Police committing sexual crimes

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Fishnut
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Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Thu Oct 28, 2021 11:33 am

I know we've discussed this in various places already but I thought that given the number of cases that are getting press it might be useful to have a thread dedicated to collating them.

The latest case is that of Adam Zaman, an officer with the Metropolitan police, who has been charged with raping a woman on 24th October 2021 while off-duty. It looks like, for once, the police have actually taken the report seriously and acted promptly and proportionately.
The officer, who is based in the force’s East Area Command Unit, has been remanded in custody ahead of an appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday afternoon.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said PC Zaman had been suspended from duty.

Its Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed and the matter has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
The usual request for proceedings to be allowed to take their course has been made so I doubt there will be any further information forthcoming until the trial.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:59 pm

These are the other cases that have been mentioned in other threads and ones that I've found while checking the links:

Cases
11 November 2020
A police officer was given a final written warning but allowed to keep his job after assaulting two off-duty colleagues, one of whom was his wife.
The officer accepted, having seen the footage, that he had assaulted his wife and his colleague...

At the time of the incident Dyfed-Powys Police were actually promoting two anti-violence campaigns – one trying to clamp down on domestic violence and one called Just Walk Away, which urged people to think before acting on nights out.
16 February 2021
An officer was alleged to have assaulted three female officers and faces more than 40 allegations of misconduct. When asked why one of the victims didn't report the detective despite the ongoing abuse at his hands,
The hearing was told she had not done so because people in the force had known about his behaviour for a long time and it had gone unchallenged.
19 March 2021
Channel 4 reported on a woman who was assaulted by an off-duty police officer. They discuss the slow response of the police - it took over 30 hours for the police to take a phone statement, over a week before she saw an officer face-to-face and over 8 weeks before they visited the scene, by which time a lot of CCTV footage had been deleted. It sounds like it was only by chance that a neighbour's CCTV was kept, watched and found to have recorded the assault and without that it's unlikely that they would have done anything - he would have got away with it were it not for that neighbour.

A report from the Guardian revealed that PC Oliver Banfield, a probationary officer with West Midlands Police was sentenced to,
...a curfew and ordered to pay [the victim] £500... The court heard that Banfield used techniques taught during police training to grab Homer by the neck and try to pull her to the ground as she screamed... Banfield’s lawyer argued against a sentence of community service, saying it would be difficult for him to work with criminals.
Somehow forgetting that he is one too.

24 March 2021
The Guardian reported on a police officer who was sacked for gross misconduct for being "abusive and violent towards a former partner". PC Amarjit Dhallu worked with vulnerable children for Kent police and was dismissed following a hearing where,
it was alleged he had strangled the woman, who was referred to only as Miss A, and hit her with a belt...

Dhallu was also caught on a 999 phone call telling Miss A: “I will smash your f.cking face in.”
28 March 2021
A retired policeman has been charged with sexually assaulting another officer following an investigation into a series of bullying and misogyny allegations three years ago at the Forres police force in Moray, Scotland.
A number of female officers accused male colleagues in 2019 after a woman officer complained she was abandoned in a remote wood at midnight by colleagues as punishment for her making an allegation of domestic abuse against her ex, another officer.
1 April 2021
The Met finally decides to investigate an accusation that one of their officers raped two female colleagues, three years after the fact. The women both received compensation after it was concluded they both had "non-consensual" sex with the officer but despite a criminal investigation being launched, the officer was allowed to continue working and the case was subsequently dropped by the CPS in 2019. Both women allege that the officer physically assaulted them during their relationships.
After a few months he became controlling and violent, she told the BBC, and one night in 2013 he dragged her by the hair and "threw me into the dining room table” and against the arm of a sofa, cracking her ribs.

"It was an unbelievable amount of pain. I couldn't get my breath," she said.

Neighbours called the police but Holly was too afraid to report the assault.
28 April 2021
Two Met officers, PC Deniz Jaffer and PC Jamie Lewis, were charged with misconduct in a public office after they took photos of themselves posing next to the dead bodies of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, sisters who had been murdered by Danyal Hussein. The police officers allegedly took photos of the sisters at the crime scene and shared them on WhatsApp. Their trial was due to take place in July but has since been postponed with "no date" logged.

It should be noted that this was not the only failing of the police during this case. The Met has apologised to their family for the way it responded when they were reported missing.
Mina Smallman, the sisters' mother, said the Met had shown "incompetent, reprehensible and blatant disregard of agreed procedures regarding missing persons" during its investigation...

Ms Smallman added that the on-duty call handler had made "inappropriate and manipulating assertions, which led to cancellation of the missing persons report.

"We're also of the view that his unprofessional comments about the picnic suggests racial profiling, misogyny or classism."
Suffice it to say, they have not accepted the apology.
Ms Smallman said: "Sorry is something you say when you comprehend the wrong you do and take full responsibility for it. Demonstrating that by taking appropriate proportionate action which to our minds is not going to happen.

"The investigation was not handled appropriately. The apology should have been done face-to-face and not nearly 10 months later."
7 May 2021
A police officer who was accused of sexual assault was cleared of all charges though it seems that no-one denied they happened:
...a senior judge told him that he needed to address his appalling prehistoric attitudes towards women.

He firmly denied the offences and claimed his behaviour only involved jokey and flirtatious banter.

During his trial it was claimed that his behaviour included putting his hand down the back of victims’ trousers, touching their bottoms, undoing the clasps of the bras of two women and walking down the street cupping the breasts of one of them.

Ford, who was then based in Burnley, disputed the women’s evidence and denied that any of his actions were sexually motivated...
Ford said: “I never touched a bum except for a laugh...”.

He said that unclipping bras was “a bit of a childish joke” and said such behaviour happened “on many police do’s”. He also claimed that officers touched each others bottoms in the police station “quite regularly”.

He denied it was behaviour he could not control and described two of the alleged victims as “flirtatious”. He denied cupping the breasts of one woman and said that he only touched them later to check they were real but that was with her consent.
His lawyer said that,
He could be over-familiar, over-tactile but that is a million miles away from making him a sex offender.
It is not. He is a sex offender. Just one that is not convicted and is likely continuing his behaviour as it has been validated in a court of law as "banter". So I will take this opportunity to say "f.ck banter". It's a term that is used to excuse abuse both verbal and physical and I absolutely hate it.

