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Crises that show the Met has lost sight of its defining role for our city
Andrew Gilligan9 Apr 2009
AS THE Met cock-ups just keep on coming, and as the force seems unable to go more than a day without some ghastly new mistake, it suddenly strikes me exactly what has gone wrong.
It is that under New Labour, the whole purpose of the police — and of criminal justice policy in general — is being turned on its head. Over the past few years Plod, and the Home Office, have become absolutely brilliant at devising ever more imaginative new ways to harass, snoop on, threaten and detain the innocent. At the same time, they have become increasingly, worryingly bad at harassing, threatening and detaining the guilty.
The recent scandals could not sum this up better. An innocent man, Ian Tomlinson, falls victim to a relatively new and controversial police tactic of containing anyone in the vicinity of a demonstration, whether or not they are involved in the demo, and whether or not they have committed any crime. He is then subjected to what looks like a wholly unprovoked attack — from behind — by a police officer. Shortly afterwards, he dies.
Meanwhile, a number of potentially guilty men — suspects — in a very serious terrorist enquiry are given warning that they are soon to be arrested thanks to an absurd police blunder, for which Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick has now rightly resigned. As a result of the anti-terrorist squad's blunder, police may have had to carry out raids too early to get enough evidence for successful prosecution.
Then there is the case of multiple sex offender and rapist, John Worboys, who, it emerges, was freed to attack 29 more women after Met officers did not bother to investigate his earlier victims' complaints, despite compelling evidence.
Earlier this week, the Standard revealed that the Met had been specifically warned, nine months before Worboys was freed, about “disarray” in the CID unit concerned and the need for “urgent action” to fix it. Little action was taken, none of it urgent. The following year, officers at the same station let another man go, too; he ended up killing someone. Other units left another rapist free through a series of elementary and ludicrous blunders.
Many Londoners will know that you often can't get the police even to take an interest in some types of crime: according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, the Met does not investigate 53 per cent of reported offences. Last year, a Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) investigation, Crime Data Recording Scrutiny, revealed how some Met stations refused to allow victims even to report certain crimes, such as thefts of mobile phones.
Yet we may also be familiar with the way the Met sometimes chooses to charge in with its size-12s over trivial misbehaviour, such as arresting children for fighting in school playgrounds, whenever it needs to polish up its activity figures a bit. That same MPA investigation said the target culture “may lead the police service to unnecessarily criminalise individuals and behaviours to achieve performance targets.”
Many of us will be aware of the ways in which the police routinely exceed even their excessive powers — such as harassing and spying on innocent protesters and the media under anti-terror laws, as at Kent's Kingsnorth power station demonstration. Press photographers working in public places are regularly ordered by the police to stop taking pictures or they will be arrested and their film confiscated.
In most circumstances, the Met has absolutely no right to do this but no photographer on deadline wants to spend several hours in a cell to prove the point.
At the policy level, the arrival of ID cards, detention without charge, blanket curfew orders for all teenagers, universal surveillance, shoot-to-kill-on-suspicion and the rest — eagerly supported by the last Met commissioner — is further evidence that the innocent are in the gunsights. At the same time, the Home Office appears totally unable to hold on to the guilty — as, for instance, when it freed thousands of convicted foreign criminals who should have been deported.
The link between the growth of police power and the dimunition of police effectiveness is simple and direct. First, and most obviously, the more time police spend hassling and investigating demonstrators, political activists and journalists, the less time they have to spend hassling and investigating criminals. The more time they had to spend enforcing area-wide curfews on all teenagers (now thankfully ruled illegal), the less time they had to spend on the minority of kids who actually caused trouble.
The more time Sir Ian Blair spent lobbying MPs, or writing articles for The Sun, in favour of the latest New Labour crackdown, the less time he had to ensure that his force was competently led and doing its basic work properly.
Secondly, when the authorities attack the innocent or the trivial they bring themselves into disrepute. The police are supposed to be part of the community. Law and order has to be a partnership between the police and the broadly law-abiding majority.
But the Met has moved closer towards appearing an instrument not of the community but of the state. Some members of that law-abiding majority have become concerned about the increasingly repressive nature of British policing. And a far larger number read about multiple repeat offenders repeatedly let go, while some middle-class driver with a clean record is investigated because he will not skip bail and will turn up in court — and feel the police are no longer really on their side.
