This Wednesday 6 September the Shenstone 4 will be sentenced

If the repeated delays in sentencing have been unfair  on the Defendants think how much worse it has been for Jonathan Hoffman, the friend of every fascist and neo-Nazi supporter of Israel!

Join the Protest Outside Wolverhampton Crown Court Wednesday 6 September 9.00 a.m.

Palestine Action in action

As you will know from my many blogs, Jonathan Hoffman is the link man between far right Zionists in this country and neo-Nazi groups. See for example

When I first blogged this picture Hoffman called it 'photoshopped' until the camerman, David Hoffman, threatened to sue him for libel and Hoffie had to issue a grovelling apology - it shows him with the EDL in the background and Roberta Moore of the Jewish Defence League alongside him dancing down the street. See

EXCLUSIVE – Lifting the lid on EXCLUSIVE – We Name the Gang of Zionists Whose Purpose is to Disrupt Palestinian Events in London Collaboration between the Far Right and Zionist Activists

EXCLUSIVE - Board of Deputies and Zionist Federation Hold Joint Demonstration with Fascists

Tony Greenstein, Why I'm Outspoken - Crispin Flintoff

Hoffman's Delightful Email Shows the Hatred That Burns Inside the Average Zionist

On 17^th May Hoffie sent me a delightful e mail hoping that I get as long a period of free board and accommodation, courtesy of King Charles III as possible.  How sweet of him I thought even though he told me I shouldn’t ask for kosher food because I was a JINO (Jews in name only)

I think 'repulsive lying piece of shit Greenslime' counts as a denial, but I'm not sure!

For over 3 months Hoffie and his band of Zio Zealots have been eagerly anticipating my being sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

The excitement was too much for some. Janet Clifford first asked if they still had capital punishment and then hoped that I’d get life with hard labour. It almost pains me to have to disappoint her. The charge only carries a maximum of 10 years and hard labour has been abolished.

Damon Lenszner and Francis Greg hoped that I’d be the victim of gay rape, preferably at the hands of a 300 lb Zio. I suspect that if the Zio in question was heavier than Hoffie he’d have trouble getting into and out of bed let alone in engaging in strenuous nocturnal activity. Still it’s the thought that counts.

Sinead O'Connor was an Israel hater - the worst crime in Hoffman's book whereas being a neo-Nazi isn't so bad by comparison

Skwawkbox has already covered Hoffie’s kind email to me back in May Criminal Israel activist tries to gloat over Greenstein, gets owned which I thought was a tad unfair as Hoffie always has the kindliest intentions.

 Jonathan Hoffman (right) and Paul Besser (left) former Intelligence Officer of the neo-Nazi Britain First protesting against 'antisemitism'

Attacked by John Ware for being 'disagreeable'

I thought that in what might be my swansong for a while that I should share a few gems to remember me by.

Note the delicacy of Hoffie's language and his varied vocabulary!

First and foremost is John Ware, the BBCs number one Islamaphobe who, in an attack on Jeremy Corbyn said (0.53) that I must be ‘one of the most disagreeable individuals I’ve ever set eyes on.’ Recommendations like that don’t come every day. So thank you John, it’s very kind of you.

Despite calling everyone a liar, Hoffman still can't explain why he keeps company with all manner of fascists and neo-Nazis

Debate Jonathan Hoffman v Daniel Sheldon Union of Jewish Students

The testimonial from John Ware, who produced the BBC Propaganda Film ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic? even surpasses what Jon Lansman, ex-Momentum fuehrer’s kindly said about me. Lansman informed his audience that I was:

Hoffman's world consists of nothing but 'antisemites' and 'Israel haters'

“probably the rudest person I know in politics. He says many offensive things, most of the time”.

John Ware attacks the 'Disagreeable' Tony Greenstein

I know that Jon meant well but unfortunately the weasel word ‘probably’ crept in meaning that he had sowed doubt in some peoples’ minds. In the end I had to send him a solicitor’s letter warning him that anyone doubting my offensiveness to Zionists and racists was guilty of libel and slander and that I would not hesitate to sue to protect my reputation. I wasn’t ‘probably’ the rudest man in politics I was the rudest man.

Hoffman's Apology for Rape When Israelis Are involved

You may remember the case of the British woman who was raped by 12 Israelis and then convicted of making a false claim of rape and imprisoned. Eventually the woman was cleared.

