Journal of the Plague Years

The new face of British policing...

• Littlejohn on Mark Saunders. ('Suicide by Cop.')
• Our brave lads in The Greater Manchester Squad. Again.
• Blackstock Road.
• The Ever-Vigilant West Midlands Police.
• Politicising the Police.
• Why do Night-Soil Collectors think they're entitled to free time?
• The Policeman And The Vicar.
• Police Pay.
• Preventing Crime.
• Not in the papers.
• A New Slant On 'Justice Must Be Seen'.
• A Policeman's Strip
• Does Being Held To Account Stop the Police from Doing their Job?
• Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales:
• Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates.

Littlejohn on Mark Saunders. ('Suicide by Cop.')

13 May 2008 .

To agree with Littlejohn (of the Daily Mail) is a disquieting experience, but today I can't do otherwise: what else were those police officers in Chelsea meant to do, after five hours of a man firing shots at the street and into people's houses (including into a child's bedroom)? Of course it would have been preferable if his life could have been saved, and one certainly hopes that the police debriefing examined whether there might in future be better options than those followed. But there was a risk to human life (other than the gunman's own): if his wife had tried to talk to him, and in his distress he'd shot her, then the police would have faced a barrage over that... and so on.

Keep a sharp eye on our boys in blue, all the time; but let's stop relentlessly making their job impossible. Littlejohn concludes: 'If there is one lesson to be learned from Mark Saunder's death, it is this: if you fire a shotgun at armed police, don't be surprised if they fire back.' And for once, although I'm open to argument, I entirely concur.

Littlejohn 'Mark Saunders' 'suicide by cop'

Our brave lads in The Greater Manchester Squad. Again.

10 May 2008 .

This is getting repetitious: Keith Hirst, a 54-year-old Mancunian, is to face trial for allegedly dropping litter (an apple core) - an offence which he's denied from the word go. If found guilty, he faces a fine of up to 2,500 or up to six months in prison (in the same prison system which is so overcrowded that violent offenders are having to be released early) and (not 'or') a criminal record.

[These are the current facts: there have been other events along the way, from handcuffs and DNA testing, which don't show our men in blue (nor indeed the young fellow on a bicycle wearing shades and a baseball cap, a PCSO, who started the ball rolling) in any better light, but which are becoming too depressingly 'normal' to repeat in full.]

Superintendent Ian Palmer, of the Greater Manchester Police (qv, in equally silly circumstances): "Littering is an offence. We work tirelessly to ensure the streets are not only safe but also clean." Just how many unsolved rapes, murders, muggings and most of all continuous and increasing violent gang activities have there been in Manchester just recently, hofficer?

'Greater Manchester Police' 'Keith Hirst' PCSO 'Ian Palmer'

Blackstock Road.

27 March 2008 .

600 policemen on the street outside my flat as they sealed it off (the street, not my flat...) and raided shops and businesses. Everybody approves (qualified by 'they took long enough'); the area has become increasingly nasty over the past 20 years. Some people blame Abu Hamzah, who preached on the street just around the corner; but, as I recall, drugs (just one on the Blackstock Rd. list of naughties) were among the things Hamzah wanted people executed for. And I'm not sure he actually encouraged mugging. Except Jews. And Christians... perhaps he did, after all.

It is irritating that there was a perfectly good full time police station just along the road - until it was 'rationalised', a few years ago...

'I told you so' time again: It's also irritating that any suggestion that there was a particularly North African element to crime in this small area was until recently strictly verboten, even though there was plenty of evidence. Now everyone's blaming Algerians and Morrocans as if (a) all of them are to blame and (b) nobody else is.

Now that news is happening on my doorstep, I want to think about it for a day or two. Not much use as a blogger, after all. Mind you, there wasn't much for me to report apart from more policemen than I've seen in my life.

40% of the mobile phones stolen north of the river ending up here, apparently... I do find that quite hard to believe. [No mention in any news I've seen about prostitution, a local problem about which more anon.]

'Blackstock Road' 'stolen mobiles' 'Abu Hamzah'

The Ever-Vigilant West Midlands Police.