9 July 2021
PC Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty to murdering Sarah Everard.

30 September 2021
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that the use of undercover police against protest movements were "unlawful and sexist". Undercover officer (UCO) Mark Kennedy deceived women into intimate relationships in order to infiltrate protest organisations.
The judgment also criticised the Metropolitan Police conduct of the case, stating that many contemporaneous documents “crie[d] out for an explanation”, and that there was “no reason that we can see why we were not provided with a statement from a witness with direct knowledge of these matters”. The factual evidence provided by the police was deemed “unsatisfactory”, and the ruling noted that, were it not for Ms Wilson’s tenacity and perseverance, “much of what this case has revealed would not have come to light”.

The ruling concludes:

“This is a formidable list of Convention violations, the severity of which is underscored in particular by the violations of Arts 3 and 14. This is not just a case about a renegade police officer who took advantage of his undercover deployment to indulge his sexual proclivities, serious though this aspect of the case unquestionably is. Our findings that the authorisations under RIPA were fatally flawed and the undercover operation could not be justified as “necessary in a democratic society”, as required by the ECHR, reveal disturbing and lamentable failings at the most fundamental levels.”

The Tribunal ruled that the failure to prevent undercover officers entering into sexual relationships primarily impacted women[iv], to the extent that it amounted to sexist discrimination under Article 14.
3 October 2021
PC David Carrick, a serving Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with rape. He was accused of raping a woman on 4 September 2020 while off-duty. No explanation is given in the article for why it took over a year for him to be charged.

5 October 2021
Patsy Stevenson, the woman arrested at the Sarah Everard vigil, claims that she has been approached by officers on Tinder.
She said that since the arrest, "about 50" police officers and security guards had approached her via the dating app.

"They were all in uniform on their profiles or it said 'I'm a police officer'," she said.

"I do not understand why someone would do that.

"It is almost like an intimidation thing, saying 'look we can see you', and that, to me, is terrifying.
15 October 2021
A police officer sent 56 messages to a "highly suggestible" young domestic violence victim. He also invited her into his home and hugged and kissed her, amongst a "catalogue of breaches". The officer has been granted lifelong anonymity to protect his "welfare" though the press have been prohibited from explaining why. His victim said,
"If I need help now I would hesitate to call the police as they are just normal people and they do bad things. "I also worry about calling police now... What he did wasn't right and I felt like other police officers might be like that."
Statistics
02 April 2019
FOI requests by The Independent found that,
Between the start of 2012 and 2 June 2018, a total of 562 officers were accused of sexual assault and only 43 faced subsequent proceedings, according to data released under the Freedom of Information Act. Of those 43, 31 had formal action taken against them, and the remaining 12 were subject to informal "management action". Eighty-five cases are still being considered. But the vast majority – 420 – faced no action.

Some 313 of the accusations were made by members of the public, while the remaining 249 came from fellow police staff.
18 May 2019
FOI requests by The Observer found that,
1,491 complaints were filed against police officers, special constables and police community support officers (PCSOs) across 33 forces in England and Wales between 2012 and 2017, or 2018 in the case of the Metropolitan Police in London, which took a year to respond to the FOI request by the Observer.

Of these cases, 371 were upheld, resulting in the sacking or resignation of 197 officers, special constables and PCSOs. Ten police forces did not provide data...

The largest force, the Met, accounts for 594 complaints, of which 119 were upheld, leading to 63 dismissals, retirements and resignations.
The figures for the Met differ slightly from those obtained by The Independent. Both of them obtained their figures from FOI requests so there may be slight differences in what they asked. I've had a look through www.whatdotheyknow.com but I can't find a way to refine the search by date - if anyone knows please say!

01 May 2019
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that,
Police officers and staff across the UK were reported for alleged domestic abuse almost 700 times in the three years up to April 2018.. The real figure is likely to be much higher as data was only provided by 37 of the UK’s 48 police forces (including specialist forces)...

Beyond the number of allegations, the figures suggest reports about alleged abuse by police are treated differently. Just 3.9% in England and Wales ended in a conviction, compared with 6.2% among the general population. Less than a quarter of reports resulted in any sort of professional discipline. Greater Manchester Police, one of the country’s biggest forces, secured just one conviction out of 79 reports over the three year period.
9 March 2020
The Centre for Women's Justice submitted a super-complaint claiming that women abused by police officers are being systemically denied justice. This seems to be a continuation of the work done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2019. On 8 September 2020 the super-complaint was deemed eligible for investigation.

4 November 2020
The police barred list for 1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020 was released. It showed that of the 232 officers dismissed,
31 were dismissed for abuse of position for sexual purpose
20 were dismissed for assault
12 were dismissed for a child sex offence
11 were dismissed for domestic abuse
17 were dismissed for indecent images
It doesn't say whether any criminal proceedings were brought against these officers.

15 March 2021
Byline Times reports on an FOI request to the Met which revealed that between Jan 2018 and August 2020 58 Met staff (officers and staff) faced sexual misconduct proceedings and 26 were arrested for sexual offences.

20 March 2021
The Observer reports on,
An extraordinary catalogue of sexual misconduct allegations against Metropolitan police officers, including claims that one had sex with a rape victim and another assaulted a domestic abuse survivor...
The figures actually seem to be those reported in 2019, though it goes into more detail about some of the cases than the original reporting.
Among those was a Met officer who was dismissed after allegedly pretending to be a woman online “to advance his sexual proclivities and also film a woman apparently having non-consensual sex with a male in a public park”.

Another officer was forced to leave the Met over allegations that he was having a “sexual relationship with a resident in a women’s refuge”, a safe house where victims of domestic violence seek sanctuary.

Other serious cases include an officer who met a woman while on duty and later visited her home where sexual intercourse led to an allegation of rape. He received a verbal warning and management advice, the least severe censure an officer can receive following a misconduct hearing.
It also complied data from the police barred list from its inception,
Of the 555 officers barred since the list was introduced in December 2017, more than 1,100 reasons for dismissal are listed of which more than 200 involve sexual, harassment or domestic abuse offences. Nearly a quarter of the barred officers served in the Met.
23 July 2021
FoI requests by My London found that,
160 officers were received allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment of other sexual misconduct across 2019 and 2020. A further 33 officers received allegations through the first five months of this year...

Since 2010, 771 Met officers have received allegations of sexual misconduct from colleagues...

