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Original poster

To feel a bit bad for the met police on bbc panorama undercover

691 replies

Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 21:46

Just watching the BBC Panorama doco “Undercover in the Police” and I can’t help feeling a bit uneasy.

Yes, the behaviour shown is awful and they should lose their jobs, but having their faces, names and secretly recorded conversations, sometimes even off duty over a pint broadcast feels like a bit of a violation of privacy.

I honestly would have thought secret filming like that couldn’t even be made public, but clearly it’s legal or the BBC wouldn’t air it.

I’m not excusing what was said at all. The culture clearly needs to change. But is it fair to single out these particular officers when the problem is obviously widespread?

I also felt some of the more junior officers had just absorbed the culture around them, and at times the journalist might have been nudging them into certain topics. A few of the comments even felt like dark humour or going along with pub chat. Still unacceptable, but if you secretly recorded doctors or other professions that probably use a lot of dark humour to get through it, I’m sure you’d hear things that would seem really callous to an outsider.

Absolutely they should be fired/reprimanded, but do they deserve complete public exposure like this? AIBU to feel uncomfortable about it?

YABU they deserve everything that’s coming their way

YANBU it’s too much personal exposure when the real problem is the Met culture not these individual cops

OP posts:
AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 01/10/2025 23:42

Just leaving this here for the next time a dismissal of Wayne Couzens being a "one off" pops up,

Met Police officer David Carrick, who admitted 49 charges - including 24 counts of rape - against 12 women, was unmasked as one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders.

Endofyear · 01/10/2025 23:41

How do you tackle the problem unless you expose it? These officers have unique power over people - often very vulnerable people - and we have to hold them to the highest standards of behaviour and integrity. I absolutely think the undercover filming and exposure is the only way to throw light on a subject that has been swept under the carpet and glossed over as a 'few bad apples' for decades.

WeeGeeBored · 01/10/2025 23:41

Men like that don’t give a shit. I don’t think they need or want your sympathy b

GwendolineFairfax8 · 01/10/2025 23:39

YABU - they deserve to be publicly shamed.

Jellywife · 01/10/2025 23:39

They were in public places at all times. At the pub, in their workplace (a public building). If they worked for mi5 and popped to the pub expecting to privately chat about the latest insurgents winding them up or how they’d like to extra-judiciarily interrogate their least favoured hackers I’m sure they’d be set right about where is/isn’t a private place fairly promptly…

Change2banon · 01/10/2025 23:38

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Did you even watch it??

Change2banon · 01/10/2025 23:36

Wow OP .. just give up and stop defending them. You’re literally the only one here who thinks this way. What is wrong with you? Are you one of those featured? Are you like them? 🤔 I can’t think of any other reason why you’d think they didn’t deserve this. They were fucking vile creatures.

Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:36

VimtoIcePop · 01/10/2025 23:35

I'm not at all condoning the culture in the police force, but I think most of us could be made to look pretty bad if a selection of things we'd said in private were aired.

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I hear you, but I think it's safe to say that no selective stuff was aired just for good TV. This was pretty cut and dry imo.

Crikeyalmighty · 01/10/2025 23:36

absolutely unbelievable shit from the animals featured . You may as well have stuck the average football yob element of clubs like Millwall on the job If I can say the women officers based there came out very well and the reporter made it clear their were some very good officers too It wasn’t just the mysogeny or the racism or the violence it was the totally hypersexualised sleazy banter that was bandied around whilst being on the job . I’m not a particularly woke person but this was way beyond that it was totally awful and I think yes it needs to be out there My brother in law was quite high up in the police at one point and since he has left the police he’s a much nicer person far more able to not see stuff just in black and white If anyone watches this and think heads shouldn’t roll then your values are to me way off Personally I would go further and I think several on this documentary should be prosecuted and lose their pension too which we are all paying for

VimtoIcePop · 01/10/2025 23:35

Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 23:27

I get what you’re saying and my work talk would also be boring. However, I am assuming you’re not a police officer dealing with rapists and violent thugs day in and day out - naturally your work chat in that case is going to veer into opinions on that.

