Auntie Beeb's Bias Corporation by ex-employee Sissons

The Daily Wail on 22nd January 2011

Left-wing bias? It's written through the BBC's very DNA, says Peter Sissons

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349506/Left-wing-bias-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html

For 20 years I was a front man at the BBC, anchoring news and current affairs programmes, so I reckon nobody is better placed than me to answer the question that nags at many of its viewers — is the BBC biased?

In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.

By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.

If you want to read one of the few copies of the Daily Mail that find their way into the BBC newsroom, they are difficult to track down, and you would be advised not to make too much of a show of reading them. Wrap them in brown paper or a copy of The Guardian, would be my advice.

I am in no doubt that the majority of BBC staff vote for political parties of the Left. But it’s impossible to do ­anything but guess at the numbers whose beliefs are on the Right or even Centre-Right. This is because the one thing guaranteed to damage your career prospects at the BBC is letting it be known that you are at odds with the prevailing and deep-rooted BBC attitude towards Life, the Universe, and Everything.

At any given time there is a BBC line on everything of importance, a line usually adopted in the light of which way its senior echelons believe the political wind is blowing. This line is rarely spelled out explicitly, but percolates subtly throughout the organisation.

Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.

All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.

Trade unions are mostly good things, especially when they are fighting BBC managers. Quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically. The Royal Family is a bore. Islam must not be offended at any price, although Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.

The increasing tendency for the BBC to interview its own reporters on air exacerbates this mindset. Instead of concentrating on interviewing the leading players in a story or spreading the net wide for a range of views, these days the BBC frequently chooses to use the time getting the thoughts of its own correspondents. It is a format intended to help clarify the facts, but which often invites the expression of opinion. When that happens, instead of hearing both sides of a story, the audience at home gets what is, in effect, the BBC’s view presented as fact.

And, inside the organisation, you challenge that collective view at your peril. In today’s BBC only those whose antennae are fully attuned to the corporation’s cultural mindset — or keep quiet about their true feelings — are going to make progress.

Moreover, making progress these days doesn’t mean just achieving the influence and prestige of a senior job with the world’s greatest broadcaster, once considered reward enough. For those breaking through into the senior ranks, there’s now big, big money and a gold-plated pension to be had

Which is why, although there has been plenty of grumbling on the shop floor about the escalation of pay for top BBC managers in recent years, it’s muted. No one wants to wreck his or her chances of a well-paid place in the promised land. The newsroom has many talented journalists of middle rank, who know what’s wrong with the organisation, but who don’t rock the boat for fear of blowing their futures.

Not that talent alone is enough to get on at the BBC. The key to understanding its internal promotions system is that, for every person whose career is advanced on ability, two are promoted because it solves a problem for management.

If Human Resources — or Personnel, as it used to be known — advise that it’s time a woman or someone from an ethnic minority (or a combination of the two) was appointed to the job for which you, a white male, have applied, then that’s who gets it.

But whatever your talent, sex or ethnicity, there’s one sure-fire way at a BBC promotions board to ensure you don’t get the job, indeed to bring your career to a grinding halt. And that’s if, when asked which post-war politician you most admire, you reply: ‘Margaret Thatcher’.

What the BBC wants you, the public, to believe is that it has ‘independence’ woven into its fabric, running through its veins and concreted into its foundations.

The reality, I discovered, was that for the BBC, independence is not a banner it carries principally on behalf of the listener or viewer.

Rather, it is the name it gives to its ability to act at all times in its own best interests.

The BBC’s ability to position itself, to decide for itself on which side its bread is buttered, is what it calls its independence. It’s flexible, and acutely sensitive to which way the wind is blowing politically.

Complaints from viewers may invariably be met with the BBC’s stock response, ‘We don’t accept that, so get lost’. But complaints from ministers, though they may be rejected publicly, usually cause consternation — particularly if there is a licence fee settlement in the offing. And not just ministers, if a change of Government is thought likely.

Back in October 1995, the then leader of the Opposition, Tony Blair, made his big speech at the Labour Party Conference — but on the Six O’clock News, there was every chance it would be upstaged by the verdict in the sensational OJ Simpson trial in the U.S., which was expected at the same time. Even at the conference itself delegates crowded round TV sets for the news, and it wasn’t to see a rerun of Tony.

