Who Guards the Guards? ... 'shock revelations would have remained secret but for a free press'
BRITISH police once set the standard as the world’s first and most respected
defenders of law and order — brave, unarmed bobbies standing up to the
forces of evil.
Today, in what amounts to a national crisis of confidence, they look less like the long arm of the law and more like an organised conspiracy against the people they are meant to protect.
The Thin Blue Line set up in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel to “police with consent” is losing the support of the great British public.
Jaw-dropping allegations of corruption, cover-up and calculated deceit have raised doubts if police can be trusted by the people they are paid and sworn to serve.
This mood of suspicion and distrust has been simmering for years, first in black communities, now across all sections of the country.
In recent weeks, shocking evidence of malpractice and alleged lawbreaking by those supposed to uphold the law has been emerging thick and fast.
We finally discovered the real truth about Hillsborough — that police stood by while scores of Liverpool fans died needlessly and then spread lies about the dead.
Police chiefs brazenly lied through their teeth to the Prime Minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, and Home Secretary Douglas Hurd.
Today we learn police adopted similar tactics over the savage murder 20 years ago of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Instead of focusing on Stephen’s likely killers, they deceitfully deployed undercover officers to smear his grieving family and friends.
The Met have form for this sort of skulduggery. Married officers not only infiltrated animal rights groups under false identities, but had sex with women who had no way of knowing who was fathering their children.
Yet the police who twist or break the law rarely face justice.
No individual was prosecuted for the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. It took years for a bullying cop to be charged — then acquitted — over the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 demo.
Too often, like a dog returning to its vomit, the police insist on investigating their own crimes and misdemeanours.
Now they are fighting to take over the probe into ex-cop Peter Francis’s outrageous confession that he was ordered to dig dirt on the Lawrences. This cannot be allowed.
Inquiries into alleged police failures must be taken out of the hands of the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission.
That includes the massacre on the roads by patrol cars allegedly answering 999 calls, a blot on the record of our police forces. Invariably officers are cleared or pensioned off early — another reason for the collapse in trust.
The crisis in our police forces is part of a wider malaise spreading across all public services. But they have one common factor — an institutionalised assumption that public servants are above the law — coupled with a determination to cover their backsides.
As the latest NHS scandals reveal, life and death come second to perks and pensions.
The union-dominated public sector is answerable not to the taxpayers who fund its cash-guzzling incompetence, but to the staff who in some cases should never have been hired.
Labour admitted after 13 years of fiddling with education that tens of thousands of teachers are not fit to teach.
The same applies right across the NHS, Whitehall and the police service.
Most ordinary cops, nurses and doctors are dedicated professionals. Some are not — and the buck stops at the top.
Too many highly-paid managers, many on six figure salaries and multi-million pound pension pots, are simply not up to the job.
NHS chief David Nicholson, who clings on after presiding over the Mid Staffs hospital fiasco where hundreds of patients needlessly died, exemplifies the “jobsworth” mentality.
In the police service, too many chief constables are obsessed with diversity and persecuting motorists rather than nabbing and locking up thieves.
Yet when caught out, they end up with a gong or a place in the Lords, like useless Met police chief Ian Blair who went home early after the 7/7 bombings and left the helm as de Menezes was being blasted on the London Tube.
Alarmingly, revelations that shocked the nation in recent weeks would have remained secret but for a free press.
Home Secretary Theresa May needs to address the question which nags every society where authorities become too powerful... Who Guards the Guards?
RADIO 1 pervert Jimmy Savile escaped justice SEVEN times before his death in 2011 aged 84.
Savile abused up to 450 victims dating back to 1963.
A Cheshire man who tried to make a rape allegation against the DJ in the 1960s was told “forget about it”.
A 1998 letter exposing Savile as a paedophile being blackmailed by a rent boy in Leeds was “buried” by the Met because of his fame. It was not readily available to cops probing later claims.
In 2008, police in Sussex used the threat of Savile’s powerful lawyers to talk a woman out of taking an allegation against him to court.
A review by West Yorkshire Police found star-struck senior officers courted the pervert — who lived in Leeds for 70 years.
They invited the BBC star to speak at social events and even got him to front a crime prevention campaign.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is currently probing allegations hundreds of police witness statements were “doctored” after the disaster.
Officers are also said to have colluded in a cover-up.
The role of up to 1,444 officers from South Yorkshire and 15 other forces is being investigated by the IPCC. West Yorkshire Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison quit over his role during Hillsborough while working for the neighbouring force.
Yesterday West Midlands Police — which examined the South Yorks force’s handling of the disaster — handed lost documents relating to the tragedy to the IPCC.
Some are on computer disks. A new inquest on the deaths is due to be held next year.
Harwood, 45, clouted him with a baton and shoved him over while he was walking away during the 2009 London G20 protests.
The cop was cleared of Ian’s manslaughter but sacked for gross misconduct. He kept hold of his pension.