Within that total, 191 individuals within the force have been arrested on suspicion of committing a sexual offence.
28 September 2021
The Femicide Census reported that 16 women have been killed by serving or retired officers since 2009. I will go through these deaths in a later post.

Police Culture
17 March 2021
Susannah Fish, former chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police, spoke in March 2021 of a "toxic culture of sexism" in significant parts of policing.

7 April 2021
Susannah Fish spoke publicly about her sexual assault by two senior colleagues. She said she did not report the first assault as she did not think she would be believed and while she reported the second assault the officer, who was significantly more senior than her, remained in his position.

20 March 2021
Former Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said in March 2021 that the police culture was misogynistic and that not only would he discourage his daughters from joining the police but he would advise against them reporting any violence to the police.

30 September 2021
Former Met Chief Superintendent Parm Sandhu said on BBC World at One in September 2021 that female officers don't report male officers because they "close ranks" and you risk being abandoned in high risk situation.

3 October 2021
Ex-Detective Superintendent Paige Kimberley told the Daily Mail in October 2021 that she wrote to Cressida Dick and Home Secretary Priti Patel about vulgar and sexist messages being exchanged amongst contract workers in the Met but was ignored. She reported the messages which were investigated and determined to be "distasteful" but did not amount to misconduct. The day after she reported the images a job offer was withdrawn.

6 October 2021
An employment tribunal rule that there was a "sexist culture" in the armed response vehicles unit (ARV) in the east of Scotland following accusations against the force of sex discrimination and victimisation by former firearms officer Rhona Malone.
It also found that Ms Malone was an "entirely credible and reliable witness", but the evidence of her former superior, Insp Keith Warhurst, was "contradictory, confusing and ultimately incredible"...

In its judgement, the tribunal accepted evidence that there was an "absolute boys' club culture" within the ARV which was "horrific". It also found:
- Sgt Rachel Coates, a former colleague of Ms Malone, was told by the chief firearms instructor that women should not become AFOs "because they menstruated and that affected their temperament".
- When Sgt Coates asked if women AFOs could wear trousers and a top, rather than a one-piece, so it would be easier to go to the toilet, the chief firearms instructor swore at her.
- Insp Warhurst posted images of topless women to a WhatsApp group of male sergeants within the Fettes Team 1. A colleague messaged him and told him it was inappropriate.
- Another former colleague of Ms Malone overheard Insp Warhust calling one of the female Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) agents "a wee lassie".
- Sgt Coates and another colleague, Constable Zara Taylor, left the ARV division as they were "not confident that the sexist culture...was going to change and felt their sex was always going to be a barrier to promotion".
Also October 6 2021
Detective Chief Inspector James Mason has kept his job despite trying to seduce the victim of an attempted robbery.
After taking her statement at Kentish Town police station in 2011, he emailed her the next day telling her she was “amazingly hot” and that he had “no shame and could get fired”.

At his misconduct hearing, DCI Mason claimed he only asked if the woman had a boyfriend when taking her statement out of concern for her support as a victim.

At the hearing’s conclusion on October 6, the panel found DCI Mason’s behaviour was “gross misconduct”. He was not fired but was barred from a promotion for three years...

The panel chose not to punish DCI Mason more severely because of his remorse and “excellent service record”...

“The delay in this matter is mainly due to the delay [the woman] making a complaint to the Metropolitan Police. The issues arising currently are very topical but were much less so in 2011.”
Gotta get the victim-blaming in there somehow.

12 October 2021
Radio presenter Emma Wilson said that Wayne Couzens flashed her in 2008 and that Met police officers dismissed her.
She explained how she ran into a nearby shop to alert police who then visited her to take a statement.

"They were asking me what I could see... he was playing with himself and there were specifics about his state of arousal that they thought were quite amusing. It was really humiliating," Ms Wilson said.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Thu Oct 28, 2021 8:04 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:59 pm
28 September 2021
The Femicide Census reported that 16 women have been killed by serving or retired officers since 2009. I will go through these deaths in a later post.
Claire Howarth, a police constable, was murdered in May 2009 by her fiance, PC Martin Forshaw days before their wedding. He killed her with a lump hammer then put her body in her car and deliberately crashed it. He was having a secret relationship with his ex and was feeling "torn". He was jailed for life with an 18 year minimum later that year.

Josephine Lamb was killed by Graeme Lamb, a retired police officer, after he drunkenly drove his truck into her in July 2009. He was originally charged with manslaughter but he was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving. He was said to have been possessive and violent.

Samantha Day was killed in December 2011 along with her daughter Genevieve by her husband, Toby Day, a police officer who had been sacked for misconduct. He also stabbed their two other children but they survived. He then killed himself.

Jenny Methven was murdered by former special constable William Keen in February 2012. He repeatedly struck her on the head and body, then cut his fingertips to prevent police obtaining fingerprints. He was sentenced to serve at least 22 years before he could apply for parole.

Natalie Esack was murdered by her estranged husband, former police officer Ivan Esack in April 2012. He resigned from his job in 2009 and immediately began a campaign of abuse against her. Despite repeatedly reporting his behaviour to the police nothing was done. He was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Victoria Rose was shot and killed by her former partner Bill Dowling, a retired police officer, in March 2014. He then shot and killed himself.

Emma Siswick, who was pregnant at the time, was stabbed 81 times by her partner Jonathan Sutton, a former police officer, in May 2014. He was sentenced to 28 years but the sentence was later reduced.

Jill Goldsmith was murdered by her husband, PC Adrian Goldsmith, in March 2015. He beat her to death with a can of paint. He was sentence to a minimum of 15 years.

Leanne McKie was strangled by her husband Detective Constable Darren KcKie in September 2017. He denied murders but was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to a minimum of 19 years.

Avis “Mary” Addson was smothered to death by her husband, a retired police officer, in February 2017. This one feels more, not excusable, but certainly avoidable if they had been given proper support. She was suffering from Alzheimers and he was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimers after his arrest. They sound like a devoted couple who were both victims in their own way.

Bernadette Green was murdered by her son John Stephen Green, a former police officer in May 2018. He smothered her as he saw her as “a burden” who was “ruining his life” and referred to her as a “stinking corpse” in text messages prior to her murder. He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 14 years. He had lived with her since his marriage ended in 2009 and had neglected her. She weighed just 32kg at her death, compared to 76kg in 2013 when she last saw a doctor. He had turned down all opportunities for medical assistance.

