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| NEWS > 07 December 2007 |
Other related articles:
UK: London Police Officer Susp
A London police officer was suspended in connection with force used against a female protester during the capital’s G-20 summit.
A video showing what appears to be an officer slapping a woman across the face and striking her on the legs with a baton was shown yesterday on the YouTube social networking Web site.
The suspended officer is a sergeant in the Territorial Support Group, the Metropolitan Police Service said late yesterday in an e-mailed statement that didn’t provide details of the investigation. The Territorial Support Group specializes in public order, police spok... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Daily Mail - UK
07 December 2007
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What's wrong with Britain's po
A crisis of integrity has gripped the higher ranks of our police.
Sleaze, incompetence and greed now seem to be spreading like a contagion.
Among too many police chiefs, there is a sense of entitlement - an indifference to the civic ethics of sacrifice and restraint with too many forces becoming crippled by ineptitude or political correctness.
Once, Chief Constables used to be renowned for their toughness and independence.
Their image was similar to that of senior Army officers.
They saw their duty as to protect society, not to change it.
But today's police chiefs increasing resemble their counterparts in the grubby, partisan world of politics.
In several cases, those who should be upholding law and order appear to think they are above the rules that apply to the ordinary public.
A classic example is Meredydd Hughes, the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire, who has long been a crusader against speeding.
In his role as Head of Roads Policing at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), he campaigned for more speed cameras and harsher sentences against motorists.
Yet he certainly does not practise what he preaches, for he has just received a driving ban for speeding at 90mph.
After being disqualified for this serious offence, Hughes stepped down as ACPO's roads chief, but clung on to his job in South Yorkshire.
Just as with all those politicians who have blithely ignored the law on party funding, Hughes's position is increasingly untenable.
By hanging on to his post, he undermines the road safety messages given out by his force and makes the endless bullying of motorists look absurd.
"He is the worst kind of hypocrite," says a safety campaigner.
But, in his unedifying behaviour, Hughes is hardly unique among the modern breed of police chiefs.
The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde, is embroiled in a scandal over his private life and cash demands.
In the past three years, he has run up expenses of £83,000, while having an affair with a Metropolitan Police officer, Denise Weston, who used to work undercover in Northern Ireland.
What has particularly angered people is the way Orde has been so brazen about his squalid relationship, even allowing himself to be photographed with Ms Weston as they crossed the finishing line of the London Marathon in March.
But such behaviour is all too common among police chiefs.
Last month, the Chief Constable of Dyfed-Powys, Terry Grange, resigned amid allegations of financial irregularities, computer misuse and sending inappropriate emails to a woman who subsequently complained.
The married father-of-three and a former paratrooper resigned only after he lost the support of his police authority, though he later admitted that he had allowed his "private life to interfere with my professional role".
Similarly, the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Andy Hayman quit this week after an investigation into £15,000 of expenses and foreign trips with a female police sergeant, Heidi Tubby.
Though he said the accusations of inappropriate conduct were "unfounded", he also came under fire when it emerged that his phone records showed 400 emails and texts were sent to a female member of the Independent Police Complaints Commission during the Jean Charles de Menezes inquiry.
It is not just in their flexible ethics that some of our chief constables are acting like politicians.
They are also increasingly behaving like them with their obsession with political correctness and incomprehensible management-speak and fashionable jargon about diversity.
Like so many other public sector bosses - such as quangocrats or civil servants - they seem to think one of the key elements of their job is to change public attitudes.
Thus, Richard Brunstrom, the head of the North Wales police, launches a campaign in favour of drugs legalisation and against motoring, while Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair has taken a politically correct approach to issues of race.
Widely known as "Labour's man" because of his support of politicians, including Ken Livingstone, it is a tribute to his tenacity that he has managed to retain his post despite being engulfed in a stream of scandals.
He was accused of trying to block the inquiry into the Stockwell Tube tragedy.
He also caused outrage by saying the Soham murders would not have received so much coverage if the victims had been black.
Most damningly though, it was revealed he secretly taped phone calls with the Attorney General.
The truth is that traditional British policing is being replaced by thought policing - with officers immersed in sub-Marxist analysis of crime and an obsession with victimhood.
Of course, this approach is interfering with the fight against crime.
Indicative of this problem is the Bedfordshire police, which recently finished at the bottom of the performance tables.
The county's Chief Constable, Gillian Parker (who boasts of a master's degree in Criminology from Cambridge University) sounds exactly like some municipal executive, trumpeting her commitment to "listen to the needs of many ethnic minority communities' and 'establish dialogue with mosques".
