UK Music Man takes on the Met
Feargal Sharkey, the former Undertones singer who is the head of recently formed music campaign group UK Music, is challenging a new piece of police bureaucracy that requires some live music promoters to divulge details of the style of music played at their shows and the ethnicity of fans attending.
The Metropolitan Police’s Form 696 has to be filled out by licensees in 21 London boroughs so, the Met outlines on the form, police can supposedly give “appropriate support and advice” for the gig.
The form requires answers to questions about the ethnicity of those expected to attend the show, plus the style of music to be played.
Sharkey is planning to apply for a judicial review into whether a local authority has the right to force promoters to fill in and submit the form, reports the Independent.
The singer also wrote a letter to the (then) Met commissioner Sir Ian Blair outlining his concerns. He wrote: “In explicitly singling out performances and musical styles favoured by the black community we believe the use of Risk Assessment Form 696 is disproportionate, unacceptable and damaging to live music.”
UK Music, formed in October 2008 is a new umbrella organisation headed up by Sharkey and formed to represent the collective interests of the entire spectrum of the UK music industry, from artists to labels, managers and music publishers. Find out more here UK Music
Although currently only applicable to London boroughs, it is possible that the police scheme could extend and apply to venues across the U.K
Have your say! – Share your thoughts on UK Music and Form 696. Is this inexcusable racial profiling of those attending live shows? Is it unneccessary paperwork for promoters, making it increasingly harder to simply put a show on?
December 21st, 2008 at 4:31 pm
The requirement for Form 696 to be submitted for examination by the Police a fornight before an event could have a serious impact on many live music promotions, especially if and when other Police Forces across the country seek to adopt a similar policy.
By having to provide the names and addresses of all the performers makes any unplanned guest appearances or ad-hoc community singing impossible. The substitute of a stand-in performer in the case of illness or delay would also be unlawful.
(We probably all know some promoters who don’t finalise the bands for regular live music nights with 2 weeks to spare for these details to be sent in!).
Happily, the Met removed the outrageous requirement to specify the ethnicity of the audience at the start of December. Perhaps one of the factors their legal advisors considered was the public outcry and the threat of a Judicial Review JR).
This requirement for an ethnic description was sure to be the most persuasive argument if the JR was to succeed (particularly if there was an actual example which which had been discriminatory).
No doubt a judge could still be persuaded to permit a JR of the Met’s policy, but if will be a weaker argument, persumably upholding a performer’s ECHR Article 10 & 11 Rights (the Courts like to hear Human Rights arguments but rarely agree that the law is incompatible).
If you wish to make your view known to the Government too, then a petition against Form 696 is already in the top 20 current petitions, it can be found at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scrapthe696/
Cheers!
August 11th, 2009 at 10:40 am
[...] However, Whitehall officials rejected this notion and also stated that the Metropolitan Police currently had no plans to drop the highly controversial Form 696. [...]