Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced plans for major policing reforms yesterday at the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners’ annual conference. In her speech, the Home Secretary stated that without a ‘major overhaul to increase public confidence, the British tradition of policing by consent will be in peril’. The reform will include a new Police Performance Unit to track national data on local performance and drive up standards, a Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee to get policing back to basics and rebuild trust between local forces and the communities they serve and a new National Centre of…
Author: Emma Guy
A Metropolitan Police firearms officer has been found not guilty of the murder of Chris Kaba. Chris Kaba, a 24 year old Black man, was fatally shot by Martyn Blake, a firearms officer from the Metropolitan Police on 5 September 2022 in Streatham, London. He was unarmed. On 5 September 2024, Metropolitan police forced the car Chris was driving to stop believing it was linked to a firearms incident the previous night in nearby Brixton. The car was not registered to Chris and was not stolen. The officers did not know who was driving the car. Chris was unarmed and…
A new report by digital rights campaigners, Open Rights Group, has warned that the Government’s e-Visa scheme could lead to a digital Windrush scandal where people who have the right to be in the UK are unable to prove it, with life-changing consequences. E-Visas: Hostile and Broken identifies flaws in the scheme’s design, rollout and implementation and recommends that the Government stops the scheme before it comes into effect on January 1, 2025. Migrants from outside the EU have physical documents to prove that they and their families could live, work or study in the UK. These can be physical…
When the new government came into power following the general election, they inherited an asylum system in ‘meltdown’. The Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Rwanda Plan had brought the system to a near-standstill, as the number of people waiting for an initial decision began to rise. Now, there a fresh calls from the Refugee Council for an immediate repeal of the Illegal Migration Act – to prevent figures reaching record highs in January 2025. The Refugee Council has stated that without intervention, figures are projected to reach record levels in January 2025 – with 177,063 people awaiting an initial…
On 24 September, Prime minister Keir Starmer delivered his address at the Labour Party Conference. His speech included several human rights related pledges, including economic growth, access to healthcare, migration, and housing. The speech itself included rhetoric of hope, referencing the “light at the end of the tunnel” — but also warned that the country must first join a “shared struggle.” The event marks 15 years since a Labour leader last addressed their annual conference as prime minister. Economic growth, shorter hospital waiting lists and safer streets Starmer’s speech was packed with promise of a “national renewal” to “build a…
The police inspectorate recently published its report on progress in delivering a new model for investigating rape and serious sexual offences, known as Operation Soteria. In 2021, 19 early adopter forces began implementing Soteria in place via the National Operating Model. In May 2023, the then Home Secretary commissioned His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services to carry out an inspection using the powers under section 54(2B) of the Police Act 1996. The report outlines progress from 9 early adopter forces to evaluate the progress of Operation Soteria. Described as a “game-changer” by police personnel, the programme is supposed to improve how…