Elsewhere, the Chief Constable of the Devon and Cornwall police, Maria Wallis, was forced out after she lost the support of her rank-andfile because of weak management and taking police off the beat to attend diversity courses.
Another Chief Constable, Della Cannings, provoked a storm when it emerged that she spent £24,000 on a new shower in her office.
Warwickshire, under Keith Bristow, provides a further illustration of the distortion of priorities.
Two officers were recently disciplined after the fatal stabbing of a woman by her former partner.
Two days previously, she had called the police following threats from the man but the officers who visited took no action despite the obvious danger she was in.
Yet the same force boasts of its links with the gay rights group Stonewall, runs a "Rainbow Employee Network" for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender officers, gives out "Equality Duty Awards" and issues leaflets to its officers telling them how to interact with minorities such as Somalis, travellers and Muslims.
"It would be preferable to avoid shaking hands with Muslim women rather than risk causing offence," reads one section.
In their outlook and their behaviour, the new breed have lost their sense of duty to the British public.
They are in danger of becoming another arrogant, disrespected arm of the British state.
GILLIAN PARKER (Bedfordshire)
BACKGROUND: Studied chemical engineering at Loughborough University.
CAREER: Promotes the fashionable concepts of diversity and hate-crimes.
Recently said she wanted her force to be "a truly community-focused organisation".
Launched a True Vision project "to address the needs of the many minority communities" and "raise levels of reported hate crime".
Her force was recently ranked bottom of the national league table for performance.
STEVE GREEN (Nottinghamshire)
BACKGROUND: Four years in the Army (Royal Signals Corps).
CAREER: His leadership has often been questioned. His force has regularly sunk low in the Home Office performance tables.
Often seen as a politician rather than a hardened copper.
Caused a furore when he said that his force could not cope with the tidal wave of crime because of paperwork and "lack of resources".
But a damning Police Inspectorate report into his management said that money was not to blame: "Resources are and will remain an issue but they are not the heart of the problem, which is more about structure, utilising resources, skills and expertise to best effect."
Concern over his decision to disband Nottingham's drug unit and concentrate on volume crime rather than serious offences.
He encouraged his force to wear green ribbons in the wake of the July London bombings, to "symbolise belief in Muslims as people of peace".
SIR HUGH ORDE (Police Service of Northern Ireland)
BACKGROUND: University of Kent graduate.
CAREER: Joined the Metropolitan Police where he took charge of the Counter Terrorism Support Group and Operation Trident, dealing with black-on-black crime.
Record tarnished by scandals over his expenses and his affair with a Metropolitan officer Denise Weston.
RICHARD BRUNSTROM (North Wales)
BACKGROUND: Phd in zoology.
CAREER: Spent 11 years in Sussex force before moving to Greater Manchester, Cleveland and North Wales.
Nicknamed "The Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taliban" - once calling a press conference to launch a vicious attack on a retired bank manager who had been caught doing 39mph in a 30mph zone.
Stunned a meeting on road safety by using a picture of decapitated motorcyclist without first obtaining his family's permission.
Has campaigned for the legalisation of narcotics and supported the use of vending machines to distribute needles to heroin addicts.
Launched an inquiry into a complaint that Tony Blair had been racist after privately saying "bloody Welsh" after the campaign for a Welsh assembly.
PETER FAHY (Cheshire)
BACKGROUND: Graduated in French and Spanish from Hull University. Master's Degree in Human Resource Strategy from the University of East Anglia.
CAREER: Served in the West Midlands, Hertfordshire and Surrey before Cheshire.
As ACPO's spokesman on race and diversity issues, he has pushed a politically correct agenda on policy.
He demanded a change in the law so that positive discrimination would be legalised.
He presided over an investigation by his force into alleged homophobic comments by the Bishop of Chester, in a local newspaper, in which the Bishop suggested that some homosexuals should seek psychiatric help.
MEREDYDD HUGHES (South Yorkshire)
BACKGROUND: Graduate of Swansea University.
CAREER: Has worked in the South Wales, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester constabularies.
While head of ACPO's roads policy, he was a vociferous campaigner against speeding drivers - supporting the massive growth in hidden cameras.
He has called for more money to be spent on road patrols.
Urges tougher sentences with motoring offences treated like property crime.
Said that motorists "need to be taught that driving on the road is a privilege, not a right."
On his desk is a plastic model of a traffic officer (PC Smug) pointing a speed gun with a jacket carrying the words: "All major credit cards accepted".
Yet, this week, he admitted driving at 90mph in a 60mph zone and was disqualified from the road for 42 days and given a £300 fine.
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