03 March 2008 .

I'm still trying to get my head around the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service accusing Channel 4 of inventing the scenes of Muslim clerics preaching hatred (and murder) against gays and Jews, and hatefulness against women, in the Dispatches programme last year. The scenes looked (bloody) real to me; and Dr. Barham Salih, Muslim and deputy prime minister of Iraq, seems to have found the reality, which he saw for himself in Blackburn, equally (bloody) real.

I'm glad that Channel 4 is suing for libel. If the company did invent its stories, that will come out: if it didn't, I hope some very serious questions will be asked of the increasing levels of censorship and intimidation which we're seeing from government agencies in this country.

In passing. It's been decades since I spent any time in the West Midlands, but I will say this: the police in this country get a lot of stick, some of it justified; but the West Midlands Police continually get a bad press, both from the media and by word of mouth... and it's not coming from crimmos angry at effective policing. Perhaps that force should be looking at the beam in its own eye...

'West Midlands Police' 'Crown Prosecution Service' 'Dr. Barham Salih' 'Channel 4'

Politicising the Police.

01 February 2008 .

'City of Vice' on the box again. There was reference this week to how the Runners should not be a political police force in the way that the French police were - how they should represent the law, and not be an arm of those in power.

When the Metropolitan Police were established, a century later, they were more popular with the public (or perhaps less unpopular) than most people had expected. This certainly had to do with the fact that they weren't armed - unlike foreign police or, indeed, the troops who had often been called in to maintain public order previously. At the first riot the police turned out to, as I was told, they arrived with their truncheons (which I don't think they used), everything was settled comparatively amicably, and from then on the police continued on that path. It's almost seen as a joke, but is completely true, how foreigners visiting London thought our police were wonderful.

Any police force is, I suppose, a political entity; but something has changed about the Met since 1945 in a rather unpleasant way, not to do with the officers themselves but in the way that they are used - not just by an increasingly unpleasant and now controlling government but by all sorts of political groups and factions pursuing their own agendas.

The problem is that the politicising of police is a very subtle matter. There are two functions of the state which are so fundamental (and so ancient) that they should be beyond political ideology in a society which hopes to maintain its integrity: external and internal security, which means, in the front line, the armed forces and the police. [Of course, both are misused all the time all over the world, but less - I hoped and believed - in this country than in most. Arguably, it is the form of political use of the armed forces by blair - little to do with security - that has led to the estrangement between them and the public which we've seen recently (as with the Americans in Vietnam?); but it's the police I'm on about right now.] Because of the unique nature of the work done by the armed forces, there is (generally) an understanding that some rules which the rest of us should accept need to be applied differently there (it would be foolish, for example, to expect the infantry to be a wholly 'equal opportunities' employer). The same should be true of the police.

I suggest that the police have been pushed by politics for the past 20 years in a way that didn't happen before; although it didn't start then, I'm dating it from their overt use by Thatcher against the miners.

One example for now. The big complaint about the police currently, from both outside and inside the force, is that they can't do their job properly because of paperwork. Some of that paperwork has to with, for example, race (The Policeman And The Vicar - 25 January 2008, below). If it is in place in order to enable the police to do a better job in maintaining the Queen's Peace - and it can be shown to do so - then it should stay; but the suspicion in some quarters is that it is hindering the police, and hand in hand with that goes the suspicion that some of it has more to do with politics than with efficiency.

I haven't even started policing and identity cards, police controlling us... but I want my dinner and time to think on my arguments.

'Politicising the Police.' 'the Queen's Peace' 'City of Vice' Fielding 'Metropolitan Police' 'Bow Street Runners'

Why do Night-Soil Collectors think they're entitled to free time?

25 January 2008 .

Most people seemed to be on the side of the police who were marching the other day. An interesting minority opinion is aired, however, in the form of a question: Why weren't those 25,000 officers out catching criminals?

Teachers weren't supposed to have free time, either. A bus driver at Finsbury Park bus station once asked me to discipline a small crowd of rowdy 14- or 15-year-olds. (I, passing, had been identified as a teacher by another passer-by, although I'd actually left the job six months earlier.)