Hoffie however was convinced that it was all a question of 'antisemitism'. The Israeli boys were framed and it was all consensual.   After all he had seen the videos and reached an impartial decision.

Even female journalists on the Zionist propaganda rag, the Jewish Chronicle, were having none of it.

The British Courts are Growing More & More Hostile to Direct Action Protesters

However these slights aside the question I have been asked most in the past few months is what sentence I think that we shall receive and the answer is, I don’t have a clue. My barrister, as with all the Defendants, will make a plea of mitigation and we shall leave it in the lap of the gods.

Hoffman ensconced with Kevin Caroll of the EDL and assorted fascists

The main thing is that whatever happens the struggle of Palestine Action to rid Britain of the factories of the Elbit war criminals must go on. People from PA have already been gaoled because the judges have reinterpreted the law in order to criminalise our actions. What the BBC praises when Hong Kong or Russian demonstrators take direct action is attacked and pilloried in the mass media when we protest in this country.

As is well known climate action protesters have been gaoled for merely mentioning climate change. Even The Times was moved to protest this outrageous attack on basic democratic rights by Silas Reid of Inner London Crown Court.

Hoffman breaks up Humanist meeting

Mention should also be made of Palestine Solidarity Campaign. In 2021, despite the hostility of the Executive and Director Ben Jamal, policy was passed instructing the Executive to give support to Palestine Action. That has remained a dead letter. PSC are determined to try and impress the Establishment with their moderation and the Bill outlawing BDS is their reward.

Likewise in the furore over the banning of Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie PSC  has remained silent. It has not raised the banning of the film by Unite or the attack on anti-Zionists by the GMB. It values the financial benefits of their affiliation rather than asking them to live up to their fine policies.

Why is PSC so anaemic? Because it thinks you can be pro-Palestinian without taking a position on Zionism. It’s as if activists 30 years ago had campaigned against human rights abuses in Apartheid South Africa without taking a position on Apartheid.

A freedom of information request by Palestine Action Shows that the Israeli Embassy sought to interfere in the Prosecution of Activists

Earlier this year Palestine Action sent in an Freedom of Information asking what contact there had been between the Attorney General’s office and the Israeli Embassy.

The answer was quite a lot. The Embassy must have felt very confident if they felt they could approach the prosecuting authorities in this country.

Eighteen pages of documents have been released, heavily redacted. What they clearly show is the highest level contacts between the Israeli Embassy and the British Government and close co-operation on repressive legislation such as the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

The suspicion must be that the Israeli Embassy has had an input into the Public Order Act 2023 and previous law and order legislation. If this is true it is an outrage. Israel is not a democracy and yet the government appears to be taking advice on curtailing liberties in this country at the behest of the Israeli state.

See In the UK, Israel Has Spotted a Like-Minded Government - Birds of a feather flock together by Hedi Viterbo

Fining Hoffman for Speeding is Apparently Anti-Semitic!

Also amongst the various hate posts on his Facebook page, is one attacking Sadiq Khan, who I admit is a treacherous toe rag. However fining Hoffman for speeding is probably one of the few good things he has done, apart from getting rid of Cressida Dick from the Met.

Hoffman was convicted for harassing women activists on Palestine with fellow thug Damon Lenszner

'Heil Hitler' and 'I'm so glad that Hitler burned your grandfather'

But despite all the dross and bigotry on Hoffman's blog there was one jewel amidst the dross.  An Israeli, Anton Delin, described in detail the attack on anti-judicial reform protesters by Netanyahu's supporters.

“I want to share with you an incident that happened to me on Sunday night when we joined the demonstration in Kaplan.

As we walked past one of the buildings in Tel Aviv, a man wearing a kippa approached us. He was Mizrahi (and you will understand why I say this in a moment). He started giving us the “Heil Hitler” salutes and calling out “Heil Hitler”. This shocked me but what came next broke my heart. He said, “I am so glad that Hitler burned your grandfather.”

I have experienced antisemitism in my life, plenty of it, but this? This, from the mouth of a Jew, and a “religious” one at that, just stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away. I was shattered and all I could hear in my head was, “What have they (the government) done?”

