THE POLICE WANT TO CENSOR MY BLOG

To the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime.

I am worried that the the work of the ICV's is being politicised by the police.

The fact is that every ICV has their own personal opinions.

One of our ICV's has a son in the police force. One would assume this makes him biased towards the police. However, the police are not raising this as a concern.

I think the police are trying to exert a form of hidden censorship over the views and comments of the public. I blog and comment regularly as a public figure and my style is robust and hard hitting, covering a wide array of subjects. The requirement the police are raising, is that I need to curb my comments when dealing with police matters to ensure I don't appear biased or inclined against them. However, if they have acted inappropriately it is necessary to speak critically and to be being asked not to, appears concerning.

You stated that my work as an ICV has been appreciated, has brought about positive changes, has offered a new perspective and that looking at the record of my work, no bias is detected.

If my contribution as an ICV has been productive and there is no formal complaint about my work and no evidence to support a complaint, then I do not believe the managers or the police have an area of legitimate issue to act upon to dismiss me for expressing criticisms of the police.

I think it would be inappropriate for me to begin editing a site that has been in existence pre-dating my ICV appointment, www.whennooneswatching.org and inappropriate for me to edit a blog that carries my genuine reflections on past and current events. 

We live in a free society, where the one legitimate means of protest is the power of free speech which underpins democracy and ensures public accountability.

It would not be proper for me to submit to an attempt to stifle that liberty, particularly when coming from the very organisation, whose treatment of detainees, I have a public role in monitoring.

Removing me, because of such a pressure, is tantamount to demonstrating that the ICV system is a facility to appease the public, yet influenced and contained by the police.

I am sorry about this, but having agreed to compromise on the first site, it was clear, with your email, that more was at stake and I had to reflect further. I will await my fate.

Thank you again for your patience and consideration the other day. Having interacted with many 'officials' in may time, I thought your manner and handling of a sensitive issue was exemplary.