Plebgate - An interesting new twist
Discussion
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/dec/18/and...
So the suggestion is that the police officer 'leaked' the information to an MP. Now that is a fine example of a new and interesting twist. We are promised more to come, something startling it is suggested. A strange thing for hyphen Howe to say, especially as this is, supposedly, a criminal investigation.
Telling an MP anything whilst acting as a whistleblower is not the safest thing to charge. I could not see that going anywhere. Even on discipline it is a bit iffy. So what is the more to come?
Hypen Howe is backing the attending officers to the hilt, and given his relationship to the government, this tends to suggest the evidence to support them is ample. Perhaps more so.
This is quite fascinating.
So the suggestion is that the police officer 'leaked' the information to an MP. Now that is a fine example of a new and interesting twist. We are promised more to come, something startling it is suggested. A strange thing for hyphen Howe to say, especially as this is, supposedly, a criminal investigation.
Telling an MP anything whilst acting as a whistleblower is not the safest thing to charge. I could not see that going anywhere. Even on discipline it is a bit iffy. So what is the more to come?
Hypen Howe is backing the attending officers to the hilt, and given his relationship to the government, this tends to suggest the evidence to support them is ample. Perhaps more so.
This is quite fascinating.
Elroy Blue said:
The report submitted by the actual Officers abused by Mitchell is not being questioned by the investigation.
What is being done, rather cleverly by the establishment, is to make the insinuation the whole thing is made up.
Exactly.What is being done, rather cleverly by the establishment, is to make the insinuation the whole thing is made up.
I took no joy in the departure of Mitchell, I was disappointed but not surprised at the attitude to the Police, however the apparent delight that some posters have taken in the arrest of a Police Officer is pathetic. Some people put themselves in harms way for the benefit of others, some just post prejudiced bile and fool themselves that they are liberal and fair minded.
Derek Smith said:
Why are there these anti-police rants so often? I was 30 years in the service and I can say, until some idiot asks for chapter and verse, that the police force we have in this country is now much better as regards to work ethic, honesty and dependability than it was when I joined. I have friends in the USA, Italy and one at the moment in France and all suggest that the English/Welsh forces are better than theirs, and one of my American friends is 3 countries short of 100 she's been to and she reckons ours is the best in the world.
That doesn't make it perfect and the force is open to criticism. Indeed, I've criticised it often enough myself.
We have comments such as "I did predict . . .As I said at the time . . . the Police officers applied their default 'attitude test' and was [sic, and rather ironic given your 'I assure you my post was in English bit later] met with a superior one, it's about time this happened at a decent level of publicity and I'm relishing it.
“It is comforting to think that occasionally the biter is bit.”
One of the problem with the current policing system is chronic under-funding. See how much France and Germany pay for their police forces and you will see the proof. Another, and one more difficult to repair, is that the individual officers are now unable to do much outside the straight jacket of directions forced on them by those who have no idea what is going on.
I'm all for criticism of the police, I do it often enough myself. I accept that being 'the best in the world', not my words but those of an American friend who is just three short of 100 foreign countries visited, is no excuse for poor behaviour. I think our system of criminal courts is the best in the world if one ignores cost, but that doesn't make it perfect. So there will be poor performance, in both parts of the but going on and on about police attitudes has gone from irritating to pathetic.
What is the point of contributing to these forums when you could take comments from certain posters and drop them in any other they have contributed to. I suspect that is what they do.
I bet every officer, past and present, who has spent a fortnight on the streets, believes he has met RH, Vincent and the rest of the boys in the sulky group. And they have the cheek to have a go at police for their attitude. Jeez.
I do wonder how long some would last as custody officer on a Saturday late-turn in Brighton.
No, in point of fact I don't.
Not much of an argument there Derek. I've visited several tens of countries myself but wouldn't feel qualified to rate their police forces, other than in their visibility. What does your friend do? Commit some minor misdemeanour? Visit the public galleries? Tour the stations?That doesn't make it perfect and the force is open to criticism. Indeed, I've criticised it often enough myself.
We have comments such as "I did predict . . .As I said at the time . . . the Police officers applied their default 'attitude test' and was [sic, and rather ironic given your 'I assure you my post was in English bit later] met with a superior one, it's about time this happened at a decent level of publicity and I'm relishing it.
“It is comforting to think that occasionally the biter is bit.”