Perhaps they're right, at that. Individual officers will often be on your side — there are a lot of good people in the Met — but the force and the Government aren't: in the database society, the new attitude is that everyone is a potential criminal. In the strictest sense, that is of course true: the middle classes are hardly incapable of crime. But certain types of people are far more likely to be potential criminals than others.
The Met's attack on Ian Tomlinson and its failure to prevent the attacks of Worboys were two sides of the same coin. They were the acts of a force which has spent most of the past 10 years agonising about whether it discriminates against ethnic minorities — but which is losing the ability to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent.
Reader views (7)
The police have given up the streets and only react to select chosen crimes often long after the event. Try to get a policeman to come and sort out youths vandalising property and they just laugh at you. I pay £2000 council tax a year yet have to live in streets that resemble a war zone with vandalism and graffiti everywhere. Police need to be made locally accountable and chiefs directly elected so their jobs are on the line if they do not answer citizens concerns.
- Stuz Graz, Wimbledon England, 14/04/2009 12:51
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the Police aren't held to account..
the officers that conducted an entirely unprovoked attack on the peaceful protesters at the climate camp in Bishopsgate will not be charged with GBH, and probably not even reprimanded at all
it's really that simple...
if we don't hold them to account they will continue to act in this way
no convictions since 1969 for over 1000 deaths in Police custody
no convictions for Gately/ Blair Peaches/ Menezes
no convictions despite 12 deaths in Police custody/pursuit to be deemed 'unlawful killings'by coroner's juries (from 1991- 2008)
beyond the law
- Nick, bethlehem, 13/04/2009 08:55
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Double standards - Failed in achieving any standard ! Too many groveling senior officers of the uniform branch of NuLab. We are good at picking the most ineffective senior officers from what is a large pool. Acceptability at the expense of capability, the example of this is ACPO, a bunch of power seeking private/public who knows what, policemen, with an agenda that is remote from democracy. Involved in profit making schemes at the expense of the most criminal of classes - the motorist! With "input" into whom is selected as chief constable for your area, local accountability - tosh. The police will carry on regardless, they know they are right, failure to perform is not their fault. They have a choice grovel to ministers and get the shiny bauble, or change - if necessary change must be forced upon them.
- Wills, Soton, 13/04/2009 08:47
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Once again honest reporting from Andrew Gilligan, i left the UK several years ago fed up with the erosion of civil rights by the Blair led new labour. An illegal war, the blair lies, the whitewash and not least the highly suspicious death of Dr Kelly. I remember well the persecution Mr Gilligan was subjected to by Blair and his idiot spin Dr and wish to express my appreciation for bringing into the public domain the many abuses of authority by this joke Gov led by a joke PM with joke ministers milking the system for all its worth.
- Mark Devries, Bangkok Thailand, 12/04/2009 11:33
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The police now seems the agents of support for the Nu Labour not the protectors of the public they should be. One has to wonder if there will be another General Election in this country or is that going to be banned as a precaution against terrorism?
- John David, London, 10/04/2009 14:34
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Tina Edwards, you are so right and so is Andrew Gilligan.
Gordon Brown wanted the G-20 meeting in London for domestic political reasons, and a massive police and security force was mobilised to ensure that the meeting was not interrupted, whatever the costs to the civil rights of both demonstrators and the general public.
Only days later an unauthorised demonstration by thousands right outside Parliament demonstrates the inability of the Metropolitan Police to allow the rule of law in London.
The double standard could not be clearer, interrupt the police while they function as an agent of the state and pay the consequences. When faced with the Tamil demonstration, an issue that does not concern Gordon Brown and watch the police react with total indifference!
- Manny Goldstein, London, UK, 10/04/2009 11:47
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In addition to the above the way in which the Met Police have handled the illegal and unlawful demonstration by supporters of the Proscribed terrorist group the LTTE ( Tamil Tigers) is appalling to say the least. While the protestors were waving flags sporting the logo of the banned group the police just watch them! It seems as if the Met Police are displaying double standards in their behaviour when dealing with certain terror groups.
- Tina Edwards, London, 09/04/2009 17:32
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