Panorama docu - Met Police

BillDL

I lied when I said I wouldn't watch the documentary.  There was bugger all else on the TV so I watched it, and it was very much as I expected it would be.  The covert filming and evidence gathered by the undercover guy masquerading as a uniformed civilian employee in the offices and custody suite of one police station was seemingly sufficient for the esteemed reviewers of the footage to establish that the bad behaviour and practices of about 5 cops was evidence of it being "institutional" throughout that police service.

The video footage was obviously edited / cropped to only show the bad behaviour in certain scenarios.  It had to be otherwise there would have been endless hours of boring footage showing everything being done as it should be.  The video editors have control of where they cut in and end the scenes, and I felt that in some of the clips that involved one-to-one conversations between the undercover reporter and some of the cops there may well have been some footage with audio that preceded the chosen edit points that would have given us a better idea of how those conversations were initiated and steered by the reporter.

The conversations with one particular cop, that in my estimation was fairly young and most likely with around 3 or 4 years service, took place in a pub where the young cop had swallowed something like 6 or 7 pints of beer and the reporter deliberately steered and perpetuated the topic of conversation to elicit the desired responses.  From my experience people that have managed through their two years probation and then have another couple under their belts are the ones most likely to try and impress "the new boy" with bombastic stories that are either gross exaggerations of the real events or are completely fabricated so as to impress or shock junior cops.  The programme did state that for some of these stories being related, there is no evidence to support the details being spoken about.  What those particular one-to-one conversations that were steered by the reporter did demonstrate, however, is how peer pressure can work and that unprofessional conduct while off duty and pissed can influence others and is not acceptable.

In footage with another cop of about 5 years service the reporter initiated a conversation about what ethnicities or nationalities of people were the worst to deal with.  Amongst the cops commentary that mentioned how difficult Algerians or other North African people were to deal with in custody, he said "Muslims. They hate us".   While I do not for one minute support what apparently are xenophobic and racist comments, one thing really needs to be remembered and that is the narrower context in which the cop was talking.  He was talking about people whose conduct had brought them into conflict with the police i.e. detainees and arrestees, so his personal observations may well have a lot more validity in that narrow scope of involvement than out on the street with the general population.  Again I don't like what he was saying, nor the fact that he felt he should be sharing those particular views.

A big issue was made by the undercover reporter and the footage reviewers about cops forming close cliques and keeping secrets amongst themselves, which led to conversations being shut down in the presence of the "new boy" and the bombastic young cop repeatedly questioning whether he was wired or from internal affairs.  People who have never been in the police may not fully appreciate what it is like being a cop.  In context with the off-duty cop in the pub the female reviewer mentioned how a cop must uphold the expected standards of the position whether on or off duty.  Cops are mostly insular people by necessity and tend to mix with other cops off duty because they can't "talk shop" with outsiders.  They don't like to be recognised as off duty cops because some clown will either pick a fight or bombard them with stories about a parking tocket or being arrested for nothing.  Most other people that work in civilian jobs have a laugh talking about their shenanigans in the factory or on the building site or in the office, and can do so freely.  Cops can't, so they automatically have a mistrust of new people that may be tittle-tattlers keen to share personal conversations.  The fact that cops can be a secretive clique is not sinister in itself, and it's only natural that within any workplace with a lot of staff there will be internal cliques.

I was pleased that the unsavoury fat cunt of a Sergeant was shown up for being a really seedy prick, because those under him can easily fall into his clique to avoid conflict or feel unable to try and change things for the better.

Did the documentary show me anything that I didn't already know?  No.

Was the documentary biased or transparent?  Mostly transparent but in some aspects deliberately moulded and manipulated towards achieving a goal without providing a broader picture.

BenSirAmos

After the first five minutes, there wasn't really much there EXCEPT the support from the inspector. Why did the inspector give support to the unsavoury fat cunt? 

BillDL

BenSirAmos said:

After the first five minutes, there wasn't really much there EXCEPT the support from the inspector. Why did the inspector give support to the unsavoury fat cunt? 

Not sure which parts you are referring to.  I recall one of the senior office people gathering staff to announce that the Sergeant had been suspended (for something not the result of the undercover work) and telling them to feel free to keep in touch and check he was OK, or words to that effect.  I was surprised by that because it assumed all the staff liked the guy when in fact there was an undercurrent of dislike for him.  It could have been a badly expressed notification to them that there was nothing to prevent them from contacting him (i.e. innocent until proven guilty), but it seemed that he was actively encouraging them to stay in touch while he was suspended.  I was suspended several times as a result of spurious allegations and it's not a very nice place to be because even if the public prosecution service writes it off as a false allegation, the internal discipline investigation doesn't require the same levels of proof to make a decision and it's a worrying time because all it takes is for the internal investigator to take a dislike to you and your arse is out the window.