One of the problem with the current policing system is chronic under-funding. See how much France and Germany pay for their police forces and you will see the proof. Another, and one more difficult to repair, is that the individual officers are now unable to do much outside the straight jacket of directions forced on them by those who have no idea what is going on.
I'm all for criticism of the police, I do it often enough myself. I accept that being 'the best in the world', not my words but those of an American friend who is just three short of 100 foreign countries visited, is no excuse for poor behaviour. I think our system of criminal courts is the best in the world if one ignores cost, but that doesn't make it perfect. So there will be poor performance, in both parts of the but going on and on about police attitudes has gone from irritating to pathetic.
What is the point of contributing to these forums when you could take comments from certain posters and drop them in any other they have contributed to. I suspect that is what they do.
I bet every officer, past and present, who has spent a fortnight on the streets, believes he has met RH, Vincent and the rest of the boys in the sulky group. And they have the cheek to have a go at police for their attitude. Jeez.
I do wonder how long some would last as custody officer on a Saturday late-turn in Brighton.
No, in point of fact I don't.
As for your very first question, why do you think it is?
Personally, when hardly a week goes by when an officer doesn't retire/resign/get jailed/get acquitted over some issue or other, it's not too hard to understand.
Elroy Blue said:
IroningMan said:
He does deny using certain words. The evidence that he used those words appears to be the report, in the press, via an MP, of the incident by an officer who may well turn out to have embellished or invented or perhaps not to even have been there. At least, that's my reading of this to date?
The report submitted by the actual Officers abused by Mitchell is not being questioned by the investigation.What is being done, rather cleverly by the establishment, is to make the insinuation the whole thing is made up.
One wider question; is H-H regarded as being closer to CMD than Blair was to , er, Blair? In BiB circles?
Derek Smith said:
Why are there these anti-police rants so often? I was 30 years in the service and I can say, until some idiot asks for chapter and verse, that the police force we have in this country is now much better as regards to work ethic, honesty and dependability than it was when I joined.
No easy answer, Derek, but I suspect a combination of things, mostly due to the actions of our law makers, rather than enforcers.Police are increasingly seen as detached from communities. They have become anonymous, nameless people who occasionally drive past in cars. It is easier to dislike an anonymous entity, rather than a real person.
Lack of consistency and perceived equity in the application of the law. Flavour of the month reactions, ignoring other more serious issues.
Proliferation of petty laws and automated enforcement, particularly zero tolerance speeding and parking cameras. Seen as not playing fair.
Senior officers playing politics, politicians playing police, usually ineptly, usually arrogantly. This will increase with Police comissioners!
Us vs Them. Both the police and the public view each other with increasing levels of distrust and suspicion. Worrying.
REALIST123 said:
Personally, when hardly a week goes by when an officer doesn't retire/resign/get jailed/get acquitted over some issue or other, it's not too hard to understand.
Do you know how many other country's forces have an independent complaints system? How many police officers in other countriy's forces actively try and block CCTV in cell blocks? How many other forces record all interviews with suspects?Officers are currently more honest in their behaviour than ever before. Whether this is due to a more active discipline and complaints unit, the independent complaints system or due to a higher calibre of officer is open to argument. What is not is that officers are dismissed from English/Welsh forces for misdemeaners that would not even be investigated in certain other countries.
A friend opened a cafe in Naples. The local police come around each month for what they called, although in Italian, their cup of coffee. Whether the complaints systems stops the current police forces in England and Wales being able to do such things is not the point. What is the point is that the police would not do such things.
CCTV in cells and interview rooms has meant that the number of complaints of improper behaviour, often supported by solicitors, dropped tremendously. Whether this is due to a sudden change in police behaviour or the fact that suspects find it difficult to lie is open to argument. What is not is that suspects are treated better in this country and to prove it, there's CCTV.
What's with the aquitted?
I've been involved in investigations into a few comnpanies. What I found was endemic corruption. I was first on scene to a person quite badly beaten in Brighton. It was work colleagues who had done so because he would not conform to their corrupt behaviour. However, we were unable to convince him that he should make a statement. When a DC told a manager in the company what went on he was not surprised nor did he care. I did some mundane work in an enquiry into corruption in a local council. In the office everyone was at it, even a secretary. The City of London and Met fraud squad once stopped an enquiry into £millions going missing because they ran out of money and there were too many offenders so they stuck with a few.