"Do something," he demanded (supported now by three or four other adults, whom the children were completely ignoring). "Why me?" asks I. "You're a teacher," says he, quick as a flash. Rather put out by the presumption, I pointed out where we were; I said (palms forward, of course, warding the world off), "Here in the bus station, it's your job."

"It's my lunch hour," he said, and turned away. As he went, I heard him mutter, sotto voce, "Bloody teachers." Some of the other adults obviously agreed.

I promise that if he'd asked for my help, rather than demanding it, he'd have got it without a thought.

I did shoo the children away, afterwards, rather embarrassed that I was being so feeble; they went without a murmur. They weren't even from the school where I'd taught.

It was, after all, his lunch hour.

Police Teachers 'Free time' March

The Policeman And The Vicar.

25 January 2008 .

It's a story to gladden the heart of a tabloid editor. A vicar telephoned the (Thames Valley) police to report a burglary at his church. It seems he was told that, before the police would respond, he was required by law to give details of his age and ethnicity and that, if he didn't comply, he wouldn't even be given the crime number needed for insurance purposes.

I never read two tabloids in a day because my brain is a temple. However, I admit that today I saw the Express and the Mail, both of which mentioned the vicar story. The Express says there's no such law, the Mail that ethnicity details of victims will be required from 1st April... (April the first?)

All these laws that are passed, and even newspaper reporters, handsomely paid and presumably able to research such things, cannot agree what the laws are: nor can the police, if the event was reported correctly. But you break one of them and you'll soon find that ignorance is no innocence.

'Unclear law' 'Thames Valley Police' Ethnicity

Police Pay.

23 January 2008 .

Apologies for reprising this; ignore the paragraph if you already know the story: The police are marching in the streets because of the rather shabby way they've been treated over their recent pay award; passers-by who may have no particular liking for the police are nevertheless offering their support. The issue for the police is not the money (which is not that much) but the principle, and it's clear enough: the police and the government agreed to go to arbitration; when the decision had been made, and apparently agreed by both sides, it was reported back to the rank and file. Only some days later did Jacqui Smith announce that implementation would be delayed for police officers in England (although not in Scotland). The Great Helmsman, giving her his support in the Commons, said that the police has nothing to complain about since they had generous settlements for several years: he neglected to mention that MPs, asking for a larger rise than the police, already had massively greater rises than the police * over the same period of time (and started from a higher base point as well); he also neglected to explain why the government had defaulted over the agreement.

* Police pay rises over 10 years: 39%: the government's claim that this is over inflation is shaky - especially with regard to the sort of purchases that officers with families are likely to make. MP rises over the same period, nearly 90% - plus massive allowances in expenses.

1) 20,000 police officers are marching on the street. Jacqui Smith, who either knew that the award would be deferred (in which case she's duplicitous) or did not (in which case she was improperly prepared at the time, weak later, or both), has nobody to blame but herself. For these and all her other transgressions (q.v.)... I don't see how she can last the course.

2) The core issue - the failure to implement the award - is simple enough: but a news programme just now (Channel 4) headlined it as 'less pay than the police had expected', which is not the same thing at all; also, it concentrated (uncritically) on brown's address to the House, rather than on smith's role, implicitly letting both of them off the hook. I have no idea whether it was intentional, but it certainly gave the news a slant.

'Police Pay' 'Jacqui Smith'

Preventing Crime.

21 January 2008 .

There have been some awful crimes reported recently. A family man killed for asking some youths to quieten down may be beginning to look like par for the course in this country; but a girl raped by five boys, then doused in acid in an effort to destroy the DNA evidence, is a crime precisely on the moral level of the holocaust.

From these two events alone (from among a growing number): a man dead; a girl's life destroyed (however brave she may be, however therapists and counsellors try to help her to 'put it behind her' and 'move on'); eight youngsters facing prison with, on present form, little hope of rehabilitation - rather, in fact, a great likelihood of learning the wrong lessons in that particular university...

And time after time, including in these two cases, we hear that the perpetrators were members of gangs that were terrorising communities; and we hear that local people had gone to the police again and again and again in order seek protection; and we hear that the police have taken no action; and sometimes we hear that although the police have taken no action, the gangs have discovered the identities of 'informers' and, unlike the police, have taken action.