Alastair Campbell, Blair’s press secretary, was having none of it. He faxed the BBC and ITN ‘not to lose sight of the importance to the country of Mr Blair’s speech’. He wanted it to lead the news. ITN ignored his letter. The BBC made sure the Six O’clock News complied.

That spoke volumes. Such a letter from a spin doctor would have been binned on principle by the great editors of ITN who I worked for before joining the BBC. At the BBC, the instinct, faced with such a plea from a party of the Left standing on the brink of power, was to do as requested.

All Governments work hard on influencing the news agenda, but what I found uncomfortable during my years presenting the Nine O’clock and Ten O’clock News was how blatant those attempts to pressurise the BBC became, particularly at General Election time.

The party machines all had the internal BBC telephone numbers of the editors of the major news ­programmes, whom they would try to bully in person, both before and after the programmes went out.

I remember a night when the editor’s phone rang after the Nine O’Clock News. It was a direct call from No 10, questioning her judgment and complaining about our political coverage that night. This wasn’t a call to the director-general, or the head of news, but to a harassed and tired editor who had been on duty for 14 hours.

‘Tell him to get stuffed,’ I advised her. She rolled her eyes, knowing better than I the row that would be caused by that.

One of the things that always puzzled me at the BBC was the lack of inspirational leadership. There were exceptions.

My favourite editor when I chaired Question Time was notable for his total loyalty to me and the rest of his team. If things went wrong, he saw it as his job to take the bullet. That was not the BBC way — the old saying ‘Deputy heads must roll’ still raises a smile, but only because of the truth it contains.

Most of the managers I had over me had status and rank, on paper. In reality, they had little talent except the dark art of surviving at the BBC and alienating those who were answerable to them. I was always struck by how few senior people there were to look up to and to learn from.

It had been very different at ITN where I began my career as a television journalist. It had a tremendous esprit de corps and bosses whom you would follow over the top when they blew the whistle. You were always aware that someone was in charge who would say the seven most important words in any newsroom: ‘Here’s what we are going to do.’

Working at ITN wasn’t always a bed of roses. I can remember fights and disagreements, strikes and ­setbacks. But I never felt the chronic lack of motivation that comes when you work for an organisation that is rudderless.

ITN, it must be said, had the advantage of being small. The BBC, by contrast, has become so big and complex that it is virtually unmanageable. Those at the top of one of the world’s greatest communications businesses seem to find it impossible to communicate on a personal level with those who work for them.

Many of them were once convivial colleagues, but the dead hand of the BBC knocks the stuffing out of them, and the climate of fear — fear usually of making a decision — finishes them off.

The BBC is one of our most important national institutions. It is revered around the world, and many of its products, in entertainment and drama, are unsurpassed. But at its core is news, and BBC News is an unhappy place, under-performing and directionless.

Paradoxically, it’s never had more people involved in journalist training and laying down editorial guidelines.

What it lacks is a leader whose lodestone isn’t The Guardian; who will draw a line on political correctness; who’s not afraid to hire some people who don’t fit the BBC template; who will kick backsides when merited; who will promote solely on talent; who will remind all interest groups that they don’t have an entitlement to BBC airtime; and who will do the job for the prestige and not the money.

And pigs might fly.

On a day-to-day basis the people who ran BBC News were rarely seen on the shop floor. If a visitor to the BBC’s huge newsroom at Television Centre were to ask who was in charge, you wouldn’t be able to point to any individual in the room.

Harassed programme editors would be summoned to editorial meetings on the management floors above, and the sentiment most often expressed when they returned was that they had wasted valuable time reading lists to each other and explaining the day’s news to the man or woman notionally at the helm.

Too many senior executives were just playing out their roles, oblivious to how irrelevant they had become to what was actually being done in the news factory below. Colleagues told me that they had not just lost respect for their highly-paid bosses, what they felt was now total contempt. What they were looking for was leadership, and all they got was management.

Developments like this increasingly disturbed and depressed me. They came to a head just before the 2009 local and European elections, when time was starting to run out for the Brown Government.

I was at Television Centre preparing to anchor the 5pm-6pm news, the centre-piece of which was to be an extended interview that I would conduct with Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman.

