CoPilot at the Controls

I was minded this morning to write a blog about Kaprekar’s Constant, as it is called (I do not think it is really a constant at all). And I did. As usual, I composed the blog in Word before copying and pasting.

These days, Word appears with a little message at the top asking if I would like the assistance of Copilot. In a moment of curiosity, I tried it, telling Word that I was planning to write a post. Copilot came up with a complete post of total fluff.[1] Who would post that sort of stuff, I wonder? Well me, you might say, if you follow the footnote above. But really?

But what if I was a vicar? I am not. But supposing I were, and wanted a quick sermon. Sure enough, CoPilot comes up with a complete sermon.[2] It was not, I thought, much more vacuous than the sort of sermon that real people come up with. If they are vicars.

The Undoing of Blair

When Tony Blair was elected as British Prime Minister in 1997, I guessed he would be not too bad. I had not voted for him, but like most people, I had him down as a moderate. But with the benefit of hindsight, I now think he was the most cancerous PM in British history.

He was, and still is, a true Fabian – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Lurking beneath the easy-going affability, there beats the heart of a rabid international socialist, determined to destroy every foundation of what made Britain great. At the time, it all seemed so harmless. It slipped through, largely unnoticed, as “modernisation”. When the Tories got back into power, they had not the wit to undo it. And of course, Starmer is cut from the same cloth as Blair.

When the new Reform government gets into power, there will need to be a Great Repeal Bill, to cut out the rot. It will be a big task. It is not too early, I venture, to get organised with a list of what legislation must go.

The Met Fails to Fire Sgt Di Maria

My first impression, when I read that the courts were to intervene to prevent the Metropolitan police from firing rapists from its ranks, was that this was another case of unwarranted court intervention. But then I had another look. It turns out that it has not been established that the officer in question, Sgt Lino Di Maria, has been guilty of rape, or of any other sexual offence. Indeed, it rather appears that the charges against him are preposterous. And that what the Metropolitan police have been doing, is not assuming innocence until proven guilty, but rather treating accusations, however far-fetched, as established fact.

The decision of the court is available online. Leaving aside some ridiculous trivial charges[1], there have been two allegations of rape against Sgt Di Maria, both by fellow police officers.

The first (allegation B) is that when she was voluntarily kissing Sgt Di Maria in her car following a gym session, Sgt Di Maria “forced her to have oral sex”. It cannot have been that awful for her, because just a few days later, she invited him back into her car. Here the complaint was that his penis entered her anus. According to Sgt Di Maria, this was an accident; the female officer in question being on all fours – consensually – he entered her anus in error. He subsequently apologised, which I suppose shows some small shred of decency in a thoroughly tacky episode. These things perhaps happen in the confines of a car? In any event, it took the female officer ten months to come to the conclusion that she had been raped, and report the matter. The conclusion of that process was that there was no case to answer, even of misconduct, let alone rape.[2]

The second allegation (allegation D) was even staler. The complainant in that case, another female police officer, alleged that Sgt Di Maria had raped her some six years earlier, when they were studying together, working on a combined essay. It cannot have been that shocking, because the evidence is that they then continued with the essay, that she said she found the sexual intercourse was enjoyable, and went on to have three further consensual sexual encounters with Sgt Di Maria before then taking up with another police officer. Again, an enquiry into her complaint found that there was no case to answer.[3]

None of this is to say that Sgt Di Maria is a perfect gentleman. But it does suggest that the Metropolitan Police has fallen, hook line and sinker, for the Keir Starmer suggestion that the police should reverse the usual presumption of innocence where an allegation of sexual misconduct have been made.

The performance of Sir Mark Rowley, as Commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has been abysmal. It is high time that he is fired.  And replaced by someone who goes after real crimes, such as theft and assault, rather than pursue a career as Archpriest of Woke.

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[1] Such as an anonymous complaint by someone working with Sgt Di Maria that he had “commented on her clothes” and looked at her; see para 23 of the judgment.

[2] B: 12 August 2019

12. On 12 August 2019, the complainant, a serving police officer, made two allegations of rape. First, on 3 December 2018, after she and the Claimant had been to the gym together and were sitting in the back of the complainant’s car in the Tesco car park and kissing, the Claimant forced her to have oral sex. Second, on 9 December 2018, they left the gym together and went to her car in the Tesco car park, where the Claimant initiated sexual contact, and his penis entered her anus.

13. On 6 January 2020, the Claimant was interviewed under caution and gave a prepared statement. He stated that there had been two instances of consensual sex in the complainant’s car (the second incident was on 15 not 9 December). On the first occasion, she consented to oral sex, and he warned her that he was going to ejaculate. On the second occasion, the complainant was on all fours in the back of the car, and he accidentally entered her anus, not her vagina as he had intended, and apologised. In interview, the Claimant stated that he had no idea why she waited 10 months to report the incidents; they had not been in contact with each other since texting shortly after the second occasion, and two chance encounters.