Unfortunately, this was, and is not, an isolated incident. The violence that erupted on Monday night when pro-reformers, La Familia and Lahav were called to demonstrate, was atrocious. The vitriol that spewed out of their mouth was disgusting. The crude gestures that flew from the hands of children, never mind adults. And it escalated from there to physical violence and there is video evidence of each incident. All these incidents, from attacks on female police officers, to beating and kicking a female ant-reform protestors, to an almost lynch of an Arab taxi driver, to full face punching of an anti-reform protestor to the attack on a Channel 13 news reporter who sustained a broken rib and potential internal injuries to his spleen, were perpetrated by pro-reform demonstrators, many of them wearing kippot and tzitzit.

Hoffman of course ignored this because even he would find it difficult (though not impossible) to defend Zionists telling fellow Jews that they were glad that someone's grandfather had died in an extermination camp.  However it gives an insight into the mentality of the Zionist far-Right (and not so far right). The post for anyone who is interested is on the 30 March when a haredit couple tried to run over protesters in Tel Aviv.

A summary of the choicest posts agonising over the postponement of the trial

I copy below the sad saga of the excruciating wait that Hoffie’s fascist friends are being made to undergo as our sentencing has been postponed some four times.

For those who are interested in reading the maddest of the mad then you can read it all here on Hoffman's Facebook page.

Just one thing puzzled me.  The No. 75 besides Hoffie's name. Was it his age or IQ? Answers on a postcard.

Tony Greenstein

See also

Jonathan Hoffman’s Gang of Zionist Fascists Blame Anyone but themselves for the Suicide of their friend Jason Silver 15 February 2018

EXCLUSIVE - The Lies of David Collier (Gnasher Jew) and his Dodgy Dossiers 11 March 2018

EXCLUSIVE: David Collier – the ‘Independent Researcher’ who accused Corbyn of anti-Semitism keeps company with White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis and Islamophobes 21^st March 2018

The Zionist – Fascist Alliance was Consummated at the Al Quds Demonstration 11 June 2018

EXCLUSIVE: More Revelations about Zionism’s Fascist Wing 3 August 2018

Exclusive – Leader of the Confederation of Scottish Friends of Israel, Nigel Goodrich is a member of a Secret Fascist Facebook Group, the Jewish Defence Forces 13 March 2019

EXCLUSIVE - MICHAEL ENGLISH, CLOSE ASSOCIATE OF JONATHAN HOFFMAN VISITED BY MANCHESTER COUNTER-TERRORISM POLICE . 20 May 2019

Al Quds Demonstration Sees the Zionist Federation and the Board of Deputies Join Hands with the Far Right 4 June 2019

https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/03/zionists-openly-admit-to-trying-to.html Marc 2020

Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist Federation and the EDL’s Roberta Moore Hold a Joint Demonstration 14.8.10. https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2010/08/jonathan-hoffman-of-zionist-federation.html

Jonathan Hoffman's Lies in the Hackney Citizen  4.2.13. https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2013/02/jonathan-hoffmans-lies-in-hackney.html

Apparently whenever Hoffman leaves his house neo-Nazis and fascists appear out of nowhere, despite his best efforts to be rid of them! https://tonygreenstein.com/2019/03/in-defence-of-jonathan-hoffman-because-no-one-else-will-defend-him/  March 2019

The Thugs and Misfits of the neo-Nazi Jewish Defence League & Assorted Fascists Intent on Destroying Free Speech on Israel and Palestine https://tonygreenstein.com/2017/12/exclusive-we-name-gang-of-31-zionists/ December 2017

Jonathan Hoffman, UJS, Tony Greenstein and the EDL

Jonathan Hoffman's Lies Catch Up With Him 29.8.10.

Union of Jewish Students Attack on Jonathan Hoffman 7.11.11.

Setting the EDL Cat Among the Zionist Pigeons 25.10.10.

Zionist Federation & fascist EDL Join Hands in Supporting Israel's Murder at Sea - Jonathan Hoffman of the Zionist Federation Defends Allowing Fascists to Take Part 3 June 2010

Jonathan Hoffman – Another Victim of anti-Semitism Hoffman Booted out as Zionist Vice-President

Coronation - We Are Walking into a Police State

Police Arrest Protesters for Exercising their Democratic Right to Protest Against Monarchy

Democracy British Style

It was less than two months ago that the Metropolitan Police were described as ‘institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic’. Baroness Louise Casey said that the Black community were ‘over-policed and under-protected.’

