‘DEMOCRACY IS IN DANGER’
The detective brought in to protect MPs following Jo Cox’s murder believes misogyny should be a hate crime due to the extent of abuse aimed at female politicians. Chris Burn reports.
PHILIP GRINDELL admits he had little interest in politics when he was asked to lead a specialist Parliamentary security team in the wake of Jo Cox’s murder by a far-right terrorist on the streets of her Yorkshire constituency in 2016.
But the experienced Scotland Yard Detective Inspector, who has recently retired from the police after 30 years’ service and started his own security consultancy for high-profile public figures, says witnessing at the first-hand the abuse and threats for over three years he aimed at MPs and particularly female politicians made him fear the consequences for our democracy.
Grindell says that some MPs even told him the abuse was becoming a factor in their voting decisions, especially as the debate around Brexit became increasingly fraught. “You are dealing with intelligent and fairly resilient people.
“It isn’t necessarily a one-off thing but it is the total effect where suddenly there is a tipping point. There were numerous examples where we had female MPs in tears, feeling very scared about the abuse they were receiving and whether that would encourage other people to target them.
“We had MPs who were talking about how they were reluctant to raise controversial subjects they believed in. Brexit became particularly hostile and MPs would be saying ‘I’m worried about voting tonight because the results are published and I’m going to be abused and threatened’. It absolutely did have a democratic effect and the intimidation was for that purpose.”
He says he does not know whether it actually did lead to any MPs actually changing their votes. “They were talking about thinking about doing that but I never asked and wouldn’t ask how they are going to vote. But those conversations did happen.”
The 53-year-old says there were clear differences between what men and women were subjected to. “Generally men are being told they are incompetent, while women would be targeted with sexually violent comments, very personal remarks about their attributes and their clothes that were very misogynistic. A lot of them are targeted by men who feel inadequate and see powerful, successful woman as something of a threat. At a very basic level, it comes down to bullying.
Grindell says he believes the law needs to go further than it does currently and other police forces should follow the example of Nottinghamshire, which piloted treating misogyny as a hate crime from 2016. “My personal view is misogyny should be a hate crime, women are being targeted on the basis of their sex.”
Grindell grew up in Surrey and joined the military in the 1980s when he was 18, serving for four years with his tours of duty including Northern Ireland. He decided to join the Metropolitan Police in 1991 and after serving in uniform, swiftly progressed up the ranks after becoming a detective and working on major investigations into gang crime, murders and terrorism.
Grindell was based at Heathrow Airport dealing with national security threats when he was asked to lead a new specialist Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection team at the House of Commons following the murder of Jo Cox.
“Before Jo Cox’s death, an awful lot of MPs were being abused and threatened and just thought it was almost part of the job and kind of had a ‘suck it up and get on with it’ attitude. Probably very little of it was actually being reported so the police weren’t necessarily aware of the level of the abuse and the manner of it. Parliament itself wasn’t really aware of the dangers and threats that existed. Genuine threats to life are thankfully still very rare. A key part of the job was understanding the difference between those that make threats and those that pose threats.”
Grindell had something of a unique insight into his role as at the time he was working in Parliament he was also doing a Masters degree in security management, meaning he was in a position to see whether the academic theories on abuse and intimidation he was studying applied in real life. He says one theory with merit was the idea of ‘hunters versus howlers’ – with the latter group being people who send online abuse but are unlikely to act on it and the former being those who will actually cause harm.
“There has never been a public official who was been seriously harmed or killed by an individual who has publicly threatened them. Every British MP who has been attacked has been attacked by a local constituent. They often tend to look at several MPs and then zone in on their own MP and the reason is proximity as they can get access to their own MP at their constituency meetings or offices.”
By their nature, it is often harder to identify hunters but he says particular red flags include people who have an increasing fixation with their target and make email and phone contact using violent language linked to killing, death and suicide.
Grindell says while there has been much focus on social media abuse of politicians, less than 15 per cent of what they receive comes via such platforms. The changes he introduced at Parliament including encouraging people, including the staff of MPs, to report anything they felt uncomfortable about. Grindell also created a system where every police force in the country had an officer dedicated to dealing with threats towards local MPs.
Investigations into threats against MPs would begin by his office identifying perpetrators before the cases were taken on by the relevant local forces. MPs’ cases he and his team were involved in that resulted in jail terms for perpetrators included Rosie Cooper who was the subject of a plot by a neo-Nazi to kill her, Sajid Javid, who was sent death threats by a Tommy Robinson supporter and Luciana Berger who was targeted by multiple anti-semitic abusers including one who warned she would “get it like Jo Cox” weeks after the Yorkshire MP’s death. Anna Soubry was also targeted by a man who wrote to her saying “Cox was first, you are next”.
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion was also assisted by Grindell’s team after she faced death threats following controversy surrounding her remarks about the ethnicity of grooming gangs in the South Yorkshire town. Grindell says his team was involved in making sure her home was safe and had appropriate security measures.
Champion has given a testimonial to Grindell for his new company, saying: “When something like this happens, you feel vulnerable at every level.
I could not have asked for a better person than Philip to look after me.”
Grindell has also become a probono security adviser for the Jo Cox Foundation after becoming friends with Jo’s sister Kim Leadbeater. “Kim is an inspiration and I don’t say that as a throwaway remark. I don’t know how she does what she does.”
There were numerous examples where we had MPs in tears, feeling very scared about the abuse they were receiving and whether it would encourage others to target them.
Philip Grindell, former detective and founder of Defuse Global