Senior officers have asked for more clarification on interpretation of new public policing legislation they think ambiguous legislation is preventing them from doing their jobs.
On Wednesday 6th November 2024 the London assembly held the police and crime committee.
One of the agenda items was the implementation of new legislation. Susan Hall asked “ if the introduction of the new legislation has helped or hindered? The general response from officers in attendance was that there needs to be more clarification of the interpretation of the law before successful implementation could be achieved . There were also discussions centered around the changes of legislation for policing protests.
The changes were made in 2023 to the existing public order act 1986 which provides the police with powers to restrict protests by placing conditions on them . These powers were strengthened by part 3 of the police , crime and sentencing and courts act 2022. The public order act 2023 established several criminal offenses in relation to protest.
One of the changes made was the lowering of the threshold from knowingly to ought to of known as its difficult to prove that a person knowingly breached the legislation. There has also been an increase to fines and the maximum prison term for breaching the legislation however it was stressed that offenses vary hugely in scope and the maximum term would only be imposed upon people who had committed serious offenses which could potentially put lives at risk .