Murdered by the Met

It was little more than two years ago that Sarah Everard was murdered by a Police officer, Wayne Couzens, who had been systematically protected by fellow officers when reports of  him exposing himself were made. The last incident was six days before he went on to kidnap and murder Sarah, when Police were given his car registration number and his bank card details by a fast food restaurant.

If Couzens had been arrested at the time Sarah Everard would still be alive. As it is Couzens was given the nickname ‘the rapist’ – a ‘joke’ that fellow officers in the Nuclear Constabulary found highly amusing.

Casey Response to Met Reaction to Report

Couzens was not of course the only incident. 18 months ago two police officers, Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis, were gaoled for sharing  pictures of two dead Black women, nicknamed ‘dead birds’ in two WhatsApp groups, one of which had 41 fellow officers as participants.

Anti-monarchy arrests during UK coronation

Met Commissioner Cressida Dick resigned after a series of scandals. An independent police watchdog revealed shocking evidence Feb. 1 that officers in Charing Cross station had engaged in conduct involving misogyny, homophobia, bullying and sexual harassment between 2016 and 2018.

The report claimed that officers had engaged in sexual activity while on duty, joked about hitting and raping women, and mocked the deaths of black babies and the Holocaust. In published Whatsapp messages, one male officer told to a female officer: “I would happily rape you…if I was single I would happily chloroform you.” Two of the officers investigated were promoted, while nine were left to serve in the Met.

Cressida Dick’s replacement, Sir Mark Rowley shows no inclination to improve matters, having rejected Louise Casey’s finding of institutionalised racism. The National Black Police Association offered to meet him to highlight areas of concern and collaborate on how to change the systemic racism within the force, but was snubbed. 

The Inquiry chaired by Nuala O’Loan, the former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland into the murder of Daniel Morgan, a private eye, found that the Police investigation was riddled with corruption.

The report accused Dick of 'placing hurdles' in their path by refusing to give them access to a vital police database. The HOLMES system which is used by UK police forces to investigate complicated crimes such as serial murders and high-value frauds.

Access to the database was 'essential' because many of the documents were only available in online form, and her refusal caused 'very significant delays', the report stated.

'The Metropolitan Police's lack of candour manifested itself in the hurdles placed in the path of the Panel, such as (then Assistant Commissioner) Cressida Dick's initial refusal to recognise the necessity for the Panel to have access to the HOLMES system,'

Who then was better placed to be given additional powers under the new Public Order Act than the Metropolitan Police? Indeed such was Cruella Braverman’s trust in the Met Police’s ability to abuse whatever powers they were handed that the implementation of the Act was fast tracked just one day after receiving royal assent. Normally it takes months to implement legislation and sometimes parts of that legislation are never implemented.

The POA means that anyone who blocks roads, airports and railways could be jailed for up to 12 months — while anyone who glues themself down could face up to six months behind bars or an unlimited fine.

Police will also be able to stop and search protesters for items such as padlocks, superglue and digging tools if they suspect they are intending to be used at a protest. People caught with these items, with the intention of using them to cause disruption, will also face criminal charges.

In short the POA is an ideal piece of legislation  to hasten the arrival of a Police state. It is the type of legislation which the press would fall over themselves to criticise if Putin or China were to introduce it.

Only one thing will render this Act null and void and that will be a refusal to comply with its provisions by direct action protesters. This is a government that detests any form of direct action whilst being immersed  in serious corruption and law breaking – all of which have gone without investigation by the Met.

According to Transparency International 2021 was the year corruption took centre stage

From the British Government’s COVID-19 response to ministers’ and MPs’ conflicts of interest; from the businesses caught up in bribery scandals to the devastating effect of corruption in defence forces around the world which triggered or aggravated conflicts or led to the total collapse of government.

Its effect was of course felt on the public

Whether that was UK hospitals unable to access high quality or reasonably priced personal protective equipment (PPE) for their staff and patients, planning decisions seemingly based on who you know rather than the public interest, or millions fleeing their homes and countries when the safest place to be should have been at home.

It is therefore no surprise that the Metropolitan Police should pull out all the stops to prevent protests at the Coronation.  It is a case of one undemocratic institution, the Met, giving its full support to another undemocratic institution, the Monarchy.