The point is that improper, criminal and offensive behaviour goes on in all walks of life, all jobs and all professions. My opinion is that if there is no robust discipline unit, corruption with flower. I would suggest that the Eglish/Welsh police have a much higher standard of conduct than any other profession/job I know off where there is opportunity.
Attitude seems to be the major criticism of the police. Dear me.
I've worked in a corrupt force and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Speak up and you got threatened if it was minor. Since then I have noticed that the single biggest source of substnatiated complaints against police are officers themselves. This was in the IPCC's own figures.
You don't know how lucky you are to have the police you do.
I've been taken for a cup of tea and a bun by a prisoner I arrested and prosecuted. I've had a bloke who was hammered in court, max on two offences, thank me when he left the court. I've had the mother of a kid who was arrested for public order and who was savaged by a police dog smile at me and wave as I left the court. And I am far from atypical.
I was questioned in court as to why I had given a suspect a lift home one morning. When I said he was in a T-shirt, it was well below freezing and he was broke the brief laughed. As luck would have it I kept a list of those I gave lifts to in a police car. You never knew. So when I asked the judge if he would like me to read from the list in my current PNB he raised his eyebrows to the brief who just sort of changed the subject. I always wondered what he was getting at and I have no doubt that there could well have been a complaint if the chap had indeed got off.
The number of badgers killed on the road is directly proportional to the number around. However, the same does not go for police officers. Standards of conduct have increased, the complaints system is tightened regularly and security of tenure no longer exists. Further, breifs know that a complaint against an officer sticks, even if the officer if found NG. There are briefs who regularly complain, or rather those who employ them do.
I took a complaint from a chap suggesting that he had been punched in the stomach on arrest. His brief was out of the room at the suspect's request. The chap said that a short while previously he'd been told by the same brief to complain that he was beaten on arrest and point to the injuries, caused during his ejection from the pub that subsequently lost two windows, and the case was dropped by the CPS and the complaint was resolved in a way where it looked as if the police were at fault, this despite no evidence.
The chap said he hadn't wanted to lie but his breif had told him to.
So careful of the 'Personally' bit.
I got evidence of improper conduct by a lawyer. It was irrifutable. I prepared a case, submitted it to the CPS for guidance and the woman in charge said that it would go nowhere. And it didn't. She complimented me on the file though.
I'll go further, every single improvement has met with opposition from the force as a whole.
It took huge and endemic corruption and fitting up on an epic scale that forced PACE into being.
Now we have the selling or giving for personal advantage details of operations, names and even bearing false witness.
It needs stemming at source, the source is in uniform.
It took huge and endemic corruption and fitting up on an epic scale that forced PACE into being.
Now we have the selling or giving for personal advantage details of operations, names and even bearing false witness.
It needs stemming at source, the source is in uniform.
Gene Vincent said:
I'll go further, every single improvement has met with opposition from the force as a whole.
It took huge and endemic corruption and fitting up on an epic scale that forced PACE into being.
Now we have the selling or giving for personal advantage details of operations, names and even bearing false witness.
It needs stemming at source, the source is in uniform.
What are the improvements to which you refer?It took huge and endemic corruption and fitting up on an epic scale that forced PACE into being.
Now we have the selling or giving for personal advantage details of operations, names and even bearing false witness.
It needs stemming at source, the source is in uniform.
I take the point about PACE. What are the others?
Rovinghawk said:
She should visit Monaco- the nicest, politest, most helpful police I've ever encountered.
Those in Romania are also incredibly helpful & use common sense when encountering minor stuff (made me tip my beer out as I was unknowingly in a non-drinking zone- no paperwork, no fuss, no problem).
Ours could learn from them.
RH
A friend works on a prisoner transfer team that flies prisoners arrested in the UK out to their home countries where they are wanted for offences back there.Those in Romania are also incredibly helpful & use common sense when encountering minor stuff (made me tip my beer out as I was unknowingly in a non-drinking zone- no paperwork, no fuss, no problem).
Ours could learn from them.
RH
Sometimes when prisoners flown back to Romania and Poland as soon as they are handed over is to have all their money taken from them and pocketed by the officers, passports destroyed, with no access to a lawyer. This was also supposedly fairly normal in the UK back in the good old Dixon of Dock Green days - should we learn from them?
I'm enough of a realist to know that people have plenty of grievances with the police, some with good reason, some that are purely fantasy or paranoia, and some that are in between, but some of the regular same-old same-old spouted on here is bonkers.