[I've also heard it suggested, in all seriousness, that a man who asks youths in the street to quieten down is rather asking for what he gets. With attitudes like that, perhaps we do deserve what we get.]

Whatever the demands on the police that prevent them from taking action, the society that allows them not to act is in real trouble, whether or not the police officers themselves are to blame. (I think that even a 'Clockwork Orange' Home Secretary might be preferable to the ineffectual mouthpiece occupying that post at present. At least some action would be taken - even though it's a terrible thing to prefer 'some' action to none. I don't assume I could do your job... but I'm beginning to think that I would make a better hash of it as Police Minister than is being achieved now. Memo to self: why don't I think about outlining some ideas on this site at some point in the future?)

-/-

If the police are failing in what should be their primary aim of prevention, so too is our system of punishment. While the aims of rehabilitation, or retribution, or removal of criminals from the street are necessary or even laudable (albeit not being achieved with much success either) the first aim of a punishment system should be deterrence - or, preferably, prevention. And the justice system is no more solely responsible than the police are.

I have one little personal gem to add on this subject, as well. (Perhaps in addition to being Police Minister, I shall apply for the Justice post.)

Rather than writing of 'punishment', I would refer to 'discipline': in a sense, every time society 'punishes' somebody, it's failed; whereas, while the word discipline may carry some connotations of its own, most people are inclined to agree that discipline is a part of citizenship. The prevention of crime has to be holistic and, within that, the discipline system should be holistic, too.

We have to accept that there are all sorts of difficulties and failings for individuals from the beginnings of childhood. Some families exercise no discipline, some exercise it ferociously and some arbitrarily; even the most well-intentioned family can be unlucky, or dysfunctional at times, or just sometimes 'get it wrong'. Our education system is not entirely successful at helping youngsters to discipline themselves and many schools struggle to teach even the rudiments of those particular parenting skills to help the next generation (and plenty still don't even try). While there are efforts in this direction (and I think I may have been too dismissive of them: Parenting Classes 20 November 2007 Classified - Liberties), the most whole-hearted attempt to help parents in this respect will take a generation to bite. So for a long time society as a whole will have a (for some people the) major role in developing discipline of the individuals within it.

For most children, discipline in school is hopefully supplementing that in the home; for some, it may be starting in school. My concern is that I think discipline in schools (and, indeed, the youth justice system) fails to flow into, or tie up with, that in adult life. Teachers and schools are, on the whole, loathe to apply serious sanctions (even if that were desirable and they were allowed to). While they've come a long way in the past ten or fifteen years in making their systems more consistent internally, there is still a tendency for them to follow one of two ways of addressing pupils with discipline problems: one is to say that if a child apologises, he/she must be partly or completely forgiven - which has the unfortunate effect of teaching some of them that whatever they've done, saying sorry is all that's required to avoid punishment; the other is suspension or expulsion, which is frankly a dereliction of duty (putting the very children who need discipline out on the street) and which teaches children that the very worst that can happen is that people give up on them. Even when a school might apply a condign punishment such as a detention, it can be so hedged about with bureaucracy and inconvenience as to make it virtually unworkable.

Then young adult, who has had a gentle disciplinary climate at school, or been found guilty in juvenile court a dozen times but never appropriately punished, is out in an adult world where the rules are completely different (and so apparently random that the papers are continually full of comment and letters ranging from single mothers in jail for failing to pay a TV licence to rapists set free because there's no room for them). With a bang, for some. There are offenders who cannot understand why they have been given a custodial sentence - 'but I've said I'm sorry' - and others who are insouciant. I can try to develop this argument, but I want my dinner and I think I've pretty much made my point. Our systems of justice simply don't tie up.

Crime Punishment parenting 'custodial sentence' repentence discipline 'youth crime' schools exclusion

Not in the papers.

29 December 2007 .

23 years old, you might describe her as gamine; she was exciting rather than good-looking. Then she met her young man and blossomed. By her eighth month of pregnancy, she was radiating happiness and confidence.

