Ministers have said police should be more transparent about the nationalities of people who are charged. But what exactly are the rules?
When a police force in England and Wales arrests or charges a suspect and they are thinking of giving information to the media, they need to have two things in mind: the laws about contempt of court which are designed to make sure suspects have a fair trial, and the College of Policing guidance on media relations.
Contempt of court laws are quite simple in this context. No-one should make public any information that might make a future trial unfair, for example giving out details of the evidence that police officers have collected.
In most cases publishing the nationality of the person charged is unlikely to make the trial unfair, so the contempt of court laws are not often applicable.
The College of Policing guidance is more complicated. Before 2012 police forces made decisions on what information to give to the media on a purely case by case basis.
These decisions were often nuanced, but were based on how much that information was considered relevant, and were sometimes simply dependent on the force’s relationship with an individual journalist. But after Lord Leveson published his report into the ethics of the press in 2012 police forces became much more cautious abut what information they released.
This culminated in the College of Policing guidance on media relations which says that if someone is arrested (but not yet charged) police should only give the suspect’s gender and age. The guidance does not say anything about nationality or asylum status at this stage. Once a suspect has been charged the guidance says police can give out information such as the name, the date of birth and the address of the suspect.
Again, nationality and asylum status are not mentioned, but the guidance says: “The media are aware of automatic reporting restrictions and it is their responsibility to follow them. Any information permitted under such restrictions should be released upon charge, including the following: name, date of birth, address, details of charge, and date of court appearance.
“The person’s occupation can be released if it is relevant to the crime – for example, a teacher charged with the assault of a pupil at the school where they work.”
So there is nothing in the guidance that prevents police giving information about that nationality, asylum status or even ethnicity of someone who has been charged. But there is nothing that specifically mentions them either.
When Warwickshire Police charged two men in connection with the rape of a 12-year-old girl, the force would not say whether the men were asylum seekers.
The force said: “Once someone is charged with an offence, we follow national guidance. This guidance does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status.”
While this last sentence is true, the guidance does not actually make suggestions one way or another on ethnicity and immigration status.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage accused the police of a cover-up.
In response, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday: “We do think there should be greater transparency. We do think more information should be provided, including on issues around nationality including on some of those asylum issues.”
The prime minister’s official spokesman had earlier said: “Our position is that authorities, whether it is the police or whether central government, should be as transparent as possible on these issues.”
In truth, what information should be released to the media is largely at the discretion of the police force.
As events in Liverpool in May showed, when forces think it is in the public interest they will release information about a suspect’s ethnicity even before they have been charged. When a car ploughed into crowds celebrating Liverpool FC’s winning of the Premiership title, Merseyside Police quickly said the man arrested was white and British, in order to quash rumours of a terrorist attack.
The College of Policing said: “Police forces make challenging and complex decisions on a case-by-case basis and transparency is essential to prevent misinformation and reassure the public.”
It said that its guidance was “already under review” and that police forces were considering how to balance their legal obligations with “their responsibility to prevent disorder”.
The issue of what information police can release about a suspect came sharply into focus last summer when Axel Rudakubana was arrested for murdering three young girls, Alice Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, in Southport.
At first Merseyside Police did not release any information about him or his religion, which allowed false information that he was a Muslim asylum seeker to spread. Such disinformation was at least partly responsible for last summer’s riots. At the time Merseyside Police said it was not giving out more information because of the contempt of court rules.
The Law Commission has also been looking at contempt of court laws, with a review due to report next month.