I did what I have always done before thousands of interviews in my 45 years as a broadcast journalist. I drew up a list of the most important current issues that I felt she needed to be asked about, drafted a few core questions, and scoured the newswires and morning papers for anything I’d missed.

Then it started — a steady stream of email messages from producers telling me what to ask. Three or four of them all wanted to have their say, and they seemed particularly twitchy about Harman being interviewed by me, unsupervised. Most seemed to be fully paid-up members of her fan club.

BBC news producers have a perfect right to try to ensure that a news presenter sticks to their agenda — it is the BBC way. But too many of them are concerned not about what will be the best thing to do journalistically, but about what will best please the news executives on the floors above. The two are not necessarily the same thing.

I managed to bat away most of the stuff suggested to me, and the way the interview might go took shape in my mind. Then, half an hour before transmission, a producer arrived with a list of questions for Harriet Harman emailed in by viewers.

This was news to me, but I had no choice in the matter because they had already been set up with ­captions, and it was my job simply to put them to her. After that, if there was time — and the interview was to run to no more than eight minutes — I could put some questions of my own.

I was asked what I had in mind, and I said that I was going to ask her about a row brewing in the morning papers about Gordon Brown not inviting the Queen to the 65th anniversary commemoration of D-Day. The response shocked me. I was told this was not a topic worth raising because it was ‘only a ­campaign being run by the Daily Mail’.

I have no doubt that if it had been the lead in The Guardian or The Independent, I would have been instructed to nail Ms Harman to the wall. I did ask the question, and she, clearly uncomfortable, promised a statement when she had found out all the facts.

But as I drove home that evening, I asked myself if I wanted to go on working for the BBC. By the time I arrived home, I’d decided to leave.

Extracted from When One Door Closes by Peter Sissons, published on February 2 by Biteback Publishing at £17.99. © Peter Sissons 2011. To order a copy at £14.99 (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720

Trumping Right Pride from the Meeja

Several news stories on the Pink Pursuit

By Mike Judge, Christian Institute on 18 January 2011

Gay couple awarded damages: You don't have to agree with the hotel owner's views to be concerned by the ruling

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8266776/Gay-couple-awarded-damages-You-dont-have-to-agree-with-the-hotel-owners-views-to-be-concerned-by-the-ruling.html#dsq-content

The guesthouse is not just the Bulls’ livelihood, it’s their home. Surely they should be allowed the freedom to live by their own values under their own roof. Everyone benefits from these important liberties, and everyone suffers when they are eroded.

The case brought by a homosexual couple against Mr and Mrs Bull was paid for by the Government-funded Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). They won their case but the judge ruled that his decision does affect the Bulls’ human rights and forces them to act against their genuine beliefs, so he has given permission for an appeal.

The Commission is responsible for defending everybody’s human rights, including the rights of Christians to live and work in line with their faith. This case raises sensitive issues of competing rights. It is a finely balanced and complex case. Yet the EHRC put its substantial weight, and taxpayers’ money, behind one side of the argument. Christians are left to feel that, when it comes to equality, they are on the outside looking in.

In a chillingly Orwellian comment, the EHRC’s John Wadham said: “This decision means that community standards, not private ones, must be upheld.” And so the power of the state is brought to bear against a Christian couple aged 70 and 66 who believe in that most pernicious of institutions, marriage.

Discrimination law is meant to act as a shield to protect people from unfair treatment, not to be used as a sword to attack those whose beliefs you disagree with. The same laws used against the Bulls have been used to shut down faith-based adoption agencies that want children to have the benefit of a mum and a dad who are committed to each other in marriage. Children were sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. Personal liberty may be next.

Telegraph View on 18 January 2011

The law is eroding our right to a set of beliefs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8267763/The-law-is-eroding-our-right-to-a-set-of-beliefs.html

Telegraph View: The right to act in keeping with one's religious faith is being set against the right not to be offended – and is losing.