However the Met Police commanders are nothing if not stupid. They have enabled millions of people to see for themselves the hostility to the democratic right to protest of the Police. The publicity garnered by the protesters because of the decision by the Police to arrest its organisers was invaluable. Even the ever loyal BBC was forced to carry news reports of the heavy handed response of the Met. In that sense and in that sense only, we should be grateful to Mark Rowley.

However we have to ask why the government gave a bunch of racists, rapists, misogynists and corrupt bigots even more powers than they already had given their penchant to abuse their existing powers. There was no popular mandate for the new Public Order Act and it says everything about Starmer’s Labour Party that it failed to make any protest about the new powers still less pledge to repeal it.

Tony Greenstein

The Death of Sarah Everard was not an Isolated Incident but the Product of a Misogynist, Racist and Right-wing Police Force

There is only one solution to the Corrupt and Oppressive Metropolitan Police-ABOLITION 

I was in custody in Birmingham’s Winson Green prison, when Sarah Everard was murdered. Being locked up in a cell 23 hours a day, I had little option but to watch TV footage of the case as it was developing.

My reason for having become a guest of Her Majesty (I would have preferred Balmoral!) was going equipped to cause criminal damage at Elbit’s Shenstone factory. Criminal damage to a factory that produces drones to murder children and their parents is a greater crime in the eyes of the Police than making the instruments of death that Elbit produces. This is the mentality that produces Wayne Couzens.

Indeed so serious was my offence that I was interviewed in police custody not only by an officer from Staffordshire Police but also a female sergeant from the Metropolitan Police. Clearly the death of Sarah Everard at the hands of a fellow officer wasn’t going to deter this woman from protecting those who own this factory of death.

If the murder of Sarah was not shocking enough, what followed simply compounded it.  Women turning up for a vigil at Clapham Common were attacked by Police thugs who used the COVID regulations as an excuse for further violence.

Indeed, in an irony that has clearly been lost on Dick, Couzens used the very same COVID regulations to kidnap Sarah in the first place. If there had been any truth in the COVID pretext, which of course the media swallowed, then clearly the violent attack they launched could only have increased the chances of spreading the virus.

A few days after my release I spoke to a demonstration against the Police Bill of nearly 5,000 in Brighton. For all their faults Sussex Police saw no need to attack a peaceful demonstration, COVID notwithstanding.

What really happened was unpalatable to the BBC and mainstream media but is or should be obvious. After the apprehension of a police rapist and killer, Metropolitan police officers felt a sense of humiliation.  So who did they take it out on?  The women who were holding a vigil for Sarah and who they felt were rubbing their noses in it!

Just as the Israelis hold the Palestinians responsible for their own deaths, so in the twisted and hate filled minds of the Met, the women gathered at Clapham Common were responsible for Sarah’s death. There is a simple name for it.  It’s called victim blaming.

Is it police culture that is to blame?

Whenever you have faults in an organisation the easiest thing to do is to blame the internal ‘culture’. As if it is simply a question of wrong ideas in peoples’ heads.  So it is with Sara Everard.

That is why the Review of Police Culture that Cressida Dick has just announced is a sop that will, indeed cannot, change anything. There is a very simple reason for this.  The political culture of an organisation reflects what that organisation does, how it works, how it sees those it works with and its relationship with those it allegedly serves.

 So if you want to change the culture you have to change the Metropolitan Police itself and its priorities. Since that is not what Dick wants to do then what is being proposed is merely window dressing. Or literally putting lipstick on a pig. This is leaving aside the refusal/inability of the Met to investigate itself.

A change in police culture used to be the response to accusations of police racism.  After the 1981 riots and the Scarman Inquiry the police began ‘racism awareness’ courses whose only effect was to arm the police with a new language in order to justify their continuing racism.  It helped them to better deal with and know their enemy. It is the language of PR. It was of course helped along with large sums of public money as anti-racism was incorporated into the voluntary sector.

The history of racist policing and attacks on the Black community by the Metropolitan Police is all too well documented. See for example In the Shadow of the SPG: Racist Policing, Resistance & Black Power in 1970s Brixton and The Brixton riots 40 years on: ‘A watershed moment for race relations’. Racism, like misogyny is an integral part of police ‘culture’.  See the documentary Injustice on Black Deaths in Custody. For much of its history the Metropolitan Police and the Special Patrol Group operated akin to an occupying force in areas of London like Brixton and Notting Hill.

