INVESTIGATE POLICE FROM TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE PILE

Disillusionment with policing doesn`t hinge on the result of an investigation whether or not a cabinet minister referred to police in Downing Street as “plebs” and the resulting possibility that he was “fitted up”. Citizens going about their regular activities have their reactions and opinions based upon their own experiences and opinions of police interventions or non interventions.

Within a few days last week three reports served to illustrate much of what is thought to be wrong with police.

Early last week fourteen caravans and cars of a group of French gypsies parked in  the very limited car parking space reserved for staff at the Royal Gwent Hospital.  Eventually some days later  after causing much disruption they moved off.  My point today is to consider what would have happened if a single car driven by eg a hospital visitor had parked in a space reserved for a staff member.  It is not unlikely that after a very brief “due process” it would have been towed.     What kind of message does this non-intervention convey to the thousands of hospital visitors who strive to park legally and at some expense to visit their friends and family?  It brings authority and police into disrespect and deservedly so.

The second report has been four years in the making.  An innocent man was tasered without any due cause and had to undergo those four years waiting for justice to be done to those police officers who had disregarded all guidelines.  There will always be rotten apples in any barrel of police officers but the concern is the difficulty or lethargy in weeding them out.

And finally and perhaps the most offensive of inappropriate police activity; activity which has finally had some light shone upon it not least by the Magistrates` Association. It is the excessive offering of police cautions when offenders should be charged and tried in a court of law.  And when victims of crime are subject to what can only be described as harassment to accept a financial pay off to permit police to administer that caution and avoid the effort to take the case to court one can only despair.

Reform of police, badly overdue, must also be instigated at the bottom of the pile in tandem with investigating activities at the top.