The head of the IOPC has been charged with raping a girl under 16

[Clymene]

Michael Lockwood.

Fucking hell, the police are riddled with these allegedly rapey men

Post edited by MNHQ

@Brefugee of course there's crap people in every job. It's not an inherent problem of the police - half of which are female..and plenty of minority members..

What?! Are you suggesting an ongoing culture of racism and misogyny is irrelevant? It’s bloody relevant not just because of the crime then but because it’s lead to a culture of mistrust and what we had was probably undeserved unique.

I know so many officers and I work with police often

I know loads too. And?

@Jellyx I assume you’re married to a copper, you’re not really adding to this thread.
I have never worked in a organisation where naming a colleague “the rapist” wouldn’t have been the presage to multiple reports, grievances, and swiftly dealt with.
The fact that lol, he’s a bit rapey was as it got speaks volumes about the culture.

I can't be bothered with it either.

Stop slagging off the police as a whole. They're not all corrupt

But there’s a massive bystander effect isn’t there. If policemen are jokily refereed to by their colleagues in terms that would lead to an investigation in any other workplace, if cohorts of them send each other picture of murdered women. A few bad apples have tainted all police.
The trust and respect has gone.

No -not married. Lots of family and friend though. You have no idea what they go through- it's not in the news when they commit suicide or see their colleague hand chopped off by a machete..
Then they go to the next house and get called pigs.. and slagged off all over MM.

Really sad to see. So I don't blame so many good ones for leaving.

@Jellyx and @SamphireSandwich .. 75% of prosecutions are found guilty by juries. For those cases who reach the very high bar set by the CPS, there is not a lack of evidence and juries are not swayed by the traumatising defences that rape victims are faced with in court.

The problem is the gap between reported cases and prosecutions and further downstream, the cultural and societal factors that lead women to believe that the will not be fairly treated and that justice is not available to them.

Actually according to the ONS it is more like 34% and a lot of those are not frontline.

Not all but fucking loads are! Their working culture is vile!

Why have you tagged me in this?

If the good ones stayed and stamped out this awful culture I'd understand, but they don't. Not that I blame them. My colleague worked her backside off to get through training and start working as a police officer. When the bullying started after training, she reported it and reported it several times over. It was all brushed under the carpet and she left. It's a shame because she would have been brilliant.

So you are saying the not good ones are the ones that don't leave?

How are they to weed out the bad ones when the person hired to oversee weeding out the bad ones has himself been charged with multiple sexual assaults and rapes?

Sorry @SamphireSandwich ... .. wrong again.. my mistake.

No worries, I was just confused!

ChateauMargaux
The convincing narrative comes in where the crime is an 'historic' one. That is to say it is outside the forensic window. So we only have the account of the victim/survivor. There will be no witnesses, no CCTV, DNA etc etc.

Unless the suspect has admitted the offence - you are going to have one word against the other, which usually for other offences will not result in a charge to court. But for rape offences, such a statement from the victim/survivor will be enough and CPS will charge.

"....If changes have been made and only 3% of reports are prosecuted, I would suggest that those changes are nowhere near sufficient...."
The changes that have been made include always believing the victim from the outset and not challenging their account, not putting any pressure on them to go through the medical procedure or go to court, have a specific SARC unit to attend for any medical procedure, have access to a number of support agencies, have an allocated ISVA, regular updates for the victim/survivor, early arrest of the suspect as they will also be in a forensic time window, use of dry cells and medical swabs from them, specific police teams to investigation (CID, DV, CAVA), specialist CPS lawyers for rape cases, specialised rape & sexual violence courts with a host of special measures (video links etc)

These are the changes that have been made - what other suggestions or measures would you like to see?

The guys been charged. He denies the allegations. Nothing's been proved as yet.

No surprise. Rotten to the core.

And probably won’t be…….. because he’s turned a blind eye to god knows what in the force.

But it doesn’t mean he didn’t commit the rape(s),

He's entitled to due process and for the evidence to be heard before he is judged. You would want the same for yourself and your family members.

But the chances are he’ll get away with it, because you know the police look after their own!

Rotten to the core!

Why would the police want to protect a member of the IOPC? The police hate the internal investigations officers. And, anyway, this guy is not and never has been a police officer. He worked in local govt.

These inaccurate claims are exactly why we need to wait til it's gone through court and accurate information is given and considered.

It's anecdotal but a friend works as a civilian detective investigating sex crimes. It's pretty clear her colleagues are overwhelming female. (She talks about it a lot. 😟)