Woman placed on violent persons registry
I was turned into a Parriah for complaining about a yob
Jane Clift saw it as her public duty to report a drunk she saw trampling flowers in a park.
But her efforts led to a surreal nightmare in which she was branded potentially violent and put on a council blacklist with thugs and sex attackers.
Her details were circulated to an extraordinary range of public and private bodies, including doctors, dentists, opticians, libraries, contraceptive clinics, schools and nurseries. Their staff were advised not to see her alone.
The 43-year-old former care worker was forced to withdraw an application to become a foster parent and, eventually, to leave the town where she had lived for ten years.
Now, after a bitter four-year legal battle with Slough Council, the stain on her character has finally been removed.
Woman sues council for libel after being labelled
‘potentially violent’ for complaining about a vandalised flowerbed
Ms Clift told the court that she had to leave Slough, where she had lived for 10 years, and had initially moved to Southampton.
‘I’d like to move back some time in the near future but without this hanging over my head and my family’s head.
‘I have many connections in Slough, I like Slough, but it was impossible for me to function normally in Slough with this on my head for 18 months, and the stain will always be there.’
She said that after the council acted, she sensed that everywhere she went, there was ‘whispering, collaboration, people scurrying about’.
‘One time I went to the contraceptive clinic and I felt that there were way too many people hovering about for me than should have been there, making me feel very insecure.
‘It did serve as a reminder that everywhere I went – hospitals, GPs, libraries – anywhere at all, even if I phoned the fire service, as soon as my name went on to that system, it flagged up ‘violent person marker, only to be seen in twos, medium risk’.’
‘I’m nothing special, no qualifications, don’t have a fancy job but I don’t go getting into trouble. It cuts across class, race, everything.
‘These people have this ability to do this and they can abuse it.
Not many people know, I didn’t even know, that such a register existed.
Woman Placed on Violent persons registry
Woman labelled violent by Slough borough council wins damages
A woman who was labelled potentially violent by a council has won £12,000 in libel damages.
Jane Clift sued Slough borough council and Patrick Kelleher, its head of public protection, over their reaction to her complaint about a three-year-old boy who vandalised a flower bed in a town park.
The authority argued that a 2005 entry about her in its violent persons register was accurate, and that Clift was obsessed with getting Slough’s antisocial behaviour co-ordinator sacked.
Mr Justice Tugendhat found in favour of Clift at the high court, but rejected her claim that Kelleher had been malicious.
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[quote]
‘It has taken me four years to clear my name and I hope Slough and other councils never again misuse their registers.’ Simon Davies, from the human rights watchdog Privacy International, said: ‘This just shows the megalomania of these local authorities. This poor
woman was subjected to a Kafkaesque ordeal because of an incorrect allegation made by one official.
‘It is the sort of behaviour that we would have condemned if it came from China or Russia. Our councils seem to be out of control.’
During the eight-day hearing the court was told Mrs Clift had told another council worker that, as far as she was concerned, Miss Rashid could ‘drop down dead’.[/quote]
OK she was forced to move, people were told not to be around her, now was she also followed around? That would be cool to know. Just one official can ruin someone’s life. I was not aware that their was such a registry.
Black Listed by council
[quote]
She was blacklisted four months after the incident following an internal investigation in which it was alleged she had threatened to ‘physically attack’ the anti-social behaviour official.
The court heard Mrs Clift was blacklisted for 18 months, with her name circulated to 54 council officials as well as outside health services and government agencies including GPs surgeries, opticians and dentists.
Mr Tomlinson told the jury: ‘The Council was so irritated by her persistence that they thought the way to deal with this was by putting her on the violent person’s register because nobody would then take her seriously’.
[/quote]
She was blacklisted, and they did not care who the information was circulated to. In today’s society that could be anyone and everyone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/8117465.stm
The BBC coverage of the story. Sort of bland, and not as many details.
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gangstalking Reply:
October 12th, 2009 at 6:56 am
@gangstalking,
Some more information I found about it.