Alice Farquharson was choked to death by her husband, Keith Farquharson, a retired police inspector in August 2019. He had once been demoted for sending a p.rnographic poem to a female officer. He was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years.

Luz Margory Isava Villegas was stabbed and killed by her husband, a former Colombian police officer, who then burned and buried her body in January 2019. He was imprisoned for a minimum of 19 years. I’m a bit dubious about the addition of this case to the list. It’s horrific, no doubt, but he wasn’t in the British police.

Claire Parry was strangled by Timothy Brehmer, a police officer with whom she was having an affair. He was cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter and his sentence was increased on appeal to 13 1/2 years.

Sarah Everard was abducted by Wayne Couzens, a metropolitan police officer under the guise of arresting her for violating coronavirus restrictions. He drove her to Dover where he raped and strangled her, then burned her body. He was given a whole life sentence which he is currently appealing.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by nezumi » Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:26 am

Nothing to add but dear f**king g*d. When you list it all together like that in a non-exhaustive list the problem is absolutely obvious. Part of it is clearly that these officers believe they are above the law when, in reality, they should be bound by it more strongly even than a normal citizen.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by plodder » Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:11 am

Holy sh.t Fishnut, wow.

Would be interesting to see if police are more likely to commit certain types of crime.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Imrael » Fri Oct 29, 2021 11:27 am

Would be interesting to see if police are more likely to commit certain types of crime.
I had a back-of-envelope go at working out whether police were more murdery of women than the general population of adults below 60. Lots of assumptions but seemingly about the same.

Which is not to let them off at all because we should be able to expect higher standards. Also I only looked at murders and Fishnuts list makes it clear a lot of other unpleasant stuff is happening.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by JQH » Fri Oct 29, 2021 3:48 pm

f.cking hell!

And there's Met Police officer charged with child sex offences

It doesn't get any better
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by monkey » Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:09 pm

plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:11 am
Holy sh.t Fishnut, wow.

Would be interesting to see if police are more likely to commit certain types of crime.
I have seen people say that 40% of police in the US abuse their partners. Not sure how robust that statistic is, and obviously it might not carry over to the UK.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:37 pm

nezumi wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:26 am
Part of it is clearly that these officers believe they are above the law when, in reality, they should be bound by it more strongly even than a normal citizen.
I would be interested to know how the rates for murder, rape and sexual assault among members of the police compare to those among the rest of the population, though I don't know if it's even possible to get such figures. What is very much clear, as you point out, is that figures that should be zero are well above that. I don't know how we're supposed to respect an organisation that clearly doesn't see the law it imposes on us as being one they need to follow.

Pretty much every article I shared has a comment from a senior officer saying how the behaviour described don't reflect the rest of the police force and how they deplore actions the officers who've committed them. Yet it's clear that's not true. They do reflect the rest of the police force because these incidents keep on happening. Officers routinely expect their colleagues to look the other way when they commit crimes and they expect that because they see it happen. Constantly. It seems that only if you murder someone do you stand a decent chance of facing justice. Anything else, chances are you'll get a slap on the wrist if you're unlucky, and a slap on the back in you're not.

Collating these stories has made me more sure than ever that if I were to be sexual assaulted then the police are the very last people I'd call.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Opti » Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:56 pm

When I was a kid, my dad was a policeman. It has to be said that he was a bit of a serial shagger, but I'm fairly sure he wasn't a physical or sexual abuser of anyone. His serial shagging, however, was damn disrespectful to my mum. Mind you, she used it to her own benefit in terms of indulging her own peccadilloes without disapproval.Yes, they had a massively dysfunctional relationship.

I also knew a lot of his workmates, many of them certainly abused their spouses to my personal knowledge. A few were downright psychopathic. And racist. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if that abuse went much further. Duncroft Approved school was on their manor. The 'canteen culture' was horrendous.

At least my dad had a couple of Afro-Caribbean girlfriends who introduced me, and my mum, to a totally different culture. Which was nice.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by monkey » Fri Oct 29, 2021 6:24 pm

monkey wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:09 pm
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:11 am
Holy sh.t Fishnut, wow.

Would be interesting to see if police are more likely to commit certain types of crime.
I have seen people say that 40% of police in the US abuse their partners. Not sure how robust that statistic is, and obviously it might not carry over to the UK.
I did a bit of a google and found this blog showing where the 40% comes from. Apparently it comes from an Atlantic citing another article that cites two studies that did surveys of police officers. The blog looks into them - clicky

I don't know enough to criticise the studies, but they are both from the early 90s, I guess more up to date data would be better.

ETA: The Atlantic article compares the 40% to 10% in the general population.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by jimbob » Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:15 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Thu Oct 28, 2021 7:59 pm
These are the other cases that have been mentioned in other threads and ones that I've found while checking the links:

Cases
11 November 2020
A police officer was given a final written warning but allowed to keep his job after assaulting two off-duty colleagues, one of whom was his wife.
The officer accepted, having seen the footage, that he had assaulted his wife and his colleague...

At the time of the incident Dyfed-Powys Police were actually promoting two anti-violence campaigns – one trying to clamp down on domestic violence and one called Just Walk Away, which urged people to think before acting on nights out.
16 February 2021
An officer was alleged to have assaulted three female officers and faces more than 40 allegations of misconduct. When asked why one of the victims didn't report the detective despite the ongoing abuse at his hands,
The hearing was told she had not done so because people in the force had known about his behaviour for a long time and it had gone unchallenged.
19 March 2021
Channel 4 reported on a woman who was assaulted by an off-duty police officer. They discuss the slow response of the police - it took over 30 hours for the police to take a phone statement, over a week before she saw an officer face-to-face and over 8 weeks before they visited the scene, by which time a lot of CCTV footage had been deleted. It sounds like it was only by chance that a neighbour's CCTV was kept, watched and found to have recorded the assault and without that it's unlikely that they would have done anything - he would have got away with it were it not for that neighbour.

A report from the Guardian revealed that PC Oliver Banfield, a probationary officer with West Midlands Police was sentenced to,
...a curfew and ordered to pay [the victim] £500... The court heard that Banfield used techniques taught during police training to grab Homer by the neck and try to pull her to the ground as she screamed... Banfield’s lawyer argued against a sentence of community service, saying it would be difficult for him to work with criminals.
Somehow forgetting that he is one too.

