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THE normal beat patrolled by Max Clifford, tabloid PR's one-man Vice Squad, is that seedy frontier where showbiz misdeeds meet Fleet Street chequebooks. The news that Mr Clifford is representing Nicky Thompson, a G20 protester apparently assaulted by the Met, shows that the issue of police misconduct is starting to get unusual traction.
However much we may smile at a female anti-globalisation activist seeking out the puppet-master of Jade Goody, Rebecca Loos and Freddie Starr, no one is better at spotting a bandwagon than Max Clifford. And though Mr Clifford may not always be above making things up, even he sometimes hits on a wider truth.
The then minister David Mellor never "romped" with an actress in his Chelsea strip - but the story helped sum up the general decay of a dying Tory government. The Met, by most world standards, is not a brutal force - and is, overall, undoubtedly less violent now than in the past. Yet though Ms Thompson appears to be trying to make some money from her ordeal, she is clearly not making it up - and the public is more concerned about police behaviour than it has been for years.
Part of the reason is that police violence used to be mainly against the voiceless: West Indians in 1970s Brixton or working-class suspects in nice, private cells with nobody filming it on their mobile. Now the Met's increasing role in the policing and surveillance of not just crime, but dissent, has brought officers much more into contact with the educated, the articulate, the media - and the innocent.
But partly it is a problem of leadership. For four years, the Met has suffered a crisis of command. The long-overdue sacking of Sir Ian Blair and the arrival as Commissioner of Sir Paul Stephenson was supposed to change that. So far, it has not.
We should not, I think, be too quick to criticise Sir Paul over the Met's broader problems. He has been Commissioner for precisely 11 weeks. Years of deep-rooted difficulties in a supertanker like the police cannot be turned around that quickly.
But the force's response to the two recent allegations of brutality is something that Sir Paul could have taken swift control of. It could have been his opportunity to make clear that any culture of violence, of which some have complained, in the public-order policing units must end.
Instead, as many have noticed, the Met's initial response to the attack on Ian Tomlinson bore depressing similarities to its behaviour in the aftermath of the de Menezes shooting. Misleading information was issued, or at the very least not corrected. The existence of evidence contrary to the official version was not admitted.
Officers have now been suspended; the IPCC has started a full investigation. But it was a week after the attack on Tomlinson before we heard anything - a brief written statement - directly from Sir Paul. Yesterday, two weeks after the attack, we got the Commissioner's second contribution to the issue - a slightly fuller written statement and a review of the overall policing operation by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.
To be fair, the media were slow to pick up on Tomlinson, too. But when the damaging footage emerged I would like to have seen the Commissioner in full silver braid on television expressing regret, even apology, for the assault and stressing his complete commitment to finding out whether it had anything to do with Tomlinson's death.
Sir Paul's relative silence shows that he has learned the wrong lessons from de Menezes. Ian Blair's mistake in that case was not not speaking out - it was saying the wrong thing when he did speak.
The lesson of de Menezes is that a single serious incident, if not properly handled, can end up overshadowing, even paralysing, your whole commissionership. Tomlinson is less serious than de Menezes but it does have some potentially tricky features, one of which is that it may be genuinely impossible for any pathologist to determine whether or not the Met's action led to the man's heart attack.
Given the possibility of an inconclusive outcome, it was even more important that Sir Paul pre-empt fears that the investigation would not be done properly. And it is really only the Commissioner who can exercise this kind of leadership because no one has much faith in the leadership capacities of the other organisations involved.
The Metropolitan Police Authority is one of those New Labour bodies that was set up to provide the appearance of accountability, rather than the reality. Its performance over de Menezes was beyond feeble, and on G20 it has taken a backseat role.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation into de Menezes took two-and-a-half years and did not bring so much as a disciplinary charge against a single officer. God help us if Tomlinson takes that long. The first word of the IPCC's name always slightly reminds me of the way the old East Germany insisted on calling itself the "German Democratic Republic". If it really was democratic, it wouldn't have needed to say so.
The most serious concern about Sir Paul's relative invisibility over Tomlinson is what it might tell us about his broader determination to provide the Met with the strong leadership and change it so terribly needs. Sir Paul was, of course, Ian Blair's deputy, at or near the heart of much that went wrong for the force in the Blair years.
Being the deputy, or even the acting commissioner, is different from being the top man in your own right. It is early days. I watched Sir Paul in action at last month's meeting of the MPA, before Tomlinson, and I thought he did show some of the qualities required. He was quite blunt about the Met's awful failings in the John Worboys and other cases; he has moved the borough commander concerned, and is overhauling the way the force investigates sex crimes.
More broadly, however, and Tomlinson symbolises this, we have not yet had the fresh start we were promised.
