I know a colleague who was investigated for over two years and was charged with computer misuse. Like so many others he was suspended on full pay. He was charged and bailed to Crown Court. A possible prison sentence was looming. You can imagine the prospects of a decent family man, and a cop, going to prison. Three days before the trial it was decided there wasn’t enough evidence to pursue the matter. His barrister had been saying the same thing all along. He was reinstated as a cop but even though he had many years in the job he decided to leave. He’d been through years of hell for nothing, and who could say it might not happen again? He told me he couldn’t trust his employers any longer. This displays an astonishing lack of faith in the integrity of a police force but is not an isolated case. I know at least one other cop who has actually moved house into a neighbouring county because they don’t trust their own police. During the investigation into my friend’s case the interview transcript notes were found unattended in an insecure office of a police station. They had apparently been left there by the PSD investigator, who had forgotten them. The notes were of evidential value and more importantly were highly confidential. This was a serious breach of protocol. My colleague complained to the PSD and he was assured the matter was ‘extremely serious and would be thoroughly investigated’. I was told the PSD officer responsible was given ‘advice’ and the matter quickly concluded, with no suspension for months or years, no disciplinary hearing, nothing.
In August 2010 a high ranking Nottinghamshire officer appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, openly criticising the accuracy of the speed camera equipment used by Nottinghamshire Police after being caught driving at 79mph in a 50mph limit. Such public criticism clearly brought the force into serious disrepute. There was potential for hundreds or thousands of others to raise the same issue. You can imagine the consequences if I’d done the same. Eventually a guilty plea was offered, after dragging the force very publicly through the mud. As far as I know nothing ever happened about it. Why was this not worse than publishing a book about an anonymous hospital?
In my opinion if you have persons in authority who become so arrogant that they believe they are above the law, then you create a potentially dangerous situation. This is further exacerbated if these persons are cops.
With only five months left of my service and the PSD informing again that I could be dismissed I couldn’t take the pressure any longer. I was signed off work with stress. Finally in October 2013 I was summoned to Fraggle Rock for interview with the PSD. For the first time I met the muppet I’d been having email conversations with for months. He looked very nervous and not once did he make eye contact with me. The other man was his line manager, the person I’d met before when my grievance was thrown in the bin. He was typical of the sort and I know he believed himself to be above walking a beat in uniform because he’d said as much to a colleague years before. Why do people join the police in order not to be cops?
I had a wonderful representative from the Police Federation who was quick to point out the important issues. The two PSD muppets reminded me of Zippy and Bungle from the children’s TV series Rainbow, and one of the first things I made sure was included on the tape was a mistake the investigator had made. The matter had yet again been classed incorrectly on the form I had been served.
“Did you write this form?” I asked, as I held it up for Zippy to see.
“Yes I did,” he replied.
“Is it gross misconduct or misconduct?”
“Oh, right, yes, my mistake,” he said, looking at the form, as he fumbled about and handed me a correct one.
“We are allowed to make mistakes then?” I asked, as his face flushed but he didn’t reply.
I listened to them ranting at me as though I was in a dream, or a nightmare. They began criticising my interviewing skills during the 2010 investigation, both firing questions at me as though I was one of the Great Train Robbers. My federation representative interjected with:
“Is this officer under investigation for an additional matter of negligent interviewing? If so are you going to charge him with anything else?”
“Er... no.”
“Then is it relevant to this case?”
“Er... no.”
It seems that in 2010 when the man first raised the issue of abuse I should have completed a crime report about it. The fact the man was reluctant to do so and indeed didn’t seem to want to talk to me was apparently irrelevant. I should have completed a crime report with few, if any, details just as long as I had made the report. It all seemed too ludicrous. I was probably going to lose my job and everything I’d worked for because I hadn’t submitted a blank form nearly four years before. I always thought headquarters was an insane asylum full of mad people, hence the nickname Fraggle Rock, but now I was convinced. I had insisted all along that this was a ‘learning and development’ issue and not a discipline issue. I wasn’t aware of the value placed on blank forms.