Wayne Couzens and a Misogynist Culture

One thing is very clear about the murder of Sarah Everard. This was no aberration. Wayne Couzens, Sarah’s murderer, did not stick out as a sore thumb in the Met.  He wasn’t a loner or some kind of oddball who didn’t fit in. The problem was that he fitted in all too well. He was even given what, to his comrades in the Civil Nuclear Constabulary must have been an extremely witty nickname, ‘the rapist’. That must have produced many a laugh. He apparently made women feel uncomfortable.  However that did not make Couzens unsuitable in the eyes of his fellow policemen. Quite the contrary. They conspired to protect him.

It transpires that Couzens had exposed his penis in public, not once but three times and each time his fellow officers covered for him. After all they were all lads together and this was simply the product of ‘locker room’ talk. The latest incident was just 72 hours before Sarah’s kidnapping. If his behaviour had been taken seriously and he had been arrested and had his warrant card taken from him, along with his handcuffs, then Sarah would be alive today.

The details of his vehicle were recorded. He was, as they say, bang to rights, except that the Police don’t inform on their own unless circumstances force them to.

Police Corruption and Operation Countryman

There have been so many instances of this refusal to inform on their own that it is tiresome to give examples. From Operation Countryman, an inquiry into police corruption that was sabotaged by a combination of senior officers of the Metropolitan Police, including Commissioner Sir David McNee, to the murder of Blair Peach. After Operation Countryman was wound up, with just 2 police officers gaoled, corruption resurfaced on an even bigger scale.

The Metropolitan Police, and indeed all Police forces, are instruments of the state, coercive bodies who, whatever pretensions they make to serving the public, are there to keep the Queen’s Peace.  At the end of the day they are a body of violent men (& women). Their primary function is to ensure the maintenance of the existing economic and political order. That is why a certain level of police corruption is tolerated at the highest political level. They operate in a political system which itself has corruption at its heart. Under Boris Johnson this has reached new heights. 

In the BBC documentary (which the BBC banned, later shown by Granada’s World in Action) on Operation Countryman, we see how Margaret Thatcher (26:06) used the death of 6 Police Officers to excuse Police corruption.

Jean Charles Menendez

Nor has the Met’s corruption gone away.  Indeed it has flourished under Cressida Dick, who it may be recalled, was the officer responsible for overseeing the police murder of Charles Menendez in 2007.

In June the Metropolitan Police were branded ‘institutionally corrupt’ by an independent inquiry set up to review the murder of private detective Daniel Morgan.  Cressida Dick herself was personally censured for obstruction. In 2011 the Met accepted that corrupt detectives shielded the killers yet Dick, then an Assistant Commissioner and her successors continued to obstruct the Inquiry.  The Chair of the Inquiry Lady O’Loan stated that:

“We believe the Metropolitan police’s first objective was to protect itself. In so doing it compounded the suffering and trauma of the family.” 

Despite these findings Home Secretary Priti Patel and London Mayor Sadiq Khan expressed their confidence in Dick. What possible purpose is there in setting up inquiries if their findings are rejected?  Boris Johnson had already rejected the results of an Inquiry that found Priti Patel guilty of bullying so the chances of an internal inquiry into Police Culture coming up with anything other than palliatives is zero.

But what has the reaction of the Labour Party been?  In the week when Wayne Couzens was sentenced to life imprisonment, Starmer’s aides thought it a good idea to form Labour Friends of the Police! No one can accuse Starmer of lacking a sense of timing!

Of course the Police are only the most visible face of the system’s racism and sexism.  In a capitalist society the law will always be concerned with protecting property not people.

It was Lord Denning, former Master of the Rolls, who explained in Southwark LBC v Williams [1971] the perils of allowing need to trump property:

“… if hunger were once allowed to be an excuse for stealing, it would open a door through which all kinds of lawlessness and disorder would pass… . If homelessness were once admitted as a defence to trespass, no one’s house could be safe. Necessity would open a door which no man could shut.”

Edmund-Davies LJ explained what judges fear was:

“[T]he law regards with deepest suspicion any remedies of self-help, and permits those remedies to be resorted to only in very special circumstances. The reason for such circumspection is clear – necessity can very easily become simply a mask for anarchy.”