24 March 2021
The Guardian reported on a police officer who was sacked for gross misconduct for being "abusive and violent towards a former partner". PC Amarjit Dhallu worked with vulnerable children for Kent police and was dismissed following a hearing where,
it was alleged he had strangled the woman, who was referred to only as Miss A, and hit her with a belt...

Dhallu was also caught on a 999 phone call telling Miss A: “I will smash your f.cking face in.”
28 March 2021
A retired policeman has been charged with sexually assaulting another officer following an investigation into a series of bullying and misogyny allegations three years ago at the Forres police force in Moray, Scotland.
A number of female officers accused male colleagues in 2019 after a woman officer complained she was abandoned in a remote wood at midnight by colleagues as punishment for her making an allegation of domestic abuse against her ex, another officer.
1 April 2021
The Met finally decides to investigate an accusation that one of their officers raped two female colleagues, three years after the fact. The women both received compensation after it was concluded they both had "non-consensual" sex with the officer but despite a criminal investigation being launched, the officer was allowed to continue working and the case was subsequently dropped by the CPS in 2019. Both women allege that the officer physically assaulted them during their relationships.
After a few months he became controlling and violent, she told the BBC, and one night in 2013 he dragged her by the hair and "threw me into the dining room table” and against the arm of a sofa, cracking her ribs.

"It was an unbelievable amount of pain. I couldn't get my breath," she said.

Neighbours called the police but Holly was too afraid to report the assault.
28 April 2021
Two Met officers, PC Deniz Jaffer and PC Jamie Lewis, were charged with misconduct in a public office after they took photos of themselves posing next to the dead bodies of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, sisters who had been murdered by Danyal Hussein. The police officers allegedly took photos of the sisters at the crime scene and shared them on WhatsApp. Their trial was due to take place in July but has since been postponed with "no date" logged.

It should be noted that this was not the only failing of the police during this case. The Met has apologised to their family for the way it responded when they were reported missing.
Mina Smallman, the sisters' mother, said the Met had shown "incompetent, reprehensible and blatant disregard of agreed procedures regarding missing persons" during its investigation...

Ms Smallman added that the on-duty call handler had made "inappropriate and manipulating assertions, which led to cancellation of the missing persons report.

"We're also of the view that his unprofessional comments about the picnic suggests racial profiling, misogyny or classism."
Suffice it to say, they have not accepted the apology.
Ms Smallman said: "Sorry is something you say when you comprehend the wrong you do and take full responsibility for it. Demonstrating that by taking appropriate proportionate action which to our minds is not going to happen.

"The investigation was not handled appropriately. The apology should have been done face-to-face and not nearly 10 months later."
7 May 2021
A police officer who was accused of sexual assault was cleared of all charges though it seems that no-one denied they happened:
...a senior judge told him that he needed to address his appalling prehistoric attitudes towards women.

He firmly denied the offences and claimed his behaviour only involved jokey and flirtatious banter.

During his trial it was claimed that his behaviour included putting his hand down the back of victims’ trousers, touching their bottoms, undoing the clasps of the bras of two women and walking down the street cupping the breasts of one of them.

Ford, who was then based in Burnley, disputed the women’s evidence and denied that any of his actions were sexually motivated...
Ford said: “I never touched a bum except for a laugh...”.

He said that unclipping bras was “a bit of a childish joke” and said such behaviour happened “on many police do’s”. He also claimed that officers touched each others bottoms in the police station “quite regularly”.

He denied it was behaviour he could not control and described two of the alleged victims as “flirtatious”. He denied cupping the breasts of one woman and said that he only touched them later to check they were real but that was with her consent.
His lawyer said that,
He could be over-familiar, over-tactile but that is a million miles away from making him a sex offender.
It is not. He is a sex offender. Just one that is not convicted and is likely continuing his behaviour as it has been validated in a court of law as "banter". So I will take this opportunity to say "f.ck banter". It's a term that is used to excuse abuse both verbal and physical and I absolutely hate it.

9 July 2021
PC Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty to murdering Sarah Everard.

30 September 2021
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled that the use of undercover police against protest movements were "unlawful and sexist". Undercover officer (UCO) Mark Kennedy deceived women into intimate relationships in order to infiltrate protest organisations.
The judgment also criticised the Metropolitan Police conduct of the case, stating that many contemporaneous documents “crie[d] out for an explanation”, and that there was “no reason that we can see why we were not provided with a statement from a witness with direct knowledge of these matters”. The factual evidence provided by the police was deemed “unsatisfactory”, and the ruling noted that, were it not for Ms Wilson’s tenacity and perseverance, “much of what this case has revealed would not have come to light”.

The ruling concludes:

“This is a formidable list of Convention violations, the severity of which is underscored in particular by the violations of Arts 3 and 14. This is not just a case about a renegade police officer who took advantage of his undercover deployment to indulge his sexual proclivities, serious though this aspect of the case unquestionably is. Our findings that the authorisations under RIPA were fatally flawed and the undercover operation could not be justified as “necessary in a democratic society”, as required by the ECHR, reveal disturbing and lamentable failings at the most fundamental levels.”

The Tribunal ruled that the failure to prevent undercover officers entering into sexual relationships primarily impacted women[iv], to the extent that it amounted to sexist discrimination under Article 14.
3 October 2021
PC David Carrick, a serving Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with rape. He was accused of raping a woman on 4 September 2020 while off-duty. No explanation is given in the article for why it took over a year for him to be charged.

5 October 2021
Patsy Stevenson, the woman arrested at the Sarah Everard vigil, claims that she has been approached by officers on Tinder.
She said that since the arrest, "about 50" police officers and security guards had approached her via the dating app.

"They were all in uniform on their profiles or it said 'I'm a police officer'," she said.

"I do not understand why someone would do that.