Reader views (10)
I was there in Bank Junction on 1st and 2nd April with my grandchildren. It was a terrifying experience but I am not here to continue to villify the police. Let's get something very clear, what we saw was a premeditated attack on civil liberties itself. All this rubbish about a few rogue officers and some greedy woman getting a slap across the face is desperately misleading. Even though I saw the police behaving in brutal ways on both days I do feel sorry for them in one basic way... They were following orders, to brutally crush dissent. Gold Command should be in the dock and of course, the Home Secretary as this is where the commands came from to brutally attack protesters, to cover your numbers up, to try and keep the press at bay and to give the Climate Camp special treatement at midnight, under cover of darkness, for the Climate Camp are an extremely cohesive and laudable organisation who clearly pose the biggest threat to the government. So, despite the horrors of the policing, go and get the people who ordered them to behave like that. Go and get Gold Command and their commander which is the Home Secretary and stop distracting the public from the real enemy here. The media are continually regurgitating the same line that police officers are responsible for their own actions. Utter hogwash! We watched as they reacted to commands sent to them!
- Mary, avebury wiltshire
Do I detect Daniel of Doncaster and Melvyn of Canvey Island using that same crib notes to post their comments. Are they more than just plain citizens?
- Paul, Lincoln UK
Yes, Melvyn, but not an analysis of what had happened, just an overal statement that he did not condone police brutality.
This was the thrust of the article but you seemed to have missed that!
Your second point is interesting but to most it is, rather like your last point, irrelevant. Police using violence on a peaceful man, no matter which way he is going, is eggregious.
- Minnie, London, UK
"The oddity in this case is why was the person in the area with the troubles when he was going home to smithfield which was is in the opposite direction away from the trouble via Cannon Street and St Pauls?" (Melvyn)
Because there were thousands of riot police in the way not letting anyone past and forcing people to march down streets even if they weren't heading that way; which is probably why in the videos we've seen Mr Tomlinson doesn't seem very enthuiastic in moving where the police are making him go (i.e. the opposite direction to where he wanted to go).
- Daniel, Doncaster
With Gilligan its dammed if you do and dammed if you dont!
The errors that arose in the DeMenzes case arose because statements were issued which then had to be retracted when fuller details were known. In this case the new commissioner allowed time to check facts and Gilligan wants him making an on the spot statement!
The oddity in this case is why was the person in the area with the troubles when he was going home to smithfield which was is in the opposite direction away from the trouble via Cannon Street and St Pauls?
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
It is no surprise that people in uniforms, given authority over others, will abuse that authority. The genuinely troubling issue is "the Met's increasing role in the policing and surveillance of not just crime, but dissent". Dissent is NOT a crime, but is increasingly seen to be one by national and local government as well as by various other officials. If we are concerned about our rights, liberties AND obligations, we need to dissent more and make sure our police do not act to stifle legal and justified dissent.
- Warren Alexander, London, UK
A few years ago American tourists could be heard gushing " I think your Police are wonderful" What would they say now, when it can be an offence to take a photograph of anything within a 'designated' area, or a policeman? Which reminds me, have they prosecuted the tourist who took the footage of the Tomlinson assault yet?
- Jeremiah, London
The police are ready to acknowledge fault when it implies that they have not been aggressive enough, as in the Warboys case, but they will never acknowledge uncontrolled aggression as a fault.
- Bloke, London
Andrew, a good article but almost too restrained and old-fashioned English stiff upper lip.
Look up the definition of 'fascism' in the dictionary (actually I am sure that you don't need to.) Particularly with regard to its authoritarianism and suppression of all criticism. Then look at the way this country is going. Complaints and criticism are neatly bundled off to some 'long grass' procedure and, by the time it resurfaces, is not the news any more. That is if such a procedure exists in the first place. It is all a bit 1984 but more subtle.
We will hear the outcome from the Damian Green inquiry in a few moments, but most will have forgotten what it was about in the first place. In your terms, it will have lost traction.
The damage done, through the politicisation of the Police services, the Civil Service and other areas of administration by this vicious, nasty, venal government, will take years to correct.
On another page, I read about the 85 year old lady who held up a burglar with her crutch until the police arrived to arrest her. I was astonished (and relieved) to find that she had not been arrested for aggravated assault! Such anticipation illustrates how warped our judgement of institutionally held values have become.
- Steve Buckel, Braunau-am-Inn, Austria
Boris needed a new broom and all he got was an old an brush. The unprofessionalism and indiscipline of the Met staff is turning the national force into an international laughing stock and liability, with huge future consequences. Sir Paul needs to get a grip on his staffs' discipline and professionalism or get out!
- Rob, London