14. On 2 January 2020, the Claimant was placed on restricted duty, with conditions. The restricted duty direction was reviewed and removed on 28 March 2020 but he remained subject to conditions not to have contact with the complainant and not to be involved in cases concerning sexual offences/violence.

15. On 12 June 2021, the Crown Prosecution Service (“CPS”) decided to take “no further action” because of inconsistencies in the evidence which undermined the complainant’s case. These included emails and texts from the complainant to the Claimant after the first incident. She referred favourably to their “encounter”, told him when she could next meet him at the gym, and gave him her phone number. She had initially told her Inspector they had not sent texts to each other and not exchanged phone numbers. Witness statements were obtained from other officers which were “highlighted as undermining the case” because of the inconsistencies in the various accounts given by the complainant.

16. On 6 July 2021, a detailed Conduct Matter Investigation Report was made pursuant to the Conduct Regulations. The emails and texts exchanged between the complainant and the Claimant were discussed at paragraphs 6.1.6 and 6.1.7. The evidence and inconsistencies identified by the CPS were referred to in paragraph 5.122 of the Conduct Matter Investigation Report, and at paragraph 6.1.9 which concluded that the complainant’s case was undermined by the inconsistencies between the account of events she gave in interview, and the accounts which she gave to fellow officers.

17. The investigator concluded that there was no case to answer, as there was insufficient evidence upon which a reasonable tribunal could find, on the balance of probabilities,either misconduct or gross misconduct. All restrictions were removed.

[3] D: 6 June 2021

19. On 6 June 2021, the complainant, who was a British Transport Police officer, made an allegation to the police that the Claimant had raped her on 20 February 2015. She was studying at University with the Claimant and they were friends. They were working on a combined essay together at her home when he initiated sexual contact and vaginally raped her. She froze and said nothing. They then continued with the essay. She said that she had three further sexual encounters with the Claimant which were consensual.

Following an ABE interview, in which she said that she found the sexual intercourse enjoyable, and exchanged messages with the Claimant afterwards, the complainant said she did not wish to proceed with the criminal allegation. The police were not satisfied that the sexual activity was non-consensual.

20. This allegation was considered on 21 December 2021 in a detailed Conduct Matter Investigation Report, made pursuant to the Conduct Regulations. It stated that the  Claimant was not served with a form 163 because there was no indication of misconduct. Nonetheless he was invited to respond, which he did on 21 December 2021. He denied any wrongdoing and said he totally refuted the allegations. He explained that when studying at university between 2014 and 2016, they would flirt and text and “hook up” for sexual encounters. She was aware that he was married. Their sexual relationship came to an end because she had a relationship with another officer at the university.

21. The report recorded that the complainant decided not to proceed with the allegation. The report concluded that, because of the issues about consent, there was no case to answer, as there was insufficient evidence upon which a reasonable tribunal could find on the balance of probabilities, either misconduct or gross misconduct.

Is the Arrest of Tommy Robinson Lawful?

Is this week’s arrest of Tommy Robinson lawful? It is by no means obvious that it is.

He was arrested pursuant to Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, the text of which is set out below.[1] The basis of the arrest is that Tommy Robinson refused to give the police the PIN to his telephone.

The first thing to note is that Schedule 7 says nothing about PIN codes or passwords. And so it is not, per se, an offence to refuse to reveal a PIN.

The police do have a limited power to require a person to answer questions:

2(1) An examining officer may question a person to whom this paragraph applies for the purpose of determining whether he appears to be a person falling within section 40(1)(b).

It is persons who are or have been concerned in the commission preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism who fall within section 40(1)(b)[2]. Terrorists, in other words.

Here, it is hard to see that there is any suggestion that Tommy Robinson is a terrorist. He is in trouble with the law for sure at the moment, not for any reason related to terrorism, but because he refuses to back down on allegations that he has made, and repeated in a documentary Silenced, about an incident on a school playing field a while ago. The received analysis is that the white schoolboy was guilty of an unprovoked racist attack on a Syrian boy. Tommy Robinson’s analysis is that the Syrian boy is a nasty toerag who had threatened to rape the white boy’s 9 year old sister, and that there had been a concerted campaign to prevent the truth about the incident from being publicised. The High Court has ordered Tommy Robinson not to repeat his side of the story. You can form your own view about that, but obviously it has got nothing to do with terrorism. And no other ground has been suggested as to why the police might need to question Tommy Robinson about it. If there was some reason to suppose that the content of Tommy Robinson’s telephone might reveal whether he was or was not a terrorist, then the officer would have the right to ask the question, “What is the PIN for your telephone?”.[3] But otherwise? No.