"It is almost like an intimidation thing, saying 'look we can see you', and that, to me, is terrifying.
15 October 2021
A police officer sent 56 messages to a "highly suggestible" young domestic violence victim. He also invited her into his home and hugged and kissed her, amongst a "catalogue of breaches". The officer has been granted lifelong anonymity to protect his "welfare" though the press have been prohibited from explaining why. His victim said,
"If I need help now I would hesitate to call the police as they are just normal people and they do bad things. "I also worry about calling police now... What he did wasn't right and I felt like other police officers might be like that."
Statistics
02 April 2019
FOI requests by The Independent found that,
Between the start of 2012 and 2 June 2018, a total of 562 officers were accused of sexual assault and only 43 faced subsequent proceedings, according to data released under the Freedom of Information Act. Of those 43, 31 had formal action taken against them, and the remaining 12 were subject to informal "management action". Eighty-five cases are still being considered. But the vast majority – 420 – faced no action.

Some 313 of the accusations were made by members of the public, while the remaining 249 came from fellow police staff.
18 May 2019
FOI requests by The Observer found that,
1,491 complaints were filed against police officers, special constables and police community support officers (PCSOs) across 33 forces in England and Wales between 2012 and 2017, or 2018 in the case of the Metropolitan Police in London, which took a year to respond to the FOI request by the Observer.

Of these cases, 371 were upheld, resulting in the sacking or resignation of 197 officers, special constables and PCSOs. Ten police forces did not provide data...

The largest force, the Met, accounts for 594 complaints, of which 119 were upheld, leading to 63 dismissals, retirements and resignations.
The figures for the Met differ slightly from those obtained by The Independent. Both of them obtained their figures from FOI requests so there may be slight differences in what they asked. I've had a look through www.whatdotheyknow.com but I can't find a way to refine the search by date - if anyone knows please say!

01 May 2019
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that,
Police officers and staff across the UK were reported for alleged domestic abuse almost 700 times in the three years up to April 2018.. The real figure is likely to be much higher as data was only provided by 37 of the UK’s 48 police forces (including specialist forces)...

Beyond the number of allegations, the figures suggest reports about alleged abuse by police are treated differently. Just 3.9% in England and Wales ended in a conviction, compared with 6.2% among the general population. Less than a quarter of reports resulted in any sort of professional discipline. Greater Manchester Police, one of the country’s biggest forces, secured just one conviction out of 79 reports over the three year period.
9 March 2020
The Centre for Women's Justice submitted a super-complaint claiming that women abused by police officers are being systemically denied justice. This seems to be a continuation of the work done by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in 2019. On 8 September 2020 the super-complaint was deemed eligible for investigation.

4 November 2020
The police barred list for 1 April 2019 – 31 March 2020 was released. It showed that of the 232 officers dismissed,
31 were dismissed for abuse of position for sexual purpose
20 were dismissed for assault
12 were dismissed for a child sex offence
11 were dismissed for domestic abuse
17 were dismissed for indecent images
It doesn't say whether any criminal proceedings were brought against these officers.

15 March 2021
Byline Times reports on an FOI request to the Met which revealed that between Jan 2018 and August 2020 58 Met staff (officers and staff) faced sexual misconduct proceedings and 26 were arrested for sexual offences.

20 March 2021
The Observer reports on,
An extraordinary catalogue of sexual misconduct allegations against Metropolitan police officers, including claims that one had sex with a rape victim and another assaulted a domestic abuse survivor...
The figures actually seem to be those reported in 2019, though it goes into more detail about some of the cases than the original reporting.
Among those was a Met officer who was dismissed after allegedly pretending to be a woman online “to advance his sexual proclivities and also film a woman apparently having non-consensual sex with a male in a public park”.

Another officer was forced to leave the Met over allegations that he was having a “sexual relationship with a resident in a women’s refuge”, a safe house where victims of domestic violence seek sanctuary.

Other serious cases include an officer who met a woman while on duty and later visited her home where sexual intercourse led to an allegation of rape. He received a verbal warning and management advice, the least severe censure an officer can receive following a misconduct hearing.
It also complied data from the police barred list from its inception,
Of the 555 officers barred since the list was introduced in December 2017, more than 1,100 reasons for dismissal are listed of which more than 200 involve sexual, harassment or domestic abuse offences. Nearly a quarter of the barred officers served in the Met.
23 July 2021
FoI requests by My London found that,
160 officers were received allegations of sexual assault, sexual harassment of other sexual misconduct across 2019 and 2020. A further 33 officers received allegations through the first five months of this year...

Since 2010, 771 Met officers have received allegations of sexual misconduct from colleagues...

Within that total, 191 individuals within the force have been arrested on suspicion of committing a sexual offence.
28 September 2021
The Femicide Census reported that 16 women have been killed by serving or retired officers since 2009. I will go through these deaths in a later post.

Police Culture
17 March 2021
Susannah Fish, former chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police, spoke in March 2021 of a "toxic culture of sexism" in significant parts of policing.

7 April 2021
Susannah Fish spoke publicly about her sexual assault by two senior colleagues. She said she did not report the first assault as she did not think she would be believed and while she reported the second assault the officer, who was significantly more senior than her, remained in his position.

20 March 2021
Former Greater Manchester Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy said in March 2021 that the police culture was misogynistic and that not only would he discourage his daughters from joining the police but he would advise against them reporting any violence to the police.

30 September 2021
Former Met Chief Superintendent Parm Sandhu said on BBC World at One in September 2021 that female officers don't report male officers because they "close ranks" and you risk being abandoned in high risk situation.

3 October 2021
Ex-Detective Superintendent Paige Kimberley told the Daily Mail in October 2021 that she wrote to Cressida Dick and Home Secretary Priti Patel about vulgar and sexist messages being exchanged amongst contract workers in the Met but was ignored. She reported the messages which were investigated and determined to be "distasteful" but did not amount to misconduct. The day after she reported the images a job offer was withdrawn.

6 October 2021
An employment tribunal rule that there was a "sexist culture" in the armed response vehicles unit (ARV) in the east of Scotland following accusations against the force of sex discrimination and victimisation by former firearms officer Rhona Malone.
It also found that Ms Malone was an "entirely credible and reliable witness", but the evidence of her former superior, Insp Keith Warhurst, was "contradictory, confusing and ultimately incredible"...