[quote]
132 – Violent Persons Register
Referring to Minute No. 125 – Violent Persons Register, John Irving from the COPS Team had attended the meeting and gave the following advice:
To hold a register of violent or potentially violent people on computer, the information could be de-personalised by using a classification system i.e.: 1 = Potentially violent, 2 = Threatened people before, 3 = Been violent in the past, 4 = Two-man visit, 5 = Don’t Visit.
ITEM
132 – Continued…
The Legal Services Administrator would compile a Violent Persons Database, which would be put on the Council’s Intranet system, and would be password protected. John Irving suggested that as a long-term goal, once the database had been established it would be useful to share the information with Liberata, District Nurses etc.
The Legal Services Administrator also needed to write a procedure to ensure that the Council didn’t fall foul of the Data Protection Act. It was agreed that addresses couldn’t be put onto the Violent Persons Register without proper clarification. It was suggested that a sub-group to this Group be set up to endorse these requests.
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http://www.doncaster.gov.uk/about/chamber/default.asp?Nav=Report&ReportID=8873
[quote]
Staff Safety (Potentially Violent Persons) Database
1. Introduction
The Council has a legal obligation to ensure the health, safety & welfare of its employees. Risk assessments of employees undertaking visits to locations other than Council premises have identified the need to operate a database of potentially violent persons that is both corporate and compliant with Data Protection legislation. The above is a comprehensive database, which ensures that all details pertaining to any violent persons are recorded at a central point and therefore easier to share that information across the Council and protect its officers in the course of their duties.
2. Legislation
The Management of Health & Safety at Work regulations 1999 places a requirement on employers to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of all risks to the health & safety of employees and others arising from their work activities.
3. Purpose
The purpose of this document is to alert Directorates to their statutory duties and of the corporate information system designed to enable managers to identify potential risks to employees from individuals, animals and premises. The purpose of the recording is to seek to avoid further incidents through the controlled sharing of information that will be used to undertake a better-informed risk assessment of proposed visits by employees.
4. Scope
The provisions of this section apply to any Doncaster Council employee visiting members of the public away from a Council premise.
5. Definitions
The Staff safety register is a secure electronic based database recording incidents involving an employee of DMBC (or partner agency) that have caused actual or potential harm.
6. Policy
It is Doncaster Council policy to ensure the health, safety and welfare of its employees and therefore managers must utilise the staff safety database to achieve this objective.
7. Responsibilities
Managers
All managers in day-to-day control of people, places etc must ensure that risk assessments are completed and are suitable and sufficient for their purpose. Managers must ensure that the significant findings arising from risk assessments are communicated to employees affected by those work activities. For the purposes of this section the work activity relates to visits by Council employees away from Council premises. See Instruction section for detailed Risk assessment.
Senior managers who, after notification of an incident to one of their employees, believe that person(s) and/ or an address now need to be included onto the staff safety register then they must notify the system manager of that decision at the earliest opportunity.
To comply with Data Protection Act 1988 if the manager decides to include a person onto the register then that person must be informed in writing of the intention to do so, the reason for their inclusion and the arrangements for review and removal. The right of appealing against that decision must also be provided.
Employees
Employees who undertake visits to non-Council premises must utilise the Staff safety register to ascertain if the location of the proposed visit is included in the register as a potential to cause harm.
Principal Safety Officer
The Principal Safety Officer as system manager has the ability to create, amend and delete data and to ensure appropriate an advisory/ training service is available to all employees with responsibilities under these instructions. The PSO must ensure that the system is managed and staffed appropriately.
8. Instructions
System Access – Three levels of access are available and a clear level of authorisation will control the granting of each. All levels of direct access to data will be password controlled and the staff safety register itself will record details of every access, including the data viewed and the reason for access.
8.1. Level 1 Access- Basic Interrogation
An email (external email facility) based enquiry function, which tests whether a name or address is registered. Appropriate staff will be specifically authorised to use this function.
8.2. Level 2 Access- View Only
The ability to view data on the software system (software installed on individual pc’s). Only a limited number of managers will be given this access. Where a level 1 user identifies a match from the email system a Level 2 user will obtain the relevant information from the software system and carry out a risk assessment for a visit to the premises and advise accordingly.
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