It emerged Harwood — described as a “thug in uniform” — retired from the Met on medical grounds on the eve of a disciplinary hearing into a 2000 road-rage incident.
He rejoined the same force on its civilian staff three days later, before shifting to Surrey Police and then returning to the Met in 2004.
The family of dad-of-nine Ian — including widow Julia and stepsons Paul and Richard — are taking legal action against the police.
London cabbie Worboys, 57, added to his toll of 102 victims when cops on the sex crime team released him on bail in 2007.
Bungling officers also let Reid, 47, continue his reign of terror in South London for 23 years.
One Sapphire squad in Southwark actually pressured women to drop rape allegations.
Jean Say, one of the men who had charges against him dropped, went on to murder his eight-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son.
Sapphire cop Ryan Coleman-Farrow was jailed for 16 months for sabotaging investigations into rape cases — allowing 11 suspected sex offenders in Kingston-upon-Thames, South West London, to cheat justice.
Cops mistook the 27-year-old for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman — two weeks after the 7/7 blasts that killed 52 people on London buses and Tube trains in 2005.
Innocent Jean Charles was tailed several miles from his flat in Tulse Hill, South London, to Stockwell station where he was blasted in the head seven times while seated on a waiting train.
An inquest jury did not accept cops shouted “armed police” before opening fire.
The Met was prosecuted under health and safety laws but Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick — in charge of the botched operation — was cleared of blame.
Mark Jenner from the Special Demonstrations Squad used the name Mark Cassidy to infiltrate the Colin Roach Centre, which worked with people who claimed they had been mistreated by police in Hackney, East London.
Married dad Jenner started monitoring the group in the 1990s and had a five-year relationship with a woman he was spying on.
A second SDS officer snooped on the nearby Newham Monitoring Project which supported police harassment victims.
And SDS whistleblower Peter Francis penetrated Youth Against Racism from 1993 to 1997 with orders to collect info on campaigns seeking justice for black or Asian men who had died after contact with police.
Today, in what amounts to a national crisis of confidence, they look less like the long arm of the law and more like an organised conspiracy against the people they are meant to protect.
The Thin Blue Line set up in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel to “police with consent” is losing the support of the great British public.
Jaw-dropping allegations of corruption, cover-up and calculated deceit have raised doubts if police can be trusted by the people they are paid and sworn to serve.
This mood of suspicion and distrust has been simmering for years, first in black communities, now across all sections of the country.
TELL US YOUR VIEWS ON BRITAIN'S COPS BY TWEETING #SUNPOLICE
In recent weeks, shocking evidence of malpractice and alleged lawbreaking by those supposed to uphold the law has been emerging thick and fast.
We finally discovered the real truth about Hillsborough — that police stood by while scores of Liverpool fans died needlessly and then spread lies about the dead.
Police chiefs brazenly lied through their teeth to the Prime Minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher, and Home Secretary Douglas Hurd.
Smear shame ... Stephen Lawrence
Today we learn police adopted similar tactics over the savage murder 20 years ago of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Instead of focusing on Stephen’s likely killers, they deceitfully deployed undercover officers to smear his grieving family and friends.
The Met have form for this sort of skulduggery. Married officers not only infiltrated animal rights groups under false identities, but had sex with women who had no way of knowing who was fathering their children.
Yet the police who twist or break the law rarely face justice.
No individual was prosecuted for the shooting of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes. It took years for a bullying cop to be charged — then acquitted — over the unlawful killing of Ian Tomlinson at a G20 demo.
Too often, like a dog returning to its vomit, the police insist on investigating their own crimes and misdemeanours.
Now they are fighting to take over the probe into ex-cop Peter Francis’s outrageous confession that he was ordered to dig dirt on the Lawrences. This cannot be allowed.
Inquiries into alleged police failures must be taken out of the hands of the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission.
That includes the massacre on the roads by patrol cars allegedly answering 999 calls, a blot on the record of our police forces. Invariably officers are cleared or pensioned off early — another reason for the collapse in trust.
The crisis in our police forces is part of a wider malaise spreading across all public services. But they have one common factor — an institutionalised assumption that public servants are above the law — coupled with a determination to cover their backsides.
As the latest NHS scandals reveal, life and death come second to perks and pensions.
The union-dominated public sector is answerable not to the taxpayers who fund its cash-guzzling incompetence, but to the staff who in some cases should never have been hired.
Labour admitted after 13 years of fiddling with education that tens of thousands of teachers are not fit to teach.
The same applies right across the NHS, Whitehall and the police service.
Most ordinary cops, nurses and doctors are dedicated professionals. Some are not — and the buck stops at the top.
Too many highly-paid managers, many on six figure salaries and multi-million pound pension pots, are simply not up to the job.
NHS chief David Nicholson, who clings on after presiding over the Mid Staffs hospital fiasco where hundreds of patients needlessly died, exemplifies the “jobsworth” mentality.