I’m not saying their views weren’t horrible to hear or that they haven’t fallen very short of the standard we should expect from police officers, but I can see how it would be easier for them to start sharing how they think we should shoot rapists in the dick once they’re a few pints in vs you or I at our work drinks. So for the average person it’s really shocking to talk about that, but for a police officer it’s a daily topic at work.

Which is why the clips should have been shown to higher ups and them be fired, but I don’t see the public benefit in identifying the individuals in question. They could have blurred their faces and used their conversations as “examples” of the terrible culture, we didn’t need to know the identity of the police officer who was basically just spouting Reform talking points with a police brutality twist.

And I just totally disagree that if you don’t say anything you’re ashamed of you shouldn’t have to fear documentaries like this. It’s like saying “people with nothing to hide have nothing to fear” to excuse mass surveillance. It’s Orwellian!

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I'm not at all condoning the culture in the police force, but I think most of us could be made to look pretty bad if a selection of things we'd said in private were aired.

Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:34

Livelovebehappy · 01/10/2025 23:32

Do they? How do you know that? The bad apples are generally exposed, as in the Panarama program, but that reflects a minority. There’s approx 170k in the police force in the UK, and I would imagine the vast majority are decent, without evidence to say otherwise.

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Because you see them convicted in the news.
Because we've just seen quite a lot of them and this is just one police station out of many, made by a reporter who never quite got their trust.

Now, how do you know that it isn't the case?

Livelovebehappy · 01/10/2025 23:32

Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:27

The Met do seem to have a higher proportion of bad apples tho don't they?

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Do they? How do you know that? The bad apples are generally exposed, as in the Panarama program, but that reflects a minority. There’s approx 170k in the police force in the UK, and I would imagine the vast majority are decent, without evidence to say otherwise.

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 01/10/2025 23:31

Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:27

The Met do seem to have a higher proportion of bad apples tho don't they?

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Exactly. It's never one bad apple. How many officers was Wayne Couzens in that WA group with? Or those officers who posted the photos they illegally took of the murdered sisters in a London park and posted online. The recruit's covertly filmed in the other Panorama I posted about before.

One bad apple I can excuse but there are barrowfulls of the fuckers in the met.

Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:31

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If you google, there's been quite a lot going wrong with Met officers that have been fired, jailed.., it's not just Cousins. I hear what you're saying, but Cousins was the one that made people sit up and take notice for a change.

It's not just that either, we only get to hear a few imo. Am sure there are other officers who look out for their own, cover up and also cases that don't get to go to court because of the CPS decisions.

Original poster
Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 23:31

MysticalBiscuit · 01/10/2025 23:27

This.

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Totally! But would it be fair for a journalist to pose as a nurse, take a young nurse to the pub, tell that nurse she thinks that all the elderly patients are taking up too many beds, and then secretly record her response after 4 wines and put the recording, alongside her identity on a BBC documentary about toxic culture at the NHS? I just don’t think the identity of the nurse would be relevant to the documentary.

OP posts:
VimtoIcePop · 01/10/2025 23:29

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sugarapplelane · 01/10/2025 23:28

JazzyJelly · 01/10/2025 23:24

From what I saw I don't think he thought she lied.

I think he just didn't give a shit that she'd been attacked, or that releasing the suspect could well lead to him attacking her again.

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I know and I thought that because of this a females would look down on these men and be ashamed and disgusted, but then you get awful posts like the one I quoted.

Original poster
Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 23:27

MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack · 01/10/2025 23:00

I have tried to understand your perspective on this, OP, but I don't really get why you think they shouldn't be exposed.

If you feel that it is appropriate to express certain views or sentiments to your work colleagues, I am not really sure why you would have concerns about other people knowing that you hold such views or sentiments because you presumably believe that the views or sentiments you are expressing are perfectly acceptable.

If you don't say anything that you would be really ashamed of, then there isn't anything to fear from documentaries like this.

