Sound of the Police

Live music is being threatened by a new piece of bureaucracy, called Form 696, which aims to eliminate violent crime and terrorism but invokes racism, say musicians.

The form, currently only in force in London, requires promoters to state the likely racial profile of people attending. Yet when accusations of racial profiling were raised by the music industry, the London Metropolitan Police changed the wording to ask whom the gig was targeted at.

Reverend and the Makers’ frontman, Jon McClure, said: “Form 696 is an attack on local promoters because it makes their job increasingly difficult, but also, it's a bit of a racist tool used by the London Met and other boroughs to basically stop black kids having gigs. For what purpose does the ethnicity of an audience matter in modern day society? Nothing.”

The form must be submitted 14 days before an event and any last minute changes will lead to the cancellation of the event. It also requires details on what type of music is being played and names, aliases, phone numbers and addresses of performers.

Feargal Sharkey, who rose to fame during the punk era as the vocalist on the single Teenage Kicks by the Undertones, is also angry about what he sees as a threat to live music. As the boss of UK Music, which campaigns for musicians, he is consulting lawyers about how to stop it.

Sharkey recently told a Commons select committee that this policy had already been used to cancel an afternoon charity concert of school bands in a public park, organised by a local councillor. He says: “Live music is now a threat to the prevention of terrorism.”

The London Met says it is an attempt to tackle the increasing number of gun and knife crimes linked to certain genres.

Detective Superintendent with the Met Police Clubs and Vice unit, David Isles, said: “This is about black kids being shot and stabbed and being targeted. You have particular gangs aligned to particular types of music and that obviously created an environment where rival gangs would target them.

Form 696 initially came about when the police became concerned with the number of black-on-black shootings around nightclubs.

Isles continued: “It wasn't about the music, it wasn't about the venue, it wasn't about the promotion. It was because gangs were associated with those particular events.”

McClure said: “If the idea of this is to stop knife crime, do you not think if someone wants to stab someone bad enough they'll just go and do it somewhere else?

"I think the public of Britain have been a bit hoodwinked, because they just slide these things into place without us really knowing about it because no one really knew this form existed until recently."

But the Met said: "It is not discriminatory, it's in the interest of general public safety, and open to consultation.”

Concern has been growing amongst many in the music and events industry and as anger grows, more are backing the views of McClure and Sharkey.
The director of the Pub and Beer Association, Martin Rawlings, told a newspaper a couple of months back: "I know of licensees faced with this saying they are just not going to put live music on. Form 696 is being used only in London so far, but there are similar things going on around the country, where the police are asking publicans to sign various protocols. It has gone too far, frankly."
According to Isles, the method is under review and the Met are always open to consultation: "We want to work with all these various agencies to come up with solutions, not to shut events down.

"That is the last resort and we would only ever do that when the threat level is so high that no means of intervention could prevent someone from becoming a victim of violence."