Media coverage of Fair Cop and the Judicial Review

• NHS Lanarkshire slammed for its ‘Supporting Trans Staff in the Workplace’ policy
• Policy relates to use of staff-only female shared toilets, showers and changing rooms
• Barrister Sarah Phillimore, 49, of London, claims guidelines ‘stop women from voicing concerns’
• She also claims prioritising trans over women’s right is ‘unlawful’ and fears those raising objections may lose their jobs

A barrister and nurses have slammed an NHS health board for an ‘unlawful’ policy which allows transitioning people to use staff-only female shared facilities, claiming the guidelines ‘stop women from voicing concerns’.

Sarah Phillimore, 49, from London, criticised NHS Lanarkshire over their ‘Supporting Trans Staff in the Workplace policy’, which relates to female shared toilet, shower and changing room facilities.

The barrister, who specialises in family law, tweeted an excerpt from the 28-page document, published last Thursday, which states objections to the policy ‘will be dealt with by a manager in a sensitive and understanding way, while not denying the Trans staff member access to facilities appropriate to their lived gender’.

Read article: Lanarkshire NHS board’s transitioners’ policy was ‘unlawful’

Why aren’t Tory Police and Crime Commissioners reining in hate hoaxes?

Sarah Phillimore, a barrister, is part of the WeAreFairCop group, formed to support ex-police officer, Harry Miller, when he was visited by local police and told to ‘check his thinking’. He was also threatened with the possibility of criminal proceedings. Miller had tweeted about the Government consultation on the Gender Recognition Act. Although Miller had committed no crime, his tweets were recorded, kept on the police record, and made liable for disclosure via a criminal records (DBS) check. When Miller asked for the record of his non-crime to be deleted, Humberside Police refused.

Read article: PC PCCs | Caroline ffiske

• Ian Yule has resigned after his court report was edited by charity Mermaids
• The 72-year-old’s article was edited at the invitation of Hodder Education
• He resigned from the editorial board of A-level Law Review magazine

JK Rowling’s publisher invited a transgender activist group to edit a court report covering a free speech ruling.

The writer of the legal article said it was ‘effectively destroyed’ due to extensive feedback from trans rights charity Mermaids.

The move by Hodder Education, part of Hachette, saw Ian Yule resign as chairman of the editorial board of A-level Law Review magazine, for which the article was written.

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Mr Yule’s article was a summary of a case in which the police were likened to ‘the Gestapo or the Stasi’ for their response to an accusation that businessman Harry Miller, 55, had posted transphobic tweets.

Read article: JK Rowling’s publisher asked transgender activists to edit court report covering free speech ruling

JK Rowling’s publisher invited the transgender activist group Mermaids to review an article in a magazine for A-level law students, which summarised a High Court test case on freedom of expression.

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Management at Hodder Education, part of Hachette UK, referred the article on the ruling to Mermaids, asking it to suggest “examples we can use to counteract the tone and opinions in the piece” and to suggest changes to “anything you feel is untrue, unfair and/or offensive”.

Read article: JK Rowling publisher asked Mermaids trans group to ‘censor’ legal article on free-speech ruling

The outrageous policing of political speech by Wiltshire Police

suppose I should consider myself lucky that I have been able to live 50 years without having to think too deeply about what Hannah Arendt meant by the ‘banality of evil’. About how the real danger comes not from the individuals who put into motion schemes of death and destruction, but the ordinary men and women who are daily complicit, in many little ways.

Read article: Why do women matter so little?

When police kit out their patrol cars in rainbow flags or when officers don pride polo shirts, two questions spring to mind: Should the police be doing this? And how much does it cost? Now, we have some answers to the second of these questions.

Read article: Why are police spending thousands on Stonewall subscriptions?

• Hertfordshire Police fail to mention wanted sex attacker wore women’s clothing
• The force issued a witness appeal following a sex attack in Bishop’s Stortford
• Police did not make the details public until after the man was charged in May

A council has become the first in Britain to scrap guidance urging schools to allow transgender pupils to choose which lavatories they use after a 13-year-old girl challenged it at the High Court.

Oxfordshire county council backed down as it prepared to fight a judicial review over the lawfulness of its “trans toolkit”, which the girl said infringed on her right to privacy.

Read article: Council ditches trans guidance on lavatories after girl’s victory

Brexit occluded every other political issue and debate in the United Kingdom, and now Brexit is “done,” all the things left to fester in darkness—unloved and alone—for three-and-a-half years are crawling out into unaccustomed sunshine.

One of those festering things is what I’ve come to call the Great Trans Rights Post-Brexit Looniness. And I’m not talking about Douglas Murray’s Madness of Crowds (which came out before the election and so enjoyed a somewhat muted critical response; the country was still consumed by Brexit). I’m talking national psychosis that takes in everything from what Labour is currently doing to itself to the Miller v. College of Policing & Anor judgement and a great deal else besides.

Read article: The Great Trans Rights Post-Brexit Looniness

The police have no jurisdiction over our thoughts, but that hasn’t stopped them trying recently. Just over a year ago, a plainclothes officer from Humberside Police turned up at my workplace to ‘check my thinking’ for getting involved in the transgender debate online. An individual had taken offence at something I’d retweeted and reported it as a hate crime.

The crime in question? Well, it was retweeting a silly song lyric that brought the complaint, but the subsequent police investigation found another 30 ‘transphobic’ tweets I’d made. As a former police officer myself, I considered the force’s intrusion to be deeply Orwellian.

Read article: My fight against the police over ‘transphobic’ tweets