Purpose of the Terrorism Act

[Oneeyedvic]

Police in Kent arrested a mother of a disabled mixed race boy as they suspected her of trafficking the child.

Kent Police apologised and described the incident as inappropriate, unprofessional and lacking in tact.

To me, the story is not really that interesting apart from the fact that she was detained under the Terrorism Act.

Now I am pretty sure that the police did not suspect her or the boy of being a terrorist. They thought she was a child trafficker.

Why was she arrested on Terrorism charges and not Child trafficking offences?

Are we just trying to increase the amount of people arrested and then when they are released without charge we can say - yes, that is why we need longer periods to detain suspects, look at the amount of people who are let off.

[Gromit]

Just one of 12,000 times that local councils have use this Anti terror legislation to snoop on us.

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is badly drafted legislation, it means you or I can be spied on for anything under it (or maybe that was the idea in the first place). Extending any powers to the authorities without proper safe guards is very bad. As it the case, the power is abused. It has not taken long for this power to become widely abused.

Of course, any one who complains are terrorist loving lefties. "If you have got nothing to, what's the problem" they will say.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1584808 /Council-spy-cases-hit-1,000-a-month.html

[jake-the-peg]

That's a different issue Vic's example is of a police arrest.

Now I have no doubt that there are sufficient people tracking laws that they could have used which leads me to one of 2 conclusions

Either

This is an example of poor training in the Police and they resorted to terrorism charges because they were unsure of the appropriate charge

or

They wanted to detain her for longer that would otherwise be the case.


Either are quite worrying - do you have a link? have the Kent police given their side of the story?

[Oneeyedvic]

sorry, link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7520598.stm

[New Judge]

Anti-terrorism laws are being used (or sometimes just cited) inappropriately in a widespread fashion.

Most people remember the case of the elderly gentleman who was removed from the Labour Party conference and arrested for heckling. This was done under ant-terrorism laws. The same laws were used to remove an anti-war protestor from Parliament Square. In neither case (and these are by no means the only examples) were there any grounds to suspect that terrorism had any part to play in the activities.

There is a link with the RIPA legislation mentioned by gromit. This Act was needed, it was said, �to help combat terrorism and serious crime�. Yet we see local council officials authorising its use to catch fly-tippers, council tax defaulters, people who try to get their children into a school by claiming to live in its catchment area and people who allow their dogs to foul the pavement. These are clearly not among the �serious crimes� which Parliament had in mind when it passed the legislation.

Photographers throughout the land are threatened with prosecution under terrorism laws when they (quite legitimately) take photographs in public places.

I do not believe this particular example was a result of inappropriate or incorrect police training. I come into contact with a number of serving police officers and it is clear to me that they are encouraged to at least suggest to many miscreants that this legislation exists and may be used against them when there is not a shred of evidence to support terrorism activities. It is a convenient �catch all� to be used (often in docks, airports, railway premises and places where politicians gather) when an immediate offence (if any) cannot be identified.

And of course, once arrested (even if illegally) DNA samples can be kept and the profiles retained.

[Oneeyedvic]

But what I still don't understand is why they couldn't have arrested her under suspicion of 'Child Trafficking'

They surely couldn't have thought that they would need more than 48 hours, or are they just being lazy and everyone will be arrested on anti terror charges so that they can hold people longer?