Police misconduct

[Fishnut]

You may remember that in the wake of the horrific kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard I've taken somewhat of an interest in cass of police failing to follow the laws they're employed to uphold. If you don't, here's a few threads where I was rather active - 1, 2, 3.

I mentioned in one of those threads that I'd begun a spreadsheet to collect the reports and then fell (probably mercifully) silent.

That silence wasn't (for once) me giving up after starting with enthusiasm. I've been steadily collecting cases ever since. I've got a weekly google alert for every police force in the country and my goodness, do I get a lot of alerts.

Currently I have 387 reports of misconduct. Apart from the cases reported in the threads I linked to above, I didn't do any historic searching. Everything since then has been stories that have hit the news in some way, or stories that came up in my search for more information.

Only three forces haven't appeared so far - the City of London Police (with 970 officers as of 2022), Durham Constabulary (with 1,295 officers as of 2022), and the Ministry of Defence Police (with 2,594 officers as of 2022). The other 45 forces have all had at least one report. Despite its prevalence in the press, when you compare the number of reports to the number of officers, the Met is barely middle-of-the-pack (highlighted in red in the graph below). Essex Police has by far the highest percentage of officers hitting the press for misconduct.

Percentage of Officers by force.png (19.62 KiB) Viewed 2138 times

What probably won't be a surprise is that men are far more commonly reported for misconduct - 79.3% compared to 12.7% women and 8.0% unspecified. Some of this may be that there's more men than women in the police - I don't have gender breakdowns either for the police as a whole or individual forces but it would be interesting data to get.

I've come up with my own categories of misconduct as the ones used by the police are really vague and unhelpful. Probably not surprising if you've followed the other threads, sexual offences - everything from perving on colleagues to rape of children - is the most common report. Bigotry (either online - WhatsApp groups are very popular for racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, xenophobia, transphobia and general c.ntery, or IRL) is also very popular and is a great way to catch multiple officers from the same force.

Offences.jpg (18.71 KiB) Viewed 2138 times

It should be noted that a large number of cases (about a third) are still being determined so I may well be maligning people and forces unfairly. That said, 56 former officers are now in jail as a result of their misconduct with a further 14 on suspended sentences and 9 doing community service.

There's more to be said, and more cases coming in all the time. If you find any please feel free to add them, there's a tab called 'crowdsourcing' where you can do so.

I'll post periodic updates when I have time and inclination.

You may ask why I've got it out for the police. It's because they're given a position of power and authority to uphold the law and instead a disturbing number of them abuse those positions to hurt people and then use those positions to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions. I've read about the horrific to the pathetic - one case I added tonight was an officer stealing an ornament from someone's garden (he got a written warning), another older case was someone stealing toilet roll from the police station where they worked (she had retired before a misconduct hearing was called). There are multiple officers who've stolen from dead people. There's loads who've accessed police databases to spy on friends, family, neighbours, online dates, or just to be nosy. Some have even shared that information with friends and family, and in some cases with the criminals they're supposed to be catching. There's a scary number who have tried to form sexual relationships with vulnerable people who they've met in the course of their duties. These stories would be bad in any job, but police are supposed to protect us and instead they're doing the opposite. They are using their positions to get the opportunities to commit these crimes and using their positions to protect themselves. It's not 'a few bad apples'. It's not 'the exception'. It's evidence of a culture of impunity and I think that, at the very least, someone should be paying attention.

[jimbob]

Thanks for this

[Fishnut]

A brief update because I've seen some doozies tonight while going through my alerts.

First, a couple of officers who got far too excited at having passed training.

Lee Ribera just passed his taser training, got ridiculously drunk and decided it would be a good idea to pretend he had a taser which he then aimed at a member of the public.

Meanwhile, James Duhoit passed a public order instructor's course and decided the best way to celebrate was to get ridiculously drunk then throw petrol bombs at the training village, causing around £10,000 of damage.

Both resigned before they could be dismissed.

Luke Meakin was caught speeding last year, going 107mph in a 60mph zone. He was disqualified from driving after pleading guilty to dangerous driving. Despite being found guilty of gross misconduct he was only given a final written warning and, incredibly, still allowed to drive police vehicles.

A newly-elected Reform Councillor, Andrew Gray, has been defended by his party after it was revealed he was sacked by the police last year for pretending to be sick so he could go on holiday.

Another former officer has also made it back into the news. Andrew Campbell was dismissed from the police in 2017 after using excessive force. He's recently been jailed for possessing over 200 weapons, including three illegal guns and a silencer, along with Nazi memorabilia.

This roundup has also included more women than usual. Most are typical - relationship with criminal, lying about why she can't work, stalking an ex - but Gayle Newton resigned before she could be dismissed after ignoring a report by a member of the public of a severely-injured stabbing victim nearby. She didn't take any details of his location, did a cursory search then drove away without reporting it to anyone else. Fortunately the victim was found and made a full recovery. The attacker was never found.

I've also had dick pics, sexual assaults, bigoted WhatsApp groups (in the last 3 weeks I've added 35 new incidents to my list) but they're so common as to be boring and not really worth telling individually. And it's always the same old story from the police - bad apples, not representative, etc. I know the police are a large organisation but I'm constantly disappointed to see how many officers seem to think they're above the very laws they are paid to uphold.

[eliot10]

Your work here is staggering, not just in volume but in the consistency of patterns it reveals. It’s not the occasional scandal, it’s a systemic failure in oversight, accountability, and culture. When officers can resign to dodge consequences, or stay on duty after dangerous misconduct, it sends a clear message: rules don’t apply equally. And you're right, these aren’t just bad apples. They’re symptoms of an institution that protects itself before the public.

[jimbob]

Your work here is staggering, not just in volume but in the consistency of patterns it reveals. It’s not the occasional scandal, it’s a systemic failure in oversight, accountability, and culture. When officers can resign to dodge consequences, or stay on duty after dangerous misconduct, it sends a clear message: rules don’t apply equally. And you're right, these aren’t just bad apples. They’re symptoms of an institution that protects itself before the public.

I always point out that the Bad apple ruins the barrel not just the batch. The spores get into the wood and even if you remove all the apples, new apples will still spoil, unless you have properly cleaned it out or replaced the barrel.

But yes, you are right, as shown by theDaniel Morgan murder inquiry which described the Met as Institutionally corrupt, and quoted by the Casey Review as still being an example of inadequate response by the Met to external scrutiny