Slightly separate issue but there does have to be some way for those in the police and other services to whistleblow without fear of being prosecuted or losing their jobs, especially where the dealings of senior cops and politicians are concerned.
Edited by Sparta VAG on Thursday 20th December 03:54
Rovinghawk said:
She should visit Monaco- the nicest, politest, most helpful police I've ever encountered.
Those in Romania are also incredibly helpful & use common sense when encountering minor stuff (made me tip my beer out as I was unknowingly in a non-drinking zone- no paperwork, no fuss, no problem).
Ours could learn from them.
RH
A friend works on a prisoner transfer team that flies prisoners arrested in the UK out to their home countries where they are wanted for offences back there.Those in Romania are also incredibly helpful & use common sense when encountering minor stuff (made me tip my beer out as I was unknowingly in a non-drinking zone- no paperwork, no fuss, no problem).
Ours could learn from them.
RH
Sometimes when prisoners flown back to Romania and Poland as soon as they are handed over is to have all their money taken from them and pocketed by the officers, passports destroyed, with no access to a lawyer. This was also supposedly fairly normal in the UK back in the good old Dixon of Dock Green days - should we learn from them?
I'm enough of a realist to know that people have plenty of grievances with the police, some with good reason, some that are purely fantasy or paranoia, and some that are in between, but some of the regular same-old same-old spouted on here is bonkers.
Slightly separate issue but there does have to be some way for those in the police and other services to whistleblow without fear of being prosecuted or losing their jobs, especially where the dealings of senior cops and politicians are concerned.
Edited by Sparta VAG on Thursday 20th December 11:18
Sparta VAG said:
Slightly separate issue but there does have to be some way for those in the police and other services to whistleblow without fear of being prosecuted or losing their jobs, especially where the dealings of senior cops and politicians are concerned.
It's called the IPCC. The BiB here have regularly assured us that it is truly independent.
RH
XCP said:
What are the improvements to which you refer?
I take the point about PACE. What are the others?
Well, there's CCTV in cell blocks. I mean apart from all the officers who wanted it. I take the point about PACE. What are the others?
Further, the corruption was by no means universal. The corruption that was exposed by Countryman which gave impetus to PACE (supported in part by me by the way and I would assume by the majority of honest officers, so there's a majority of officers) was force specific. Indeed, it was focused on certain units in the City of London and Met forces. Whilst there was corruption in other forces but it was of a much lower level. And, I would suggest, lower than in many other forces currently around the world.
One thing which the police objected to was the swingeing cuts. But then, hardly an improvement.
One of the forces for the improvement in identification of suspects was the police. In fact the police input were blocked out until the pressure became overwhelming. A massive improvement.
However, any profession or job is reluctant to acquiesce to change forced on them by politicians who have no real idea what is going on and care little about the effects of their changes. The norm is that any improvement comes about by luck.
Notably, there have been no strikes in the police service for getting on for 100 years. There has been no work to rule by the vast majority, there have been no removal of cooperation. The police are all but unique in this. And this despite a reduction in conditions and pay. Further, there has been a fundamental change to the basis of policing in this country, which the government does not have a mandate for. But the police, despite being really worried by this, as everyone should be, did not strike.
Rovinghawk said:
XCP said:
What are the improvements to which you refer?
I take the point about PACE. What are the others?
CCTV in cell blocks as an example?I take the point about PACE. What are the others?
Insisting that officers wear visible numbers?
RH
This is too open to corruption, it will have to change.
In the interests of balance, will Hyphen-Howe now remove the gagging order on the two Officers who were actually present. Will they be able to give their version.
Will we see an arrest for the leaking of Government CCTV tapes. I know some on here would welcome that considering their outrage and condemnation around leaking things to the press.
Will Andrew Mitchell release a full and unedited transcript of his meeting with the Fed. I mean, he's got nothing to hide has he.
Will we see an arrest for the leaking of Government CCTV tapes. I know some on here would welcome that considering their outrage and condemnation around leaking things to the press.
Will Andrew Mitchell release a full and unedited transcript of his meeting with the Fed. I mean, he's got nothing to hide has he.
Gene Vincent said:
Plus 'conference' statements and 'conference' notebook writings... the list is not edifying.
This is too open to corruption, it will have to change.
Plus, the manner in which rape was dealt with in the 70s, notably the startling manner of one officer called McIntyre in an infamous fly on the wall documentary...This is too open to corruption, it will have to change.
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