One Summer evening, at about seven, she went to her local grocer. As she stepped out of the front door of the shop, both hands full with bag and shopping, she was hit by a young male on a bicycle going full pelt on the pavement. They both fell. She lay stunned for a few moments; by the time she had gathered her wits, he had grabbed his bike and disappeared. The shopkeeper called an ambulance. By the time it arrived, 35 minutes later (even though, at that hour, even here in central London, there was not much traffic about), she was obviously in serious trouble. By the time she arrived at hospital, she had lost the child. Due to complications, doctors finally had to tell her that she would not be able to conceive again.

There were several witnesses to the incident, at least one of whom thought he might be able to identify the bicyclist. However, the two police constables who arrived at the scene took no statements.

-/-

You might say that, terrible though the story may be, terrible accidents do happen - only too often. For the purposes of this site, however, I ask you to consider what followed:

Later, wondering why nothing had been done, the quondam expectant father asked to meet a senior police officer - who explained that the police had been unable to act because no offence had taken place.

The pavement outside the shop is not very wide; a heavy concrete rubbish bin is placed directly facing the doorway so that anyone who might choose to bicycle along that stretch has no choice but to pass within inches of the door. The obvious risk has been pointed out to the council, along with a report of the incident, but it has not apparently shown any interest in moving the bin.

'Bicycling on the pavement' 'avoidable accident'

A New Slant On 'Justice Must Be Seen'.

08 December 2007 .

A couple of dozen Yorkshire policemen have escaped prosecution because the photographs taken by the speed cameras were too fuzzy for the drivers to be identified. No question of policeman stepping forward and 'fessing up. A pity that we can't look at the photos - they can't be released because they're so clear that the officers might be recognised by members of the public, which would cause the officers concerned emotional distress. Or something.

It goes for excuses, as well as for jokes: the old ones are always the best. Not!

20 years ago, a group of about four or five male 14-year-olds (roughly) were walking near Highbury Fields. A white Police Transit pulled up, a dozen or so cops piled out and set about them. The youths said that they had been doing nothing wrong; one might say, 'predictably,' except that nobody who knew the boys believed that they would have been causing trouble, and it was eventually established definitively that they had not. When it became clear that a terrible mistake had been made (presumably implying that beating up a different set of youths would have been acceptable), the police then, under local media and public pressure, made a half-hearted effort at an enquiry.

The finding was that one of two Transits had been involved, but it was impossible to identify which, so no further action would be taken.

'Justice Must Be Seen' 'Police violence'

A Policeman's Strip

08 December 2007 .

Student, 23, makes a few bob (well, L160 p.h.) as a male stripper. One of his strips is a policeman's uniform, with equipment including a truncheon. He claims that he wrote to the police asking for permission/advice but received no reply. He's charged, appears in court and is cleared. Cost to the taxpayer, L20 000. He's been charged three times, so he has to appear again, twice, next year.

Well, on all the occasions he was arrested, he must have had a chance to get the point, but never mind. Was it really necessary to drag it through the courts? Couldn't the police have simply warned him? Unless, of course, the police spoke to him repeatedly and he refused to take any notice: in which case, why was he cleared?

Personally, I think there's a good reason for not letting people dress up as cops - he may have been harmless, but those who aren't will soon take advantage; and he was mistaken for a real cop by two... real cops.

E&OE

stripper truncheon

Does Being Held To Account Stop the Police from Doing their Job?

13 November 2007 .

There has repeatedly been the suggestion that if the Police face the possibility of a trial and being found guilty of errors, as they were in the recent Health and Safety court case (De Menezes), then they will not be able to do their jobs because they will forever be looking over their shoulders.

[I believe that it is a pity that the finding was that while there were many errors, there was no systemic failure and that no individual should be held responsible.

[I would suggest that the findings themselves make it clear that the system was chaotic. That, surely, was Metropolitan Police Commissioner Blair's responsibility.]

I would suggest that the responsibility for failings being placed upon the senior line officers (i.e. the overall supervisor of the operation and the Commissioner) would make it clear that officers on the front line in the heat of the moment would not be blamed for following instructions - or rules of engagement.