In its judgement, the tribunal accepted evidence that there was an "absolute boys' club culture" within the ARV which was "horrific". It also found:
- Sgt Rachel Coates, a former colleague of Ms Malone, was told by the chief firearms instructor that women should not become AFOs "because they menstruated and that affected their temperament".
- When Sgt Coates asked if women AFOs could wear trousers and a top, rather than a one-piece, so it would be easier to go to the toilet, the chief firearms instructor swore at her.
- Insp Warhurst posted images of topless women to a WhatsApp group of male sergeants within the Fettes Team 1. A colleague messaged him and told him it was inappropriate.
- Another former colleague of Ms Malone overheard Insp Warhust calling one of the female Police Investigations and Review Commissioner (Pirc) agents "a wee lassie".
- Sgt Coates and another colleague, Constable Zara Taylor, left the ARV division as they were "not confident that the sexist culture...was going to change and felt their sex was always going to be a barrier to promotion".
Also October 6 2021
Detective Chief Inspector James Mason has kept his job despite trying to seduce the victim of an attempted robbery.
After taking her statement at Kentish Town police station in 2011, he emailed her the next day telling her she was “amazingly hot” and that he had “no shame and could get fired”.

At his misconduct hearing, DCI Mason claimed he only asked if the woman had a boyfriend when taking her statement out of concern for her support as a victim.

At the hearing’s conclusion on October 6, the panel found DCI Mason’s behaviour was “gross misconduct”. He was not fired but was barred from a promotion for three years...

The panel chose not to punish DCI Mason more severely because of his remorse and “excellent service record”...

“The delay in this matter is mainly due to the delay [the woman] making a complaint to the Metropolitan Police. The issues arising currently are very topical but were much less so in 2011.”
Gotta get the victim-blaming in there somehow.

12 October 2021
Radio presenter Emma Wilson said that Wayne Couzens flashed her in 2008 and that Met police officers dismissed her.
She explained how she ran into a nearby shop to alert police who then visited her to take a statement.

"They were asking me what I could see... he was playing with himself and there were specifics about his state of arousal that they thought were quite amusing. It was really humiliating," Ms Wilson said.
A catalogue of institutional misogyny
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:00 am

monkey wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 6:24 pm
monkey wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:09 pm
plodder wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:11 am
Holy sh.t Fishnut, wow.

Would be interesting to see if police are more likely to commit certain types of crime.
I have seen people say that 40% of police in the US abuse their partners. Not sure how robust that statistic is, and obviously it might not carry over to the UK.
I did a bit of a google and found this blog showing where the 40% comes from. Apparently it comes from an Atlantic citing another article that cites two studies that did surveys of police officers. The blog looks into them - clicky

I don't know enough to criticise the studies, but they are both from the early 90s, I guess more up to date data would be better.

ETA: The Atlantic article compares the 40% to 10% in the general population.
I had a look at the blog. It seems that neither source used a random or representative sample of police officers so they aren't a good guide to overall prevalence.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:39 am

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 4:37 pm
nezumi wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:26 am
Part of it is clearly that these officers believe they are above the law when, in reality, they should be bound by it more strongly even than a normal citizen.
I would be interested to know how the rates for murder, rape and sexual assault among members of the police compare to those among the rest of the population, though I don't know if it's even possible to get such figures. What is very much clear, as you point out, is that figures that should be zero are well above that. I don't know how we're supposed to respect an organisation that clearly doesn't see the law it imposes on us as being one they need to follow.
That's a very important question.

I posted some numbers here in an earlier discussion which suggest that in an anonymous survey:
"between 6 and 11% of men report committing or attempting rape" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 1219833820 or see here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamape ... 2C15700271

Concerning male perpetrators of domestic violence, for the UK 13% of men reported having perpetrated domestic violence within the last two years: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... 0001717165

Among UK university students, 7% of men reported having perpetrated intimate partner violence involving punching, kicking or hitting with an object. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0907001855
I haven't found a survey based estimate for prevalence of perpetration of sexual violence in the UK. This just published study gives a figure of 11.4% of male students having reported that they had committed acts of sexual aggression. But it wasn't a based upon a random sample.

I haven't had time to go into all the studies but it seems like in developed countries there is a perpetration rate of about 10-15% among male students (who report having committed rape, sexual assault or attempts). I assume that is more likely to be an underestimate than an over estimate. Links: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 0505276834
https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1 ... 220.8.2.79
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ab.21482
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 016-0823-2
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.117 ... 1215622575

There are circa 87 000 male police officers in England and Wales. If the above is an accurate picture of prevalence of perpetration in the UK I'd expect about 8 700 to 13 000 of them to be men who have committed rape, sexual assault or attempts. The number of victims would be far higher as the men who perpetrate sexual violence tend to be repeat offenders.

That range though doesn't specifically cover those who committed sexual violence while they were serving as police officers, which would be far more complicated to work out. But as mentioned, the men who commit those crimes tend to be repeat offenders. So I'd assume that someone who had committed sexual violence as a student would at a high risk of doing so again after they graduated.

The list posted earlier by Fishnut is clearly very much fewer than than 8 700 to 13 000. But I don't think we can read anything into that. We know that the vast majority of crimes aren't reported. A victim may be more reluctant to report a crime if she knew the perpetrator was a police officer. Police officers are presumably skilled in committing sex crimes in ways that lower their chances of being caught, and fellow officers may be reluctant to investigate reported crimes. On the other hand, the police screen recruits, and training may have an effect. Police officers also know that they are likely to be under more scrutiny than the general male population. So the rate among police officers may be lower than in the general population. Overall, I expect that far more crimes involving sexual violence are committed by police officers then in the list posted earlier. But I have no idea exactly how many.

Finally, skimming through the above research I can reiterate again the importance of hyper-masculine identities and peer group support for sexist attitudes (especially rape myths) as correlates for perpetration of sexual violence. One of the concerning things for me about the media coverage has been the extent of sexist communication among officers (eg WhatsApp groups). If a police force were to take these issues seriously the first thing they should do is stamp out that kind of behaviour.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by temptar » Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:38 am

This arrived in my mailbox this morning. https://police-me-too.co.uk/

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:49 pm

temptar wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:38 am
This arrived in my mailbox this morning. https://police-me-too.co.uk/
So many harrowing stories. I've been reading through the ones on the home page and this one asked a really important question,
Do they attract this type or create them?
Neither answer is good but knowing which it is would likely help in tackling the problem.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Sciolus » Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:32 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:49 pm
Do they attract this type or create them?
Neither answer is good but knowing which it is would likely help in tackling the problem.
Surely it's both. It's a well-known fact* that some/many would-be abusers actively enter positions that provide access to potential victims (hopefully less successfully in recent years than historically), but it is also clear that cultural environments can normalise and encourage abusive behaviour.

