Liberty takes legal action against police over Birmingham anti-terror cameras
Human rights group Liberty is to take legal action against West Midlands Police after the force placed anti-terrorism surveillance cameras in Muslim areas of Birmingham.
Lawyers for Liberty are seeking a High Court judicial review into Project Champion – a £3 million anti-terrorism operation involving 216 automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and CCTV cameras, most of them placed in the Asian heartlands of Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath.
It has also emerged that Birmingham City Council, which claimed it didn’t know the cameras would be used in Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath to combat terrorism, had been briefed about them in detail by police three years ago.
The council not only backed the scheme but also agreed to pay £500,000 to help fund it and put forward £200,000 a year for running costs.
Liberty legal officer Corinna Ferguson said: “Project Champion goes far beyond acceptable use of technology to tackle crime.
“The use of secret cameras to spy on entire communities is an affront to the fundamental right to private life, and unfairly implies that the innocent residents of these areas are legitimate targets for surveillance by simple virtue of their race or religion.
“By challenging this ill-conceived project in the high court, we aim to prevent a dangerous precedent from being set, and to ensure that counter-terror measures target individuals that pose a genuine threat rather than entire sections of the population.”
If the High Court upholds Liberty’s claim that Project Champion breaches the Human Rights Act and the Race Relations Act, police would have to abandon the controversial scheme and pay hefty legal costs.
A storm of complaints from councillors and community leaders about the intrusive nature of the operation forced an apology from an assistant chief constable and a promise to cover the cameras and not use them until proper consultation has taken place.
West Midlands Police has asked the chief constable of Thames Valley Police to conduct an inquiry into the way Project Champion was handled, and has agreed to remove completely 72 covert cameras.
As the fallout from the botched operation continued to reverberate, it emerged that:
* City council leaders gave Project Champion their support three years ago and promised to help pay for the cameras.
* To get Home Office funding for the cameras police had to show the scheme would “deter or prevent terrorism”.
* Far from being crime hot spots, Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath do not even feature in the city’s five worst wards for offences.
Backbench city councillors rounded on the police and the council-led Safer Birmingham Partnership, describing Project Champion as a disastrous failure calculated to cause untold damage to community relations.
Scrutiny committee members did not believe police claims that the exercise was as much about fighting crime as combatting terrorism.
Councillor Gareth Compton (Con Erdington) summed up the angry mood among backbenchers: “The vision that George Orwell had of the sort of world where these cameras exist could not possibly have contemplated the incompetence of West Midlands Police and the Safer Birmingham Partnership.
“The ludicrously named Project Champion has turned into Project Catastrophe.”
Claims that politicians were kept in the dark about the cameras have been challenged by an official report showing that police chiefs spoke in detail to the city council about the scheme three years ago.
Council leader Mike Whitby, the then cabinet transportation member Len Gregory, and city chief executive Stephen Hughes were briefed on Project Champion and, far from raising doubts about intrusion of civil liberties, the council backed the idea and agreed to help fund it, although no money has been handed over yet.
It was not until the cameras began to appear on the streets last month that local councillors – who had been briefed by police about the anti-terrorism aspects and raised no objection – reacted with horror, claiming that Project Champion “stigmatised” the Muslim population and insisting they had not been told in which specific parts of Birmingham the cameras would be placed.
A report from the Safer Birmingham Partnership seeking to set the record straight makes it clear that councillors from Sparkbrook and Washwood Heath were told by police about the operation in April 2009 and invited to see the cameras in action. Only one councillor took up the offer.
The report confirms Sparkbrook Liberal Democrat councillor Tanveer Choudhry and Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob were present in February 2008 when Project Champion was discussed at a meeting of the West Midlands Police Authority. No one present spoke against the proposal.
The project was also discussed at the Sparkbrook Ward Committee and the Hodge Hill Constituency Committee towards the end of last year.