The owners of a Cornish hotel who refused to allow two homosexual men to take a double room were judged at Bristol county court yesterday to have acted unlawfully. Peter and Hazelmary Bull argued that, as Christians, they did not believe unmarried couples, whatever their sexual orientation, should share a room at their hotel. They said it was a policy they had operated since opening their doors for business 25 years ago. Indeed, their hotel website describes their hotel as "family-run for families" – which prompts us to ask why the couple, Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy, should have wanted to stay there in the first place. They had an absolute legal right to do so, of course, and no one could possibly condone a refusal to give them a room on the grounds of their sexuality. The Bulls said they based their refusal on their "married couples only" rule, a fine point given that the two men are civil partners.

Judge Andrew Rutherford, awarding Mr Hall and Mr Preddy £3,600 damages, told the Bulls that their views were out of date and added: "It is inevitable that laws will, from time to time, cut across the deeply held beliefs of individuals and sections of society." It should surprise no one that the Bulls received such short shrift from the courts and that their strongly held religious convictions should count for so little. Last year, Gary McFarlane, a Christian sex therapist, was sacked by Relate, the relationship charity, because he refused to counsel a homosexual couple. His case was taken up by Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who said Christians are being persecuted because a strongly held conviction that homosexuality is wrong is being superseded by laws outlawing discrimination on grounds of sexual discrimination. The McFarlane case went to the Appeal Court, which found against him. In a similar case, a registrar who refused to conduct civil partnerships because they were against her religious beliefs was sacked. In both cases, the aggrieved parties could have gone elsewhere to be counselled or married, just as Messrs Hall and Preddy could have found a different hotel.

The right to hold religious beliefs, and to act in keeping with one's faith, is being set against the right not to be offended – and is losing. This is a dispiriting trend in a free society. The views of the Bulls will seem to many to be old-fashioned, even distasteful – but they have every right to hold them. A pervasive climate of political correctness, however, is driving such beliefs to the margins; the law is out of kilter. It no longer protects the freedom of the believer in the way that it defends the interests of those who consider themselves discriminated against. As we have argued before, this is an unhealthy imbalance that needs to be redressed – if not by the courts, then by Parliament.

Auntie Beeb on 18 January 2011

MEP Roger Helmer defends Twitter gay comments

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-12213577

An East Midlands MEP has been condemned by campaigners for suggesting homosexuality could be treated as a mental health problem.

Roger Helmer used his Twitter page to compare people who undergo sex-change operations with gay people who seek therapy to become heterosexual.

The comment has been condemned by gay rights group Stonewall and some users of the social networking site.

The Conservative MEP said he was just defending the rights of gay people.

Mr Helmer tweeted: "Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to 'turn' a consenting homosexual?"

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "We do not condone this sort of language."

Stonewall spokesman Jonathan Finney said: "It's disappointing that an elected representative seems to be supporting so-called gay therapy treatments, which are entirely discredited.

"What lesbian and gay people need is equal treatment by society, not misguided treatment by a minority of health professionals."

Mr Helmer, MEP for Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire, said: "I am always surprised by the instant indignation of a strident minority.

'Right to advice'

"I am making a comparison between a lifestyle choice of a homosexual who would prefer not to be a homosexual and a lifestyle choice of a woman who would prefer to be a man.

"All I am saying is that homosexuals have a right, if they want to do so, to seek professional counselling and advice - I have not suggested homosexuality is something that needs to be cured."

Labour's leader in the European Parliament, Glenis Willmott, called on Prime Minister David Cameron to distance his party from Mr Helmer.

She said: "The Conservative Party chose Roger Helmer as a political candidate.

"We need to hear from the Prime Minister whether he considers these statements to be appropriate for someone elected on a Conservative Party platform."

David Miller, chairman of Just Lincolnshire Equality and Human Rights Council, said: "We are not talking about a man in a pub with an opinion, we are talking about an elected MEP representing every member of that constituency including gay, lesbian and transgender people."

"What he has said is offensive."

The Daily Wail on 14th January 2011

Is this why we send them to university? Outrage as gay man and straight woman get married... for degree art project

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1347084/Gay-man-straight-woman-married-University-Worcester-degree-art-project.html

A gay man and a straight woman who married each other for a university art project were today criticised for mocking the sanctity of marriage.

Art students Nora Battenberg-Cartwright, 21, and Paul Cartwright, 20, say that their union is 'more honest' than a traditional marriage because they can tell each other when they're seeing other people.

However, the pair, both studying Fine Art at the University of Worcester have no plans to consummate their relationship after a registry office ceremony.