In the police service, too many chief constables are obsessed with diversity and persecuting motorists rather than nabbing and locking up thieves.
Yet when caught out, they end up with a gong or a place in the Lords, like useless Met police chief Ian Blair who went home early after the 7/7 bombings and left the helm as de Menezes was being blasted on the London Tube.
Alarmingly, revelations that shocked the nation in recent weeks would have remained secret but for a free press.
Home Secretary Theresa May needs to address the question which nags every society where authorities become too powerful... Who Guards the Guards?
Savile scandal
RADIO 1 pervert Jimmy Savile escaped justice SEVEN times before his death in 2011 aged 84.
Exposed ... front page
Savile abused up to 450 victims dating back to 1963.
A Cheshire man who tried to make a rape allegation against the DJ in the 1960s was told “forget about it”.
A 1998 letter exposing Savile as a paedophile being blackmailed by a rent boy in Leeds was “buried” by the Met because of his fame. It was not readily available to cops probing later claims.
In 2008, police in Sussex used the threat of Savile’s powerful lawyers to talk a woman out of taking an allegation against him to court.
A review by West Yorkshire Police found star-struck senior officers courted the pervert — who lived in Leeds for 70 years.
They invited the BBC star to speak at social events and even got him to front a crime prevention campaign.
Hillsborough disaster
ON April 15 1989, 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death at the FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough.
Cover-up ... tragedy
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is currently probing allegations hundreds of police witness statements were “doctored” after the disaster.
Officers are also said to have colluded in a cover-up.
The role of up to 1,444 officers from South Yorkshire and 15 other forces is being investigated by the IPCC. West Yorkshire Chief Constable Sir Norman Bettison quit over his role during Hillsborough while working for the neighbouring force.
Yesterday West Midlands Police — which examined the South Yorks force’s handling of the disaster — handed lost documents relating to the tragedy to the IPCC.
Some are on computer disks. A new inquest on the deaths is due to be held next year.
Paper seller tragedy
IN horrific scenes broadcast around the world, newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, 47, died after being hit by riot officer Simon Harwood.
Hit ... Ian Tomlinson
Harwood, 45, clouted him with a baton and shoved him over while he was walking away during the 2009 London G20 protests.
The cop was cleared of Ian’s manslaughter but sacked for gross misconduct. He kept hold of his pension.
It emerged Harwood — described as a “thug in uniform” — retired from the Met on medical grounds on the eve of a disciplinary hearing into a 2000 road-rage incident.
He rejoined the same force on its civilian staff three days later, before shifting to Surrey Police and then returning to the Met in 2004.
The family of dad-of-nine Ian — including widow Julia and stepsons Paul and Richard — are taking legal action against the police.
Operation Sapphire
SERIAL sex beasts John Worboys and Kirk Reid were allowed to carry on committing crimes because of a series of blunders by the Met’s woeful Sapphire Unit.
Freed on bail ... John Worboys
London cabbie Worboys, 57, added to his toll of 102 victims when cops on the sex crime team released him on bail in 2007.
Bungling officers also let Reid, 47, continue his reign of terror in South London for 23 years.
One Sapphire squad in Southwark actually pressured women to drop rape allegations.
Jean Say, one of the men who had charges against him dropped, went on to murder his eight-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son.
Sapphire cop Ryan Coleman-Farrow was jailed for 16 months for sabotaging investigations into rape cases — allowing 11 suspected sex offenders in Kingston-upon-Thames, South West London, to cheat justice.
Shot Brazilian
THE Met was fined £175,000 for failures which led to gun cops mowing down electrician Jean Charles de Menezes on a busy Tube train.Cops mistook the 27-year-old for failed suicide bomber Hussain Osman — two weeks after the 7/7 blasts that killed 52 people on London buses and Tube trains in 2005.
Innocent Jean Charles was tailed several miles from his flat in Tulse Hill, South London, to Stockwell station where he was blasted in the head seven times while seated on a waiting train.
An inquest jury did not accept cops shouted “armed police” before opening fire.
The Met was prosecuted under health and safety laws but Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick — in charge of the botched operation — was cleared of blame.
Undercover cops
THE Met has been accused of deploying undercover cops to snoop on activists who were aiming to root out corruption within the force.
Officer ... Mark Jenner
Mark Jenner from the Special Demonstrations Squad used the name Mark Cassidy to infiltrate the Colin Roach Centre, which worked with people who claimed they had been mistreated by police in Hackney, East London.
Married dad Jenner started monitoring the group in the 1990s and had a five-year relationship with a woman he was spying on.
A second SDS officer snooped on the nearby Newham Monitoring Project which supported police harassment victims.
And SDS whistleblower Peter Francis penetrated Youth Against Racism from 1993 to 1997 with orders to collect info on campaigns seeking justice for black or Asian men who had died after contact with police.
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