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Public Petitions Committee 12 January 2016

12 Jan 2016 · S4 · Public Petitions Committee

Item of business

New Petitions

Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 (Review) (PE1593)

Jeanette Findlay Watch on SPTV

In terms of direct experience, like Paul, I have not been charged under the 2012 act or indeed under any other act. As you can clearly see, I am a middle-aged woman, and I travel to the football with other people, some of whom are sitting behind me, and some of whom—they will not mind me saying—are even a bit older than me. In no other context of my life am I treated in the same way as I am treated as a football fan. As soon as I become a football fan, I am filmed, stared at and searched. I was travelling on Sunday, and the bus was searched twice. The attitude of police officers is very dangerous, I think. It will not provoke a reaction in me, because that is not how I am, but it is intimidating and provocative. This is the most dangerous thing: the act has created a very poisonous relationship between the police and young fans. That is in nobody’s interest. The police have been using other legislation against us. We have been prevented from protesting; we have been intimidated while protesting. We have had at least seven police complaints upheld. In one case, 19 of us went to Aberdeen to lobby—quite legitimately—outside the SNP spring conference. We were immediately served notice under, I think, section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986. Other groups that were protesting, including trade union groups, which had much larger numbers, had no difficulty whatsoever. That day, the age range of our protesters went from seven to 73. The police subsequently apologised and said that that should not have happened. We were followed from Glasgow to Aberdeen by people from the football intelligence unit. There was no football match that day; we were followed simply because we were going to protest against the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. When I and a colleague have gone to court to take notes when offensive behaviour cases are being held, we have been intimidated and harassed inside the court rooms. I understand what you are saying about anecdotal evidence, but we are carefully collecting evidence. We have a contact form and an information form on our website, which we ask people to fill in. We follow up and attend cases, we take detailed notes, and we analyse the Government’s statistics. I would like to think that, although what we are saying could be characterised as being anecdotal, it is no more anecdotal than collecting evidence from focus groups, which is what the Stirling evidence was. As someone who has followed football for decades, I can honestly say that I never noticed the police before the act came in. They were clearly there carrying out their duties and making sure people were safe. However, if you asked me how many police were at a given game or what they were doing, I would have been unable to tell you, because I do not remember ever paying any attention to them. It seems to me that that is how it should be. In the run-up to the act and once it was in force, I found how the police conduct themselves at almost every game to be an ordeal.

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Public Petitions Committee 12 January 2016

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