The interview ran into a second forty-five minute tape. I was reminded at the start that I was under caution. I nodded and shook my head and let my federation representative do most of the talking. At the end when I left the room I did so without speaking to the two muppets and I didn’t shake their hands. In all my life I’ve never before encountered such depths of personal animosity. I know a serving officer who has had problems from the PSD who told me if he ever saw certain members of the department walking by a road he wouldn’t hesitate in running them over and killing them. I don’t feel as bad as that but I can fully understand the hatred.
Christmas came while I was still off sick. On 27th January 2014 I was summoned to the police station. I was served a ‘Performance Record’ form in which I was told the matter was indeed a ‘learning and development’ issue and not a discipline matter, as I had been saying all along. The PSD had decided it was again merely misconduct and a local gaffer could give me ‘verbal advice’ about it. This was only one step up from no action at all. There had probably been hundreds of hours of police time spent on this matter, again for nothing. There was a huge amount of paperwork generated on both sides; increasingly precious police time spent trying to discipline me instead of preventing and detecting crime.
I was told that in future I was to deal with such disclosures using the correct procedures and if I had any doubts I should seek advice. I was three weeks away from retirement. The matter had been misconduct, then gross misconduct, then misconduct and then gross misconduct again, then finally misconduct. It’s ironic that a department that claims the title Professional Standards, in my opinion, seems to me to be distinctly lacking in both professionalism and standards.
I have since been informed that my hunch regarding the man’s sexual abuse claim was correct, and it was found to be unsubstantiated. Complete bollocks, in other words.
While I was off work in the last few months of my service I was in email contact with several members of the public on my beat area. Very few knew the real reasons why I’d not been at work. They said they were missing me, and in turn I missed several good jobs at the hospital. The saddest part was that the music club collapsed.
I retired at midnight on 19th February 2014. I opened a bottle of champagne but I was still very much in a dark place. What Churchill described as his ‘black dog’ was with me all the time.
I’d been to dozens of happy retirement parties over the years with gifts and speeches and amusing anecdotes. I ended my thirty years with no ceremony, no handshake, no party, nothing. I just didn’t go there anymore.
EPILOGUE
My advice to anyone thinking of joining the police now is please don’t, it’s dreadful. Once you step outside the doors of the police station you are on your own. It seems nowadays that almost any mistake can get you into trouble, sacked or even imprisoned.
I know many serving cops now who tell me that when at work they do as little as possible, not because they are idle, and I know they are not, but because the less they do, the less chance there is of falling foul of
the Draconian discipline system.
The contrast between being inside a job, and in particular a modern, politically correct machine such as the police service, and being outside it, is now huge. When on the inside you live in a bizarre gentile world like that of the Eloi in HG Wells’ The Time Machine, where no-one upsets anyone and all humanity is wonderful. Nasty and uncomfortable things are avoided but if they do occur they are hidden, as though they didn’t actually happen, because no-one wants to upset anyone. That’s why it’s easier for public bodies nowadays to ignore awkward problems rather than actually confront them.
It’s ironic that the concept of political correctness was probably created like all religions in a dream in order to protect vulnerable members of society. What has actually happened is that it has allowed dreadful things to happen, and I cannot see this situation improving.
Anyone standing up and pointing out that such horrible things might really be happening, or indeed anyone who dares to speak out against the flow is quickly silenced. When you live inside the bubble it’s not obvious, but after escaping it all seems very clear.
I spoke to many people who are inside other public sector organisations in Britain today and all dissent is crushed. I’ve no doubt that one day very soon the government will introduce a law banning anyone from revealing anything about life in the police, prisons, the NHS, teaching, and so on, even after retirement. Eventually no-one will know what the hell is going on. This is presumably just how the government wants it to be.
Where’s Winston Smith when you need him?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My usual thanks to Jeremy Thompson and his fantastic team at Troubador; we never stop learning! Thank you to colleagues both serving and no longer in the police, NHS, and prison service for snippets of memory, anecdotes and information. Many of my colleagues are still serving, and so I had to be very careful not to identify them, I wouldn’t want the Thought Police Nazis kicking in their front door at 6am one day. Sadly the laws of slander and libel prevented me from naming some of the idiots in this book. If they read this they might realise who I’m talking about, but you won’t.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Copyright George Orwell, 1948), reprinted by permission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell.
My biggest thank you is to my wife, for her support through three decades and in particular the last few horrendous years. Thank you.
Who'd Be a Copper? Page 22
