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Tuesday 14 July 2015

POLICE ETHIC

Police officers don`t like being argued with.  Anyone familiar with magistrates` courts proceedings will be only too familiar with the scenario; a police officer tells a by stander or otherwise disinterested passer by to move on or similar and that person comments on the activities before him or her or contests the officer`s authority.  Before too long the matter has escalated and the 3rd party is in handcuffs.  It comes to court and the defendant is acquitted and the question in the retiring room is how could such a matter after supposedly being reviewed by CPS actually come to court. Although the report here is sparse and it seems it has yet to come to court the thrust of the case is the manner in which the defendant complained of the treatment to which he was subjected as a result of objecting to the original police action.   Is it really in anybody`s interest except a cop getting another collar for such apparent aggression to be part and parcel of the police ethic?

2 comments:

  1. I worked on the door of a Ramsgate seafront club 1980 ish. We banned off duty Kent Police sick of throwing them out. A gang of off duty police tried to defy the ban by storming the door and they were seen off. This triggered persecution of doormen on their way home in early hours. Vehicle stops etc. This culminated in a six foot six inch Pc being thrown over his police car and into the road beyond followed by a complaint against police upheld and dealt with by local advice. Out of this history emerged the first idea for licensing door stewards. It was the idea of the club doormen and was submitted to Home Secretary by Ramsgate Mayor and Jonathan Aitken MP.

    The report detailed police corrupt licensing enforcement and abdication of night time public order policing. The licensing police inspector would advise clubs not to call police as that would lead to opposition at the annual renewal sessions. And night shift police could be found on all night lockins at a pub apparently owned by the Richardson former London crime family. So night time policing was essentially done by the bouncers.

    By licensing doormen the suggestion was that doormen could report annually to the justices on police. A licensing scheme intended to act as a remedy for police corruption.

    The Home Office plagiarised the report to remove criticisms of police and spun it as a pilot scheme in another area as a licensing scheme to tame the big bad bouncers.

    Over the years I have lost count of how many times people asked why magistrates did not know what was going on. It got serious with bouncers and miners giving security warnings to police concerning Deal Royal Marines Barracks. Ignored by police and on 22.9.89 a terrorist bomb did kill 11 young Royal Marines at the barracks.

    But after that no excuses for Magistrates in Kent. Mandatory Common Law Informations of Treason against Police were laid periodically and the Justices refused to sign to acknowledge receipt. Almost as if they were scared of police but sadly no JP would actually perform the duty sworn to sole fount of justice HM the Queen.

    I remember in the 70s hearing a solicitor say "TV has Burkes Law Ramsgate has Browns Law same thing he is a berk" This was a comment about the rather too police friendly Magistrates Clerk. And the solicitor said that police were not being properly tested in court and that would serve the force ill when they rose up the ranks with no foundation of disciplines of evidence and primacy of justice. At the time I thought it was a solicitor waxing over a drink on his way home. But over the years his words proved prophetic.

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  2. Wouldn't it have been great publicity for the train company if they promoted the use of the power points for tired commuters on their way home to charge their phones or similar? It is not beyond the wit of H&SE to come up with a way it could be done. The amount of electricty is so miniscule and 'plod' would never have been involved.

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