New antisocial behaviour orders risk becoming ‘busybody’s charter’

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From today, public bodies in England and Wales could start applying for the so-called “respect orders” to impose tougher restrictions like curfews or bans from town centres in civil courts. 

Breaching a respect order will be a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years’ jail, the Home Office has said.

Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo told the BBC’s Today programme: “This is a somewhat populist policy that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

“It is essentially a revival of Tony Blair’s failed policy of Asbos, which famously didn’t reduce antisocial behaviour and were then scrapped.”

She warned that such orders are “excessively vague” and imposing one had a dangerously low standard of proof of a balance of probabilities that someone has behaved  — or even threatened to behave — antisocially if its deemed just and convenient.

Ms Carlo said: “They effectively criminalise non-criminal behaviour and, we think, degrade the right to a fair trial.”

The new orders come into effect at “exactly the moment when the behaviour is at a non-criminal level, which means it could funnel people through the criminal justice system, particularly rough sleepers and mentally ill people, which is what we see with comparable civil orders,” she said.

“A bit of flexibility [is needed], but you don’t want so much that these can be applied in ways that criminalise non-criminal behaviour, and I think that’s what we are really worried about, particularly where you have not just police but councils and other authorities — and I think this is where this risks become a busybody’s charter.”

National Police Chiefs Council lead on antisocial behaviour Kathryn Akehurst welcomed the powers, however. She said: “I think it’s another tool for us to deal with antisocial behaviour, which we know is really pervasive and means some people don’t feel safe in their local communities or out and about in public spaces.”

She insisted that these powers are “very different” to Asbo orders as they allow police to impose “positive requirements around the orders … which will help around the preventative element as well as the restrictive element.”

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