City Hall justifies using so-called snoopers’ charter to combat anti-social behaviour
Published: 02 July 2010
by JAMIE WELHAM
ANTI-terror laws have been used by Westminster Council to snoop on members of the public 82 times since 2005.
City Hall authorised surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to spy on greengrocers refusing to convert from imperial to metric measure, investigate an anti-social “street preacher”, monitor retailers suspected of selling knives to children and identify dog-owners who allow pets to foul the pavements.
The revelation comes from a Freedom of Information Request by the West End Extra.
City Hall has justified its use of the powers, saying only one of the investigations, understood to be that of the so called “metric martyr” greengrocers, was “over-zealous”.
It would not say how much the investigations cost, how many prosecutions were brought or whether anything substantial was discovered.
Most operations were authorised to detect crimes, investigating sex establishments, the unlicensed sale of pornography, kerb-crawlers and benefits cheats.
Dean Ingledew, council operational director for street management said: “There is one isolated instance where, with hindsight, we were over-zealous in enforcing national legislation around the legal use of equipment. At the time this was carried out in good faith, but has not, and would not be repeated. While the end result was positive and they agreed to comply without further action, the means of achieving it was not what we would now consider to be proportionate.
“In the last 12 months we have applied for RIPA authorisation 16 times for the most serious of cases. Cases such as where our residents’ lives have been made a misery through persistent levels of anti-social behaviour, where shops are suspected of breaking the law by selling knives to children, where rogue traders have sought to rip-off innocent members of the public, and other cases where all other methods of dealing with the problem have not worked.
“When our residents are intimidated by anti-social behaviour outside their own homes we are duty bound to act.”
Alex Deane, director of Big Brother Watch, said the list revealed excessive lengths the council was prepared to go in using the powers.
“Westminster Council clearly should not be using RIPA as often as it does. These are far-reaching and invasive powers often used to intrude into the lives of innocent people,” he said. “The government plan to force councils to get warrants before snooping on us is good, but doesn’t go far enough. If the offence is serious enough to merit covert surveillance, then it should be in the hands of the police,” he said.
RIPA was introduced in 2000 on the grounds of national security but dubbed a “snoopers’ charter” by civil rights campaigners.