Mrs Battenberg-Cartwright, who is German and moved to the city to study, said: 'It's about an artistic unity rather than a love union, to join each other in art and make us the art. It's a really truthful marriage and we will still see other people.

'By marrying ourselves we were in effect marrying art. If we ever decided that we got to the point where we wanted to marry another person, that would be the end of the art career, really.

'But neither of us can see it on the cards, both of us expect to be old and married and continuing together.

'The marriage is kind of the foundation of our art. We do love each other, but in a different way.'

The students' wedding was condemned by Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, an organisation that represents Christians.

He said: 'They are denigrating the institution of marriage itself.

'Marriage is not an art project, it is the life-long union of man and woman and part of that is the sexual act which is there for companionship and the raising of children.

'At the ages of 20 and 21 you think you are invincible and think you can do anything but marriage is not just between the couple concerned, it is between them and the wider community.

'If their parents have gone along with this charade they are equally as guilty of denigrating the whole institution of marriage and bringing the University of Worcester into disrepute.

'If I was marking them I'd give them no marks - what has being married got to do with art?

'Marriage is under attack from homosexual and civil partnerships which are an attempt to downgrade it.

'It appears to be no co-incidence that the "husband" is a gay man.'

The ceremony, held before 25 guests in Linsengericht, Germany on December 29, took place as part of their second year coursework.

Mrs Battenberg-Cartwright said: 'We work collaboratively on everything, there isn't a clear line between our work and our tutors have agreed to mark us together.

'We only told our tutors about us doing this a few days ago and they were quite shocked. They said they had to go away and think about it.'

The pair said while their parents were initially shocked about what they had done, were supportive and beginning to understand.

Mr Cartwright, from Redditch, Worcestershire, added: 'One of our friends said that he thought marriage was a contract or a unity between two people and that's what this is.

'It's a sort of love, you love a brother or a sister and we are very close, as far as you know we are going to spend the rest of lives together.

'One friend e-mailed us to say "I think you have p***** all over the idea of marriage".

'I replied saying "thanks for being honest, that's great, we can use that in our project".

'When they read about why they kind of understand it and it's made them question what marriage or art was.'

The couple, who live together in Worcester, say they are committed to each other but if they ever divorce, that would be the end of their creative partnership.

Dr James Fisher, head of Fine Art at the University of Worcester, said: 'Nora and Paul are very serious students; they live together and work very closely together, and are both very committed artists.'

Dr Fisher said the pair's work would be marked following a strict set of criteria.

The Telegraphical on 26^th November 2010

Tory grandee calls police after gay doggers target estate

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8162734/Tory-grandee-calls-police-after-gay-doggers-target-estate.html

A Conservative grandee and a friend of the Queen had to call in the police after his estate has become overrun by doggers.

Sir Beville Stanier, nephew of the late Sir John Miller who was in charge of the Royal household, claims he has been plagued by homosexual men who use his land for sex.

Sir Beville, who now runs his late uncle's 2,000-acre Shotover Estate, near Oxford, even called in the police and local authorities in an attempt to deter the doggers.

He has called for more officers to patrol a layby on the A40 near Forest Hill which is used to access his estate.

Oxfordshire County Council fixed the chain-link fence which had been broken by doggers but refused to erect large fences.

Sir Beville forked out thousands of pounds in clearing undergrowth to make it harder for the men to conceal themselves.

But the peer, who recently became engaged to curtain maker Nerena Stephenson, says his estate is still a dogging hotspot.

Sir Beville, 76, said: ''I really feel Oxfordshire County Council should have done something better to alleviate the problem.

''I know everyone is facing cuts but I thought they would have put up a decent bit of fencing.

''It's an improvement, but it's a minor improvement. It needs a proper fence, a higher fence than the one we have got.

''They haven't done a proper job. The repairs they have done are very rudimentary. Anyone with a pair of pliers can cut it open again.

''There were three places where the fence was broken but all they have done is bend the chain link fence back round.''

Oxfordshire County Council refuse to replace a chain-link fence, saying it is just a ''boundary marker''.

Spokesman Marcus Mabberley said: ''It is not the council's responsibility to put up fences using taxpayers' money to protect privately-owned land.

