Chief Constable Allyn
Thomas in his strategy document for Operation Oasis:

“The intention of the police operation is to safeguard the rights of all
persons involved in or affected by the protest. The public are entitled
to peacefully protest in a free society and the police must safeguard this
right. Others engaged in lawful economic activities should also be able to
do so without hindrance or disturbance from protestors.”

Strategic Objectives

o The protection of life
o The prevention of crime and disorder
o The facilitation of lawful protest
o The investigation of criminality, dealing proportionately and fairly
with offenders and securing the best evidence for any prosecutions
o To minimise disruption to the local community and to provide
reassurance more generally
o To ensure a swift return to normality

Your second e-mail, our reference 6159-2008, asks the following, which I
will refer to as question 2:

2) a) It is widely reported that you are demanding people's names. There
is no legal provision for doing so under the various bits of outrageous
"stop and search" legislation. My first question is, what legislation do
you think allows this gathering of data?

b) My second question is, please list precisely any other bits of
information you are trying to force out of people who are simply going
about their business and what the legal "justification" for each
additional piece of information is?

c) My third question is, what is your policy if people refuse to
accede to your Stasi style demands? Is the film at
[2]http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kol08/articl...
typical of your response to those who don't like your Stasi approach? Are
you proud of these actions? Will you tell your children how "brave" you
were attacking these fine upstanding citizens and attempting to prevent
them discussing the most pressing problem we face today?

Again, questions 2 a), b) and c) ask for comment rather than specific
information, and so once again I must refer you to our website, and to
earlier paragraphs in this letter. However, I will include here that in
the course of their duties officers are entitled to speak to any member of
the public, and in doing so may ask for a person’s name and other
information that may account for their movements. That person does have
the right not to provide this information, although this may, in some
circumstances, provide grounds to the officer for further enquiries, such
as a search under the provisions of section 1 of the Police and Criminal
Evidence Act (PACE) 1984. More information about PACE can be found on the
Home Office website at the link below.

[3]http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/operatio...

d) My fourth question is, what are you doing with this data? Note that
generic waffle answers will be deemed to be a refusal to answer.

e) My fifth question is, is this information being stored on a
database? If so for what reason? Note that generic waffle answers will be
deemed to be a refusal to answer.

f) My sixth question is, for how long is the data stored (in any
form, paper or electronic)? My last question is, how is the data
destroyed (again in any form)?

g) My last question is, how is the data destroyed (again in any form)?

Questions d-g do qualify as questions regarding information that Kent
Police may hold. However, you ask what is being done with data in general
and so I can only provide a general answer.

The Statutory Code of Practice for the Management of Police Information
(MoPI) 2005 provides a legal basis for the processing of information by
the police for policing purposes, which it defines as follows:

(a) protecting life and property;

(b) preserving order;

(c) preventing the commission of offences;

(d) bringing offenders to justice;

(e) any duty or responsibility of the police arising from common or
statute law.

The definition of ‘processing’ in the Data Protection Act 1998
includes: obtaining, recording, using and disclosing.

Kent Police Policy M17 (Searching of persons, Vehicles and Road Checks)
sets out the force policy regarding searching members of the public. This
includes that all details of such interactions with the public search must
be recorded on PACE Section 1 form 1800. Section 14.1 of the policy
states:

“Officers will submit completed forms to their supervisor who will sign
them as having been checked for accuracy, completion and that the use of
any power was appropriate.”

Incorrect forms are returned to the relevant officer for correction and
re-submission. The full policy can be found on our website.

Forms are then submitted to the Area Intelligence Unit, where the content
of the forms is then recorded upon the Kent Police Stop and Search
database. The information upon this database provides an audit trail in
terms of the justification for the search and is then available to
officers for general policing purposes and to the Force for further and
future intelligence analysis where appropriate. Records held on the
database are automatically weeded after seven years.

With particular regard to the PACE S1 forms collected during Operation
Oasis, these have been separately collected for assessment. Any form that
does not meet the assessment criteria for the Stop and Search Database in
terms of the information’s completeness, accuracy etc will not be
recorded upon the system.

Thank you for your interest in Kent Police. A sheet, which summarised your
rights, was enclosed with the acknowledgement sent to you and as suggested
therein, should you have any further issues concerning this matter, please
contact me quoting the reference number shown above.

Yours sincerely,

Nigel Amos

Freedom of Information Advisor

Freedom of Information Team
Data Protection Unit
Kent Police
Force HQ
Sutton Road
Maidstone
Kent ME15 9BZ

E-mail: [4][Kent Police request email]
Tel: +44 (0)1622 654429/654413
Fax: +44 (0)1622 654437
Internal: 19-4429/4413

References

Visible links
1. http://www.kent.police.uk/News/Latest_Ne...
2. http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kol08/articl...
3. http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/operatio...
4. mailto:[Kent Police request email]