This will be the next big scandal - after Hillsborough we now hear about the Stephen Lawrence smear campaign - the De Menenzes sirtuation is mentioned in an ITK post. There is a really dreadful serious ethical problem with the police and has been for (to my personal knowledge) at least 13 years.

Extraordinary, disgusting, corrupt and vile.

Successive governments, both Tory and Labour, have politicised the police and basically made them above the law.

So many miscarriages of justice, yet no Police officer has ever been prosecuted for their part.

Hundreds of deaths in custody, yet no Police officer has ever been prosecuted for their part. If just one of those deaths was down to criminal activity of the Police then that is at least one police officer, possibly still serving, having committed at least manslaughter, and possibly a murder.

That is how scary things have got.

You mustn't generalize about the Police; as in life, there are good, bad and in-between people; I see unethical/evil things happening all the time, and not just in the police force. Isn't the music industry notorious for underhandedness and corruption; what about the buying back of stock in the old days, or the buying of airtime from dodgy DJ's?

If my safety were being threatened, I know who I'd want to be on my side...

Bearded Jack wrote:
You mustn't generalize about the Police; as in life, there are good, bad and in-between people; I see unethical/evil things happening all the time, and not just in the police force. Isn't the music industry notorious for underhandedness and corruption; what about the buying back of stock in the old days, or the buying of airtime from dodgy DJ's?

If my safety were being threatened, I know who I'd want to be on my side...

Is our police force any worse than other police forces around the world? The difference in the UK is that public officials are increasingly able to whistle-blow on dodgy activities which is why we hear more about them in the media. All these things happen in other countries, but corruption and cover-ups are more thorough and stories are suppressed. A police officer in Moscow in a similar situation will no doubt find himself swimming in the Volga with his hands tied, attached to a concrete bollard.

Agreed Beardie and Foz - I don't think our police are any worse than many others; but that doesn't stop a great deal of their behaviour being disgraceful. The worst moment in my experience 13 years ago was when it dawned on me that the police didn't want to find the truth; they simply wanted a high profile conviction.

And it's not all police - two junior cops having a sneaky fag outside Staines cop shop said to me "we hate what's going on here JK but it's orders from above".

JK2006 wrote:
Agreed Beardie and Foz - I don't think our police are any worse than many others; but that doesn't stop a great deal of their behaviour being disgraceful. The worst moment in my experience 13 years ago was when it dawned on me that the police didn't want to find the truth; they simply wanted a high profile conviction.

And it's not all police - two junior cops having a sneaky fag outside Staines cop shop said to me "we hate what's going on here JK but it's orders from above".

You expect a few crooks in every profession but it is the "orders from above" that make it so sinister.

Bearded Jack wrote:
If my safety were being threatened, I know who I'd want to be on my side...

... unless your name happened to be Stephen Lawrence.