Council uses terror laws to spy on underage smokers

Apr 21 2008 By Fionnuala Bourke

A MIDLAND council is using laws designed to combat terrorism to spy on kids they suspect of underage smoking and drinking.

Staffordshire County Council has carried out nearly 70 surveillance operations across the county in the last three years.

Trading Standards officers secretly filmed underage kids smoking and drinking during some of the investigations - and used informants to identify rogue shopkeepers who sold them the fags and booze.

The council snoops used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to tackle the petty offences, yet the legislation was originally designed to prevent terrorism and serious crimes.

Other Staffordshire surveillance cases involved monitoring the movement of farm animals and targeting people cashing in on bootleg DVD sales.

Leicester East MP Keith Vaz, Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, was shocked to learn how the anti-terror legislation was being used.

He told the Sunday Mercury: "I'm astonished that this legislation is being misused in this way in cases which seem to be petty and vindictive.

"We have just completed an inquiry into the surveillance society and noted that there has been a huge growth in the use of these laws.

"The people responsible have some very serious questions to answer.".

But Staffordshire County Council's Fraud and Community Safety Manager, Brandon Cooke, defended the operations which he said were crucial for combatting anti-social behaviour.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show the council used the RIPA legislation to carry out 'direct surveillance' 51 times over the last three years.

Council spies also used the legal powers 16 times to obtain telephone and e-mail records of suspects.

The reasons for surveillance were given for 38 of the cases.

They included 11 investigations into adults buying booze for underage children and five undercover test purchases by minors in suspect shops.

A total of 10 spying missions were carried out into farm animal mistreatment, while another 10 concerned counterfeit DVD sales.

Yet there were just two prosecutions and nine cautions issued in the cases. No offences occurred in eight probes and no action was taken in 14 others.

Walsall North Labour MP David Win-nick, also a member of the Home Affairs Committee, said: "It is totally inappropriate for local authorities to use counter terrorism laws in this way, bearing in mind that Britain faces a serious terrorism threat.

"Councils should have other powers to investigate these matters. But we do not want people to feel the are living in a Big Brother 1984 style society."

But Mr Cooke said the RIPA powers were being used correctly by Trading Standards officers.

He said: "People's lives are blighted by anti-social behaviour and criminality which centres around drinking. I would not consider sales of a poisonous sub-stance to a minor a petty offence.

"One of the issues around alcohol is that generally the public regard people drinking before they are 18 as the norm, a right of passage into the adult world.

"But that is where our culture needs to change. We need these powers to investigate these sales and to prevent the unruly behaviour that can result from them.

"In some cases, we receive intelligence about youths sending an adult as a proxy into off-licences to buy alcohol on their behalf.

"In a recent case we filmed a crowd of underage youths drinking outside one store. When they finished their supplies they got straight onto the phone to an adult who came down and bought them more.

"There are exceptional circumstances where our undercover investigators will need to develop a relationship with a shop owner in order to find out if they are committing a crime.

"One instance that comes to mind is where we learnt of a store that had sold excessive amounts of glue to a minor who died from overdosing on it.

"In such circumstances the investigator would need to visit the shop repeatedly to purchase glue and make himself known to the vendor, who should be aware that this is suspicious.

"That investigator may not be a volunteer and would be treated as a Covert Human Intelligence Source.

"In respect to animal health, teams do go out and film their movements on farms. This has been necessary to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as BSE or Blue Tongue.

"As far as counterfeit DVDs go, it is well documented that the proceeds of these kind of goods often goes towards serious organised crime, including terrorism."

A spokeswoman for Staffordshire County Council said: "The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) is used to regulate investigation measures the council uses when investigating a crime where the authority has a statutory duty of enforcement, eg, breaches of trading standards regulations or animal health regulations." fionnuala[2014]bourke@mrn.co.uk