Police and press: writers blocked

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/13/police-press-writers-blocked-editorial

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The relationship between the police and the press is sometimes complicated and delicate, subject at all times to limits laid down by law. Add to that the complication of upholding rights in an age of expanding social media, and it is clear that the police can have a sometimes unenviable task of balancing a free and legitimate flow of information with the obligations imposed by protective legislation. Little wonder that sometimes the police can get it wrong.

On Tuesday there was contrition from Simon Parr, chief constable of Cambridgeshire, who conceded that his force should not have become involved when a Ukip councillor complained about a blogger who had tweeted a "fact check" of Ukip policies. Officers turned up on the doorstep of Green party activist Michael Abberton, who says he was told to delete a series of critical tweets. The force denies that, but accepts that the intervention was unwise, particularly as officers were not able to make a case that any law had been broken. "Police attendance was not required" and should not recur "unless there is clear evidence that an offence may have been committed", said an apologetic chief constable.

Which is belatedly to place matters in their proper perspective. The problem is that such perspective can seem lacking elsewhere. Gareth Davies, a reporter on the Croydon Advertiser, sent two emails and made a personal approach to a convicted fraudster in whom he was interested. The reply came not from the fraudster but from three Met police detectives who travelled to the Advertiser offices to serve Mr Davies with a prevention of harassment notice. The newspaper has demanded the notice be lifted so it can resume a legitimate investigation. The Met has, thus far, failed to comply.

The chill confronts publications local and national. Recently an obviously humorous item in the Guardian prompted contact from a Metropolitan police detective, enlisted by a local politician who said it might encourage persons unknown to attack or harass him. It is true that this sort of threat against a media organisation, which has access to legal advice and resources, registers on the lower end of the scale of journalistic risks. But that is not the point. The police, at local or national level, are the investigative arm of the state. For all the post-Leveson debate about media misbehaviour and media regulation, there is continuing consensus on all sides that the role of the state must be minimal.

That is not to say that publishers, tweeters or bloggers can operate outside the law. But policing the realm and policing journalism – in print or in cyberspace – calls for skill and fine judgment. That judgment was lacking in Cambridgeshire. It prompted a trail of events that should be carefully avoided elsewhere.