''This fence is a boundary marker and is therefore not just there to purely act as a barrier.

''Indeed, the fence is not continuous and subsequently does not act as a barrier as it is separated by a footpath that gives access from the lay-by into the estate.

''If it had not been damaged in the first place then it would have not have needed to be repaired.''

Pc Paul Gregory, of Thames Valley police, said patrols of the area would be stepped up.

He said: ''We will continue to make sure we have a visible police presence at the site.

''The layby has been on the police's patrol plans for years and we've been working with the council and Terrence Higgins Trust to try and educate people who meet at the location and encourage them to take their activities elsewhere.''

Sir Beville Stanier took over the running of the estate which belonged to his uncle Sir John Miller.

Sir John Miller was the Queen's crown equerry between 1967 and 1987. He died in May 2006 aged 87.

The Telegraphical on 7^th October 2010

Doggers should be protected from hate crime, police told

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8048230/Doggers-should-be-protected-from-hate-crime-police-told.html

Police have been ordered to protect doggers and arrest anyone suspected of committing a hate crime against people taking part in outdoor sex.

A new Hate Crime Guidance Manual has been handed to officers warning them that they must not ignore doggers being abused or verbally taunted in any way - as it can cause them to suffer from post traumatic stress.

It states that even though 'outdoor sex is unlawful', people who take part in dogging or cottaging still have rights - which protect them from becoming victims of hate crime.

The manual, issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, last week, states that people who take part in open-air sex are 'more susceptible to hate crime' and can suffer 'post traumatic stress and depression' if they are abused, Police Review revealed.

The 60-page guide states: "The issues surrounding public sex environments can be complex and consequently provide a challenge for the police.

"Whilst complaints regarding consensual public sex must be considered and responded to, it must also be noted that people engaging in such activity are potential targets for hate crime perpetrators."

It states that doggers can be 'reluctant to report victimisation in outdoor sex environments' and says this is 'due to a misconception that the police will primarily be interested in why they were there, as opposed to tackling hate or prejudice motivated crime.

It goes on to say that hate crime can have a 'lasting impact on individual victims', adding that 'crime targeted at an individual's core identity also has the potential to undermine entire communities and damage community confidence in the police'.

The guide adds: "Research has shown that any victim of crime can suffer symptoms of depression, anger, anxiety and post traumatic stress

"Victims of non-biased crime can experience a decrease in these symptoms within two years (but) victims of bias, or hate crime, may need as long as five years to overcome their ordeal."

In 2008, the then deputy chief constable of Lancashire Police Michael Cunningham - now the chief constable of Staffordshire Police - issued guidance cautioning officers against 'knee-jerk' reactions when dealing with doggers and saying they should only be prosecuted as a 'last resort'.

The most recent changes were made to the 'Managing Public Sex Environments' policy last month, and top brass say the policy has been 'completely re-written' following consultation with relevant groups and 'new Association of Chief Police Officer guidance'.

It states that the new policy applies to all cops dealing with 'public sex environments', adding that the policy aims to 'improve our effectiveness and the quality of service provided by the police service when policing public sex environments' to ensure a 'consistent, well managed, proportionate and professional approach to public sex environments' is taken by officers.

It states that 'human rights of all citizens' must be protected and that the policy covers 'any open space, public or private that is habitually used for the purpose of engaging in consensual same sex and opposite sex, sexual activity', including public toilets.

Although it notes that outdoor sex can have an 'impact on the quality of life of people using these locations for leisure pursuits' - for example dog walkers and tourists, the rights of those cottaging, cruising or dogging must be taken into account by officers.

It states that previous policing methods had 'adversely affected' the relationship between cops and people having outdoor sex and that the old methods 'discouraged users from reporting crime to police', leading to many unreported robberies, assaults and verbal abuse of doggers.

Les Gray, the chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, told Police Review magazine today: "I do not believe that our officers require a 60-page booklet to tell them that we should carry out our duties without fear, favour, malice or ill will.

"No matter what the circumstances our officers will always do their upmost to prevent crime in the first instance and where a crime has been committed assist the victim and endeavour to detect the culprit.

"Just because someone engages in unusual or different activities it does not preclude them from the protection of the law.