*i.e. one I've never looked for evidence for.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Nov 02, 2021 3:53 am

Sciolus wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 4:32 pm
Fishnut wrote:
Mon Nov 01, 2021 3:49 pm
Do they attract this type or create them?
Neither answer is good but knowing which it is would likely help in tackling the problem.
Surely it's both. It's a well-known fact* that some/many would-be abusers actively enter positions that provide access to potential victims (hopefully less successfully in recent years than historically), but it is also clear that cultural environments can normalise and encourage abusive behaviour.

*i.e. one I've never looked for evidence for.
Yes. I’m not aware of any specific research on the UK police. But its very plausible that men who want to abuse power get jobs that give them more power. The workplace culture could also encourage them.

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by plodder » Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:37 am

This is broadly relevant in terms of changing institutional culture, cover up, fear of speaking out etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... veal-truth

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:49 am

plodder wrote:
Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:37 am
This is broadly relevant in terms of changing institutional culture, cover up, fear of speaking out etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... veal-truth
Back in the early 1990s a friend worked in a radio station where Jimmy Saville was a presenter. Everyone knew about him, to the extent that management made sure that he wasn't able to be alone in private with women. But no one spoke out and the management didn't stop him from working there, nor was Saville prevented from working elsewhere.

I think that institutional culture is sometimes too vague a term. Of course culture matters, but sometimes sexual violence is actively enabled or even encouraged by those in authority (see the Catholic Church etc).

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Tue Nov 02, 2021 11:57 am

PC Deniz Jaffer and PC Jamie Lewis, the officers who took photos of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman after they had been murdered, and distributed those photos via WhatsApp, have pleaded guilty. According to ITV,
They were charged with entering a crime scene without authorisation and sending information about being at the scene to members of the public via WhatsApp, and taking photos of the crime scene...

The officers, who were assigned to protect the site, arrived at 3.30am and were placed at the inner cordon closest to the bodies. They were told to stay there and protect the crime scene...

But a female colleague - who has not been identified by name - saw them walking backwards and forwards talking to each other.

The female colleague - who has been labelled PC 3 - was then approached by the officers. Following this, PC 3 then received a WhatsApp message from Jaffer containing four photos of the bodies. One of the photos had the face of Lewis edited onto it.

These photos were then sent to other people, the court heard.

The bodies would not have been visible from the path next to the bushes so, in order to take the photos, the officers would have had to move from their posts, the court heard.
They have been granted conditional bail prior to sentencing, which they have been told will likely involve custodial sentences.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:14 pm

This isn't a sexual crime, it's animal abuse, but I think it's relevant given the links between abuse of animals and abuse of people.

Huddersfield police officer who attacked defenceless puppy to face misconduct hearing.

Greater Manchester Police firearms officer Sgt Martin Dunn punched his five-month-old spring spaniel three or four times in his garden in March of this year after it had pooed on the carpet. A neighbour's CCTV camera caught the incident and he was charged under Section 4 of the Animal Cruelty Act. He was sentenced in April to a 12 months community order with 120 hours of unpaid work, reduced from 180 because of his guilty plea.

He is still working, although apparently on restricted duties and without access to a firearm (he worked at Manchester Airport) but is only due to face his misconduct hearing later this month, over 7 months since he was convicted.

A couple of things strike me about this case. The first is how swiftly he was charged, convicted and sentenced for animal cruelty. This is great, and as it should be with all cases (in terms of being given a speedy trial), though I do wonder why crimes against, say, women, can't be given such swift justice?

The other is that despite having been convicted in a court, the guy is still working. I really cannot understand it. Here is someone whose job it is to enforce the law and he's been found to have broken that law. Why isn't he suspended? Or sacked? Why isn't a criminal conviction enough to make the police force say "we don't think you should be a police officer any more"? I understand the need for due process but he's had due process - he went to court, pleaded guilty and has been convicted. What more do they need?

In this article it's claimed he was at the Manchester Arena bombings and is suffering unrecognised PTSD. That may well be the case. But he claims the animal abuse was a one-off incident which I sincerely doubt. And even if it was and he'd just has a really tough day and "saw red" as a spokesperson put it, it shows that he is not able to respond proportionately to stressful situations and is not fit to be a police officer.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by jimbob » Tue Nov 09, 2021 6:14 am

Indeed Fishnut
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Fishnut » Wed Nov 10, 2021 7:07 pm

The Met have announced their new plan to protect women who are stopped by plain-clothes officers.
If you are a lone woman and are approached by a plain clothed officer, we will offer proof of identity. The officer will video call the local operations room and speak to a supervisor. The supervisor will confirm the officer's identity, their policing purpose, and offer reassurance.
Now, I'm not a particularly tech-savvy person and even I can see ways a non-police officer could get around this. But let's not forget - Wayne Couzens WAS a police officer. While the regulations that he arrested Sarah for violating were not arrestable, there was sufficient confusion at the time that heavy-handed policing was not unusual and I can easily see that even if he did call back it would not have been flagged as unusual. The only way I can see this having an impact is that having him being on record as arresting her might have made him reconsider abducting her, though even there I can't be sure. Given the amount of sh.t he and his colleagues had got away with already maybe he'd have thought he could get away with murder too.

This new process also requires that the officer treats you with sufficient respect to allow you to go through these verification procedures rather than be seen as "resisting arrest". I strongly suspect that the people most likely to come into contact with the police will not get that respect. Which leads to my biggest problem - that while this may protect women from being abducted (and I'm really not convinced it will), that is, thankfully, a very minor problem compared to the glaring issues around police ignoring serious misconduct within their ranks and police regularly abusing their powers to harass and arrest people, particularly black and Asian people.

This does nothing to address the culture that allows men like Couzens to gain entry into the police and remain there. It does nothing to address the culture that allows men to beat and rape and abuse their partners and then have their colleagues protect them from the very laws they're supposed to be upholding. It does nothing to address the culture that had led women who have reported rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment to be ignored at best and retraumatised at worst. This is a glossy tech "fix" to make it seem like they're doing something when the reality is they have no f.cking clue how they rebuild the police force without misogyny and racism at its heart.
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Re: Police committing sexual crimes

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:40 am

I agree.

What has been proposed might make it harder for an officer to kidnap a woman. But they haven't mentioned anything about the wider and more important issues you mention.

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