Unless the model of policing represented by the Metropolitan Police is fundamentally changed then racism, misogyny and corruption will always be part of the ‘service’ that is offered. Without defunding the Met as it exists and the creation of a police force that is controlled by those it allegedly serves, then the present corrupt and coercive policing will continue indefinitely. As long as the Police force is an external force imposed from above it can never be reformed.

A Rape Culture

Fewer than one in 60 rape cases last year resulted in a suspect being charged. While there were 52,210 rapes recorded in England and Wales in 2020, only 843 resulted in a charge or summons – a rate of 1.6% (the BBC’s figure is 1.4%). And a substantial proportion of these resulted in acquittal. Rape has effectively been decriminalised. In 2018 only 3.8 per cent of sexual offences resulted in a charge or summons, down from 5.6 per cent the previous year.

Those with long memories may remember a BBC documentary in 1982 which recorded an interview by two hostile detectives of a rape victim.  It caused outrage and promises of a change in police ‘culture’.  For 20 years, ever since I was a law student, we have been told how the Police are ‘changing’. Everything changes but everything remains the same!

The head of my postgraduate law course at Sussex was Jennifer Temkin, the foremost expert on the law of rape. In 2005 she was bemoaning why it was that ‘only 5.6% of British women who take their complaint to the police see their assailant convicted.’ And of the cases that did go before a judge and jury there was a conviction rate of just over 20%. Today it is less than a third of that despite all the promises to the contrary by the Police.  Why? See Beware of barristers

Obviously one reason is that rape is not a priority for either the Police or the Crown Prosecution Service.  A police force whose priority is property will never prioritise vulnerable people, be they children suffering abuse or women victims of rape and domestic violence.

The Police tell us that they don’t have the resources. It is strange that the Met and other forces can muster hundreds of officers for an animal rights march, Extinction Rebellion or protests against the Police Bill but when it comes to offences against the person there are never enough resources. They can send a Met officer up to Staffordshire to interview me but they can’t investigate rape in Brixton where she is based.

Class also plays a large part. I remember arguing with Temkin about this. Not only because more affluent women don’t need to use public transport but because middle class women are more likely to get the police to take their complaints seriously compared to working class women who are considered sluts who are ‘asking for it’.

That is why the theory of ‘patriarchy’ falls down. Having a woman as head of the Met has arguably made the situation worse not better. It assumes that women behave differently from men in positions of power. It is the same with having Black police officers. The experience in the United States shows that Black officers are equally complicit in the racist treatment of Black people. In Baltimore in 2015, 3 of the 6 Police murderers of Freddie Gray, who died in shocking circumstances, were Black.

My own experience police obstruction and worse was when a 15 year old daughter of a friend was raped in her home and the Police refused to believe her. When I insisted on an interview with the Police officers concerned alongside her mother, the Police threatened to charge the mother with wasting police time!

To make matters worse the Police then submitted an adverse report in response to a claim to the Criminal Injuries Board for compensation. It was only after getting expert medical advice that I was able to overturn the original decision on appeal. The police however never reinvestigated the case.

Leaving aside the fact that an officer from Wayne Couzen’s unit has now been charged with rape (and of course we will assume he is innocent until proven guilty) it is a fact that the Special Demonstration Squad, which specialised in infiltrating left-wing and radical protest groups, never penetrated far-right groups. The SDS specialised in rape by deception, a practice tolerated for decades by senior officers. And this is leaving aside the 26 cases of sexual offences by officers in the past 5 years that we know about.

The reason for this is that the Police are an overwhelmingly right-wing body. How else can one explain the passing of information by the Special Branch to a blacklisting operation, the Consulting Association?  This practice was ruled as unlawful in 2009 by the Information Commissioner as a clear breach of the Data Protection Act. Did that stop the Police from passing information?  Of course not.  Given the secrecy with which the Police operate, in particular Special Branch, one must assume that this practice continues today.

That is why the decision of Starmer and the Labour right-wing to form a Labour Friends of the Police is so contemptible. The Police are not our friends.  They are the friends of big business and the wealthy.  Those with property.  They are our enemy. Of course that does not mean that all individual police are right-wing, racists or sexists. The barrel may be full of rotten apples but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t contain some uncontaminated fruit.

Incidentally the proposal to disband the Met and integrate it into neighbouring police forces was a recommendation of Operation Countryman, which was headed by the Chief Constable of Dorset Police.  It is hardly a radical proposal.

Tony Greenstein