If people secretly filmed me talking to my colleagues, they might hear a few inappropriate expletives or some minor gripes, but it would mostly be boringly professional. Because it's a work environment and that's what's expected.

I'm afraid I don't really have any sympathy with the people who were caught on camera saying awful things. If they hadn't said those things, then there wouldn't be a story to tell.

I get what you’re saying and my work talk would also be boring. However, I am assuming you’re not a police officer dealing with rapists and violent thugs day in and day out - naturally your work chat in that case is going to veer into opinions on that.

I’m not saying their views weren’t horrible to hear or that they haven’t fallen very short of the standard we should expect from police officers, but I can see how it would be easier for them to start sharing how they think we should shoot rapists in the dick once they’re a few pints in vs you or I at our work drinks. So for the average person it’s really shocking to talk about that, but for a police officer it’s a daily topic at work.

Which is why the clips should have been shown to higher ups and them be fired, but I don’t see the public benefit in identifying the individuals in question. They could have blurred their faces and used their conversations as “examples” of the terrible culture, we didn’t need to know the identity of the police officer who was basically just spouting Reform talking points with a police brutality twist.

And I just totally disagree that if you don’t say anything you’re ashamed of you shouldn’t have to fear documentaries like this. It’s like saying “people with nothing to hide have nothing to fear” to excuse mass surveillance. It’s Orwellian!

OP posts:
Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:27

Livelovebehappy · 01/10/2025 23:26

They might not be perfect, but I’d rather have them than not. I guess it’s a case of there being bad apples in every profession, be it nurses, teachers, doctors. Many in the police force do a fantastic job in very difficult circumstances. It’s not fair to tar them all with the same brush as some posting on here are doing.

The Met do seem to have a higher proportion of bad apples tho don't they?

MysticalBiscuit · 01/10/2025 23:27

Lougle · 01/10/2025 23:05

The whole point is that they don't get to be off duty. Ever. They are held to the policing standards at all times that they are a serving police officer, whether on duty or off duty. Just as Nurses can be hauled before the NMC for their conduct whilst off duty, and Social Workers can be brought before Social Work England for their conduct.

Public Professionals have to maintain and embody the standards of their profession in their daily lives. They can't just 'put them on' like a uniform.

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This.

Happyjoe · 01/10/2025 23:26

JazzyJelly · 01/10/2025 23:24

From what I saw I don't think he thought she lied.

I think he just didn't give a shit that she'd been attacked, or that releasing the suspect could well lead to him attacking her again.

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He said something along the lines of 'that's what she says', implying he didn't believe her.
I think it was more than just not caring.

Livelovebehappy · 01/10/2025 23:26

They might not be perfect, but I’d rather have them than not. I guess it’s a case of there being bad apples in every profession, be it nurses, teachers, doctors. Many in the police force do a fantastic job in very difficult circumstances. It’s not fair to tar them all with the same brush as some posting on here are doing.

PrincessScarlett · 01/10/2025 23:25

Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 23:11

Yes I understand that, and the consequences of breaking the code should be that your police career is over. The consequences for the young officers in this documentary will be much wider reaching than just the loss of their job.

Most commenters seem too disgusted by the content of their opinions to find the 1984 style implications uncomfortable though.

As you say, god knows what’s happened to people in their custody because we certainly don’t as the documentary didn’t bother to actually uncover much of that - which would have made a better documentary than the implication that we should all just expect constant surveillance and that anything we say, even in private and sometimes even without context, can and should be aired by the BBC!

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I do get what you are saying about one or two of the pub conversations. At best they could be described as crude banter and something that was never intended to be said outside a small close knit of colleagues.

However, as the documentary went on, you cannot excuse Sergeant Stamp telling the undercover journalist to play down the level of violence used or there would be a complaint. Or the other sergeant automatically thinking a victim of domestic abuse is lying. Or the PC at the end who assaulted a vulnerable 17 year old and laughed and gloated about it, held extreme racist views and talked about killing black and islamic people by shooting them in the head or penis.

pumpkinscake · 01/10/2025 23:24

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Wow. This is just a horrible comment.