But if it is true that officers did not follow the rules of engagement - if, inter alia, they did not issue a warning, or shot when their suspect was already subdued, then they should be held to account.

As for all the clear evidence of cover up - to mention just a couple:

• non-existent tapes that suddenly appeared

• shewing that the suspect jumping the barrier never actually did anything of the sort;

and the attempt to blacken the victim:

• he behaved like a bomber, or

• he was doped up on cocaine - or was trying to conceal evidence of criminal activity,

are not the responses of officers who are acting honourably.... and I'm being too civilised in my comments...let's be clear, police cover-ups are not exactly rare: I seem to remember a man carrying a table leg being shot dead in unacceptable circumstances without a proper warning; when the police statement that the leg looked like a gun did not hold water, did they not then suggest that he had deliberately sought suicide by shooting because he was ill?

Now: I accept that I will make mistakes on this site - jump to wrong conclusions, etc. - because I don't have all the facts, or have misunderstood them, or simply got them wrong: such may be true of this item.

However, one thing which I am sure did become clear in court was that some policemen had told lies, which begs two questions:

1) If officers have told lies, is there any justice in stating that they should not be held responsible?

and, even more;

2) If officers are known to have lied in this case, should there not be an immediate examination of all previous cases in which they have given evidence?

'Health and Safety' 'De Menezes' 'police accountability'

Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales:

10 November 2007 .

Mark Gibney was a motorcyclist who was killed in a high speed collision in Wales. In the accident, he was decapitated. A photograph was taken of Mr. Gibney's head on a grass verge, still in its helmet with the visor raised and his eyes still open.

Mr. Gribney's widow and three children weren't told the details of the accident because they were so gruesome.

However, without permission from, reference to or even warning to the family, Mr. Brunstrom, policeman, used the picture in a public presentation. The first the family knew of it, or of the details of the accident, were when they saw the published picture.

Despite a petition to the Independent Police Complaints Committee, the IPCC cleared the policeman of any breach of conduct.

- To Protect and Serve...

Well, for this observer, Mr. Brunstrom's action was so barbaric, so lacking in any remote understanding of humanity, respect, compassion, that I have to say once again that the society in which I live, which officially says that he has done nothing wrong, has become incomprehensible to me.

'Richard Brunstrom' 'Mark Gibney' IPCC

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates.

21 October 2007 .

I have mixed feelings about the police, so it is refreshing to find myself wholly in sympathy with a senior copper.

There is no doubt that, prima facie, there is a case for the government to answer in the matter of 'Cash for Honours'. All eight major donors to the Labour coffers ahead of the election were nominated for honours by Downing Street, and the Scottish National Party properly and perfectly understandably reported the matter to the police.

The poisoned chalice of investigation passed to John Yates. From the start, MPs of both main parties made outrageous suggestions of personal ambition and 'politically motivated conspiracy' against him; pro-government media compared him to Witchfinder General Matthews, Clinton's Kenneth Starr, the Gestapo (so, illegality and torture, then...) and to Inspector Clouseau. All totally unsubstantiated. One of the most venomous and undermining attackers was Dr. Wright, veteran Labour Chair of the Commons Public Administration Committee.

The long investigation was stopped with only by a bureaucratic explanation.

Yates, a serving officer, cannot reply to allegations, and has remained professionally silent, unable, thereby, to defend himself. However, he will have a chance to appear before MPs next week, and he might hope to be able to answer the serious and scurrilous charges made against him.

Unlikely: he will appear before the Commons Public Administration Committee - chaired by Dr. Wright.

Thus does the establishment protect its own. On the other, if Dr. Wright recuses himself - as, like a judge, he should - I will reassess this opinion, as I will if the dossier prepared by the police ever sees the light of day.

I wouldn't bet on it.

I don't know what the evidence is - maybe there was no corruption: but the abuse cast on Yates, the partiality of the enquiring committee and the blocking of the police case have ensured that this blogger would be irrational not to smell the whiff of conspiracy and corruption.

'John Yates' 'Commons Public Administration Committee' 'Dr. Wright' corruption

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