Travel to Philippines

punter99 - 19 May 22 3:44 PM

AB2014 - 18 May 22 4:14 PM

punter99 - 18 May 22 2:56 PM

AB2014 - 18 May 22 2:36 PM

punter99 - 18 May 22 2:28 PM

david123 - 17 May 22 4:04 PM

Sorry but you have no chance of going to the Philippines if you are on the SOR. The NCA have a blankets policy of issuing green notices for any one on the SOR going to SE Asia. I was refused entry to Thailand and put on the next flight back even though I am at low risk. My offender manager said it was nothing to do with him just NCA policy

What you say makes perfect sense, although it goes against the advice from the College of Policing, that low and medium risk offenders be assessed on an individual basis. A blanket policy would not take into account the different reasons people might have for going to all those countries, e.g. family ties.

It would probably be a good one, for a freedom of information request to the NCA. Do they have a blanket policy or not?

Coming back to the situation where you were refused entry. Did you have a conversation with your offender manager before going out there? We know that we have to notify the police of any foreign travel beforehand, but whether the PPU are informed at the same time or not, isn't clear. The official guidance implies that the NCA must consult the PPU, when deciding whether to issue a green notice or not. At the very least, you would think they might mention to the PPU that somebody they were managing, was going out of the country.

Once the PPU knows that you are going to Thailand, they really ought to tell you, if they have a problem with you doing that. But anecdotal evidence suggests that they wash their hands of the whole business and just say "it's not my decision". That deprives the offender of any opportunity to explain their reasons for going to a particular country. So without any knowledge of why the offender is going to Thailand, it's not surprising that the NCA assumes the worst and issues a green notice.

The whole process needs to be more transparent, so that people are not kept in the dark about what will happen to them, when they travel abroad. If the PPU, the NCA and the international teams communicated with one another, these situations could be avoided.

For me, it's that last paragraph which is the most relevant to the overall situation. It may well be that a PPU officer who asked about the policy was effectively told to mind their own business, because it's above their pay grade. You'd think there would be liaison, but it's probably more about the infamous "need to know" basis, and the higher levels jealously protect their bit of power and information by only communicating upwards, not downwards. Sure, there must be PPU officers who just don't care about anything beyond their job, but some of that might be because they used to be interested but were told to keep their nose out of issues that were not in their job description.

Also relevant, though, is that the College of Policing advice is just that - advice. I'm sure that there are forces or individual officers who prefer to do it their way rather than following advice and taking responsibility. It's in the nature of being risk-averse, without actually assessing the risk.

To be fair, we don't know enough about the sequence of events, to draw those conclusions. But one thing is clear. The person would not fly to Thailand, believing that they were going to be refused entry. So did nobody in the police ever say to them; "You're going to Thailand and that's a high risk country, so why are going there?" I would expect the police to be a little bit curious, not to say suspicious.

Well, I think most regular readers of the forum know or suspect how cynical I am. What you say is exactly how things should be done. However, that doesn't appear to be how things are actually done. The people who make the decisions have no regard for the people directly affected by their decisions, rather like politicians. Yes, there should be feedback, to prevent distress, humiliation and needless expenditure, but how often does it happen? I don't know, and I'm guessing many people on the wrong end of this process keep quiet about it, and I'm guessing people who are told keep quiet as well. There may well be PPU officers who know, or at least strongly suspect, what the final decision will be, but they don't say anything. Others may simply not know, perhaps because they're not interested, didn't think they need to find out or say something, or had asked previously and been told to mind their own business. Of course, the person in question might have been asked by PPU when they either discussed or notified their travel plans, and that should have been included in the report from PPU to be passed up the food chain. It still looks like nothing came back the other way, and they might have assumed (naively? innocently?) that if they don't hear that there's a problem, then there isn't a problem.

There is another problem, which is that people notify the police of foreign travel, by telling the officers at their local police station, because that's how notification is done. What then happens to that information isn't always clear. Does it get passed straight to the international team, so they can notify the NCA? Does the PPU get notified automatically? It may that the PPU isn't consulted at all, meaning that all the NCA have to go on, is the name of the country and the date of arrival. Reason for travel is not required to be notified and if the PPU hasn't been told that the RSO is going, then it won't be recorded anywhere on visor.

The police are still supposed to take into account the RSO's right to a private life, so I think that a blanket ban policy on certain countries wouldn't fit with that. There are probably circumstances where travel could be justified, for a low or medium risk person. For example; attending the funeral of a close relative. Even hardened criminals are allowed out of prison for funerals.

But it depends on the people making the decision to issue a green notice, being given the full picture. That does have to come from the PPU, because there is no other way for the RSO to communicate that information.

As for the other point that you make about nothing coming back the other way, it makes sense to me that they wouldn't automatically tip somebody off that a green notice had been issued against their name, because there is no obligation to do so. But if you asked your PPU to tell you what the outcome was, or made a subject access request, to see if a notice had been issued, would they have any reason/justification for not telling you?