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| NEWS > 06 January 2008 |
Other related articles:
Muslim officer dropped from pr
Friends of a Muslim firearms officer removed from a high-profile armed police protection squad described suspicions against him as "laughable" yesterday. PC Amjad Farooq was moved from the protection group, whose duties include guarding Downing St and the US embassy, after a background check.
It was alleged that two of his sons, aged nine and 11, attended a mosque associated with a cleric linked to a suspected terrorist group.
The Guardian has learned that the decision to sideline PC Farooq was also based on his travelling history: like many Britons, he has Pakistani heritage. ... Read more
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ic Wales - United Kingdom
06 January 2008
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North Wales Police, UK
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Chief of Police: Cop or clown?
HANDS up who can name the chief constables of South Wales, Gwent or Dyfed-Powys police forces?
And it doesn’t count if you work for them.
Yet chances are – whether you live in Wrexham, Holyhead, Carmarthen, Newport or over the border in England – you will know the name of the chief constable of North Wales Police.
Because no other police chief in Britain has ever so closely courted publicity as Mr Richard Brunstrom, who this month marks six years in charge of the force.
Whether volunteering to be shot with a taser gun (pictured, above) or breaking into his own headquarters to expose security, whether continuing his single-minded campaign against speeding motorists or sending all homes in the region a newspaper containing a poem praising himself, Mr Brunstrom has shown the ability to keep himself in the public eye most politicians would envy.
But, in recent months, Mr Brunstrom’s actions have gone beyond providing just fodder for newspapers and left many clearly questioning whether a knack for self-publicity is really what’s required for a man leading a police force of 1,600 officers covering an area of almost 4,000 square miles.
Firstly, he showed pictures of a decapitated motorcyclist to journalists during a private road safety presentation.
An image showing the severed head of Mark Gibney lying on a grass verge was shown to journalists and council officials during the closed presentation last April. But Mr Gibney’s family had not been asked for permission and, worse, not all of his family knew the full grisly details of his death.
A report from the Independent Police Complaints Commission quoted Mr Brunstrom saying in an email that pictures that had initially been planned for the presentation were not "gruesome" enough, but the photos of Mr Gibney were "outstandingly good".
The family were furious at Mr Brunstrom’s apparently callous conduct.
But the Chief Constable himself was adamant who was to blame – the media, and in particular the journalist who approached Mr Gibney’s family to ask if they had given permission for the pictures to be used.
He said: "I placed too much trust in the behaviour and integrity of journalists. Some have called this naivety. Perhaps they are right, but I think I was just stupid."
But for many, the final straw came last week when Mr Brunstrom took to BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme to voice his view that ecstasy was less dangerous than aspirin.
He insisted that the drug – which claims almost 50 lives a year – was a "remarkably safe substance". And he went on to dismiss what he called "scaremongering" over the dangers, while predicting that all drugs would be legalised within 10 years.
Mr Brunstrom insisted "very rare" ecstasy deaths are usually from its side effects – heatstroke, heart failure or excessive water intake. By comparison, aspirin was mentioned on death certificates 504 times in the same period.
"Ecstasy itself is a relatively safe substance – the very rare deaths seem to occur not from toxicity, but usually from the user’s failure to take adequate steps to deal with its side effects," he said.
But, once again, Mr Brunstrom’s comments attracted strong criticism.
Des Delaney, whose 18-year-old daughter Siobhan was killed by a single pill at a Merseyside nightclub two years ago, said Mr Brunstrom "should go and stand by my daughter’s grave every week and see how he feels".
Peter Stoker, of the National Drugs Prevention Alliance, said: "Mr Brunstrom should resign. His comments are increasingly incompatible with his position.
"The danger from illegal drugs isn’t just a question of how poisonous it is in the short-term – although any dose of ecstasy can kill. "It includes the damaging behaviour which people are sucked into and the harm it does to those around them, particularly their families."
And Nick Henderson, executive director of the Aspirin Foundation, said Mr Brunstrom’s comments were "probably the worst-informed statement I have ever heard."
But Mr Brunstrom brushed all these criticisms aside. Despite it coming from drug campaigners, experts with far more knowledge than him and senior politicians, he turned his fire on his usual target – "sections of the tabloid press which, sadly, seek simplistically to demonise drugs rather than face the facts".
Yet these were just the latest in a string of examples of Mr Brunstrom actively seeking publicity.
"I really find it impossible to understand what motivates Richard Brunstrom," says Shadow Wales Minister David Jones, the MP for Clwyd West.
"There is no doubt that he is a highly intelligent man who takes his work seriously.
"On a personal level, he can be good company. He is unfailingly courteous.
"Yet he appears to attract bad publicity like a magnet."
Mr Brunstrom is best known for his long-running campaign against speeding motorists in North Wales, leading to him being dubbed "the Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taliban" by one writer.
He has claimed that "there is no excuse for drifting over the limit any more than there is for drifting a knife into someone".
And he even called a press conference to condemn a retired 71-year-old bank manager who was caught doing 39mph in a 30mph zone and criticised his zero-tolerance policy on speeding.
The former Home Office minister David Mellor once accused him of making "blood-curdling threats to speeding motorists, while wanting heroin legalised on logic that would not persuade a six-year-old".
Last month he broke into his own police headquarters at Old Colwyn to point out a lapse of security, not long after allowing a taser stun-gun to be tested on him against police regulations.
Under his control, North Wales Police has also pursued expensive and eye-catching investigations against high-profile figures for racial slurs against the Welsh.
The then Prime Minister Tony Blair was investigated after a book by one of his former spin doctors revealed he had shouted "f***ing Welsh" at a television set as Labour’s disappointing 1999 Assembly Election results rolled in.
Another investigation was launched for alleged racism when Weakest Link presenter Anne Robinson described the Welsh as "irritating and annoying".
Four senior officers spent 96 hours looking into the comments.
Yet Mr Brunstrom himself escaped any form of censure after using the word "queers" to refer to homosexuals in 2005.
Politicians are now lining up to have the man who appears to revel in the title of Britain’s most controversial policeman removed.
Darren Millar, Tory AM for Clwyd West, says: "Enough is enough – it really is time for this chief constable to move on."
Even those who have supported Mr Brunstrom in the past have now come to a conclusion that he has become a liability.
MP David Jones, who has always previously refused to call upon Mr Brunstrom to quit, says: "I feel, sadly, that we have now reached the point where we must say to Richard Brunstrom that if he wishes to pursue this (drugs) campaign, which he appears so unwilling to abandon, perhaps it would be best for him to do so in the capacity of a private citizen and not as the leader of the North Wales police force."
One thing is for certain: Mr Brunstrom is not going to go quietly.
The only question is whether North Wales Police Authority has tired of their force being known primarily as a springboard for the political pronouncements of their chief constable.
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