BenSirAmos

BillDL said:

BenSirAmos said:

After the first five minutes, there wasn't really much there EXCEPT the support from the inspector. Why did the inspector give support to the unsavoury fat cunt? 

Not sure which parts you are referring to.  I recall one of the senior office people gathering staff to announce that the Sergeant had been suspended (for something not the result of the undercover work) and telling them to feel free to keep in touch and check he was OK, or words to that effect.  I was surprised by that because it assumed all the staff liked the guy when in fact there was an undercurrent of dislike for him.  It could have been a badly expressed notification to them that there was nothing to prevent them from contacting him (i.e. innocent until proven guilty), but it seemed that he was actively encouraging them to stay in touch while he was suspended.  I was suspended several times as a result of spurious allegations and it's not a very nice place to be because even if the public prosecution service writes it off as a false allegation, the internal discipline investigation doesn't require the same levels of proof to make a decision and it's a worrying time because all it takes is for the internal investigator to take a dislike to you and your arse is out the window.

It concerns me because while the actions of individual officers is no indication of institutional racism or sexism, the fact that such an obnoxious individual is casually seen by his superiors as worthy of support suggests that either the hierarchy is out of touch with what is going on in the workplace or they condone that behaviour. It is still not proof of problems at an institutional level but it is difficult to see how the cultural change necessary to bring the police force into this century might be brought about while inspectors are unaware of the 'dislike'. The delays in the internal disciplinary procedures are something else - justice delayed is justice denied and all that  

stufisher

When I recall my brief time working with West Yorkshire and with Leicestershire my overall experience was positive. I never heard or saw any bad mouthing or inappropriate behaviours and my appreciation grew massively for how difficult a job it was to be a frontline Bobby. 

I suspect it's even more challenging now and the twunts that display the dark side just skew public perception out of all proportion. 

There was one guy from my school ... a huge lad/bloke who joined the force and worked his way up to Inspector I think and he had a poor rep with other coppers because he bullied/intimidated/physically hurt arrestees and Joe Public.

He was a wrong'n at school and simply expanded into a complete bastard. Nobody liked him. 

BenSirAmos

stufisher said:

When I recall my brief time working with West Yorkshire and with Leicestershire my overall experience was positive. 

I'm sure this is correct. I'm sure that most officers in the MET are decent people - but it's such a huge organisation that the list of upcoming misconduct hearings is depressingly large. And I feel sure that the number of officers under investigation dwarfs the number who are taken to misconduct hearings. As BillDL says above, spurious allegations are very stressful for officers - and seem to be taking even longer to resolve and waste resources that could more usefully be deployed elsewhere. 

Revolutions

I can understand the view that most Met police officers don’t act like this. But some do. And the behaviour is tolerated. It’s rare that these actions/people won’t be known about. Whether the actions are misunderstood, or people feel uncomfortable about raising concerns, it’s unfortunately a failure of leadership, which a few have already mentioned means it’s a systematic issue.

“The standards you walk past are the standards you accept” is a maxim I heard from an Australian military commander a few years back (it was about ways of working, not necessarily about illegal/immoral actions). For me, that sums up the simple change in behaviour required by all, and especially managers. The difficulty is that to change behaviour in a positive, sustainable way is not exactly simple.

Seeing that one of the officers mentioned in the programme has been arrested with some connection to the filmed footage, shows for me that this was warranted. If there’s nothing to see, the show would find nothing to report. Even if it’s less than 1% of the overall footage showing this type of behaviour, the behaviours happened.

BenSirAmos

The institutional racism, sexism and homophobia identified by Baroness Casey facilitates and enables the poor behaviour illustrated by that team in the Charing Cross station. Although it is horrible, I'm less concerned about the boasting and poor behaviour of the individuals than I am about the institutional failings that allow (encourage? normalise?) the poor behaviour of individuals. The institutional failings are the responsibility of the senior managers. Rowley holds ultimate responsibility along with the politicians (and I guess us too - for voting them in)

Emp_Fab

TimmyO said:

Jesus Christ 

Don't go blaming him !  He tried with those 10 Commandos.. one even said "be nice to each other".