"By the same token it doesn’t mean that they will get more protection by doing so."

"It's getting to the stage that people who break the law have more rights than the normal man or woman on the street, and as for them suffering from post traumatic stress, what about the people who witness these exhibitions and are shocked by it? What about their rights."

Northampton on Tuesday April 06^th 2010

Floating restaurant given go-ahead despite fears of open air sex site

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/floating_restaurant_given_go_ahead_despite_fears_of_open_air_sex_site_1_898485

Controversial plans to open a floating restaurant next to a notorious open-air sex venue in the centre of Northampton have been approved, despite legal threats from the town's gay community.

Plans to open a riverboat restaurant on the River Nene at Midsummer Meadow caused controversy when they were first revealed at the end of last month.

A number of groups representing the county's gay community said the restaurant would harm the area close to Bedford Road, which Northamptonshire Police confirmed was used by 'cruisers and cottagers'.

And last night a gay community spokesman, warned Northampton Borough Council's planning committee that allowing the restaurant to open would be both 'homophobic and illegal'.

He told the council: "For more than 50 years, homosexual and bisexual people have been using Midsummer Meadow as a meeting place.

"It's provided them with a haven and somewhere safe to go.

"But this will seriously change the area and mean the dispersal of the gay community. I don't think you have any understanding of the impact it will have. I believe your actions on this are homophobic and I suggest you get special legal advice because if you vote for this today, tomorrow there will be people knocking on the door of Northamptonshire Police. You're setting off a time bomb."

After hearing from the spokesman, the chairman of the planning committee suspended the meeting and excluded the public so councillors could be given legal advice from the authority's solicitor in private. But when the meeting was re-opened, councillors voted unanimously to back the boat plan.

Councillor Matthew Golby (Con, New Duston) said: "There's already a lot of investment going into this area and I think this fits in with that, it's a positive thing."

He was backed by Councillor Richard Matthews (Lib Dem, West Hunsbury) who added: "This part of the town has been very under used. It's a long time since there's been any facilities down there, so I'd like to see it happen."

The floating restaurant will have three decks, be about 75ft long and have seats for about 60 people.

Northampton on Friday March 26^th 2010

Open air sex is risk to restaurant plans as gay group claim 'post dusk social networking' could be hit

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/local/open_air_sex_is_risk_to_restaurant_plans_as_gay_group_claim_post_dusk_social_networking_could_be_hit_1_897071

Concerns have been raised that plans to open a riverboat restaurant on the River Nene in Northampton could clash with 'cruisers and cottagers' who indulge in open air sex in a nearby car park.

Members of Northampton Borough Council's planning committee will discuss plans to open the floating restaurant close to Midsummer Meadows, near Bedford Road, next week.

But in a report which will be shown to committee members, council planning officer, Richard Boyt said the Northamptonshire Police and the Northants Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Alliance (NLGBA) had raised concerns about allowing the restaurant to open in an area which is renowned for people taking part in outdoor sex sessions.

He warned councillors: "Northamptonshire Police have noted the potential clash with 'cruisers and cottagers' who frequent nearby areas."

Discussing similar concerns raised by the NLGBA, he added: "The NLGBA states that a commercial activity will harm the openness, the semi-natural character of the meadows, and the freedom of the area.

"Further they state that if the 'post dusk social networking' is displaced elsewhere this may be an area of concern."

Despite the concerns of the two groups, the planning official said their worries should not prevent the restaurant from opening and added that he believed it would actually improve the Midsummer Meadows area.

He said: "The objections regarding commercial activity in an open area and the displacement of current activities from the NLGBA are understood and noted.

But they do not outweigh the importance and benefit of the improvements to public safety which introducing activity to this public open space will bring."

If the development is allowed, the floating restaurant would have three decks, be about 75ft long and 20ft tall.

The council's planning committee will make a final decision on the scheme next week, but Mr Boyt said he thought the scheme should be allowed.

He said: "The proposed restaurant will enhance the River Nene with a leisure destination that's in keeping with its surroundings and poses little or no threat to the vitality and viability of the town centre."

Plans for the floating restaurant were last considered in 2007, when it was suggested up to 60 people at a time could eat and drink onboard the boat. But the 2007 scheme was withdrawn to give the developers more time to consider their plans.