To hate the police?

[DrHolmes]

BF was pulled over by an unmarked police car today. He got out of his van and was told he was not wearing his seatbelt and they issued him with a £60 ticket. I came home from work and he told me the story and told me he was wearing it. He has a beeper that goes off every few seconds if he doesnt have it on and no one would drive about listening to that. I know he is telling the truth. If we appeal it then we put our case forward and then goes to court but if the fiscal find the police in favour we will have a higher fine. But i do not want him to pay the fine because that is letting them away with this. Corrupt filth. Not sure what to do :/

I have rarely seen it declared in court that officers have written their statements together.

Irrespective of this, in my view officers should NEVER be writing their statements together (even though I understand that it is permitted.) Why on earth would anyone think this is acceptable. How can it be considered their own independent account of events when they have written it together; their statements become the merging of two accounts and it smacks of collusion, particularly when the evidence of the officers is in relation to something which is likely to be contentious.

Hopefully these new conduct regulations will mean that 'good' officers stop covering up for the lying/bullies - I think that once they stop doing so, the lying/bullies will be weeded out and the public perception of the police will improve significantly. It has gone on for far too long. Officers have to stop saying 'there are a few bad apples' as if this can't be helped, and make a stand against them. Until they do that, my sympathy for them being tarred with the same brush, is somewhat limited.

I don't really understand your comment about officers having a higher level of behaviour to adhere to in their personal life, in the context of them reporting colleagues offending/dishonest etc.

The number of women in the police has also increased over the last 19 years to nearly a third. I think this makes a difference too. Women deal with aggressive offenders differently and try and diffuse rather than dominate.

^^ This I completely agree with.

Dispute it. If they issue a ticket they need evidence so there should be an image either on the cars equipment or an actual camera. At any point did your BF agree that he wasn't wearing SB? Without any of the above thru wouldn't issue a fixed penalty normally so you have a good case. Represent yourselves in court and have a recording of the "no seatbelt" alarm noise.

Thats what I have been wondering 10storeylovesong.
The police can issue a ticket with no visual evidence to back it up?

Late Last Year:
Me: DH why are you late off?
DH: I got assaulted, had to do the paperwork.
This is at least every 6 months because my husband wears the uniform.

Yeah, very corrupt. Now there are some bloody idiots in the force, Ive met a few, and man they dont make you feel safe, but thank God for the officers like my husband, who love their job, and do it because they want to help people.
I'll never forget the night when he came home having saved a man who got stabbed near KFC (we take our chicken seriously round here) and had to watch him in the operating theatre in case he died and then he would have had to go tell the family.
I really wish that people would look at what the police actually do, rather than presuming things, like that the police obviously send people down, or not, when that is the CPS or courts. They used to, but they dont anymore, they dont really have any powers like that. How much do you think it annoys the officers when they have worked hard to get their case together, evidence etc for the CPS to say no, no case there.
Bankers, Police Officers, Journalists, they are all the same, and in each others pockets too apparently. I am living in waaay too small a house for that to be true!!!

Ex police officer here.... I was never anything but fair and helpful

Thanks for the hatred tho

dreamingofthemaldives - an excellent point very well put. There are definitely many many more good officers than bad, but as long as the good are protecting the bad, the only person who loses out is Joe Public...who is in no position to argue whilst his face is being smashed on the floor, and is not believed when he complains about it because of the collusion of the good officers with the bad. Although, if you're covering for someone who has done wrong, doesn't that put you in the bracket of 'bad' cop anyway?

If I was working with someone who lied or stole or who broke the rules at work, I wouldn't hesitate to make it known to a superior...I would feel it was my duty. The fact that some 'law enforcement officers' DON'T do that, is very worrying for the rest of us.

Like a fair amount of folk here we have been on receiving end of the law [actually booked for parking wrong way round outside our door years ago ! ] and speeding on dual carriage way etc.
Similarly when my son was a teenager and robbed in city centre /neighbour terrorised by local yob the police were professional,kind and worked hard to resolve the issues .
I do not know of any work that involves such a shift in mindset on ONE shift that takes you from a violent altercation / burglary/ domestic violence ....oh and the burning car on the road with family and dog inside .........to having to do a death informed to a distraught parent . This is the life of a first response officer .
Yup there are bad officers no doubt as in walks of life . But when I get narked by the road police I take into account the horror they deal with and understand the law .

Definately challenge if you are innocent of course .but please do not say "I hate the Police" .

can i just reiterate that i have not personally seen any dubious or corrupt behaviour among my colleagues - i know of one incident on another duty group where an officer used unnecessary force and was held to account for it - rightly so imo. I would not stand by and say nothing if i saw something that was wrong. This assumption that there are lots of individuals who act improperly but the rest of us stand by doing nothing is just not true. And i agree that there are not enough women in the force - that said there is a small contingent of officers (i work with one) who believe that women should not be in the police.

i acknowledge that some of the posters on this thread say they have come across officers who have treated someone they know of unfairly - but that is the persons perception - often a victim has unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved but feel badly done to, so its always the polices fault, its always the police that let them down - even though it could be that the officer is acting properly but is restricted as to what they can do do to lack of evidence or because of protocols or procedure etc.

its a very very difficult job and one that i, and most of my colleagues do to the best of their ability. We dont always get the results we want or that our victims want, but i try very hard. As basset said the diversity of jobs is huge - one moment comforting a victim or delivering a death warning, the next dealing with violence, or drunks fighting, the next attending RTCs where you may need to administer first aid or close a road while getting all the details for the paperwork....i realise some of the time what we do is unpopular because, my DH has had speeding points - its a pita - but its the law and if you get caught breaking it you have to take responsibility.

Vicar, I dont think it can be said that "it is the persons perception". It can sometimes be the truth.

fwiw, I know a retired policeman, who, for several years afterwards, used to go round still pretending he was a real cop.
My DH and I ended up reporting him. Dont know what happened to him.

what im trying to say is that sometimes a persons dissatisfaction is not always down to the police - it can be the CPS, or circumstances, or lack of evidence that dictates what can, or cannot be done.

fwiw - the police service is a very different thing to what it was years ago - yes in the 70s and early 80s, pre pace, i have no doubt that dubious things happened - ive heard about them.

the police themselves are more likely now to be at the wrong end of a spurious accusation than the other way around - and the culture is very different -. Any sniff of misconduct and the job will hang you out to dry first - ask questions later.

I'm 43 and have never had an 'experience' with the police? What are you doing to have 'experiences' with them?

Its unpleasant and nasty to call the police 'filth', they are doing a job and it makes you sound immature.

Like any job, they will have good and bad, so not all the police are the same.

I'd be interested to know who you'd call if your house was broken into or you were assaulted etc, surely not the 'corrupt filth'!

He needs to appeal or pay up.

You sound ridiculous OP. I have no more to add.

And actually the police were as helpful and kind in the mid 80s when I was in my mid 20s as they were last year when I was in my early 50s and married for 20+ years to someone who is a very senior lawyer whom they would undoubtedly discover if they were to google me and I have no doubt they found that out before we got the 2.30am call about the Oyster Card. Nevertheless they got a bollocking over procedure from DH the next day, regardless.

In my experience, incompetent, lazy, feckless wankers with almost zero respect for the law themselves. of those i know/knew, 1 embezzler, 1 raped his two daughters from when they were 6, 1 held 2 illegal firearms & took a lot of class As, confiscated from clubbers, 1 drove everywhere at at least twice the speed limit, 1 used to play 7Up, eg stop every 7th blue car & fabricate some reason to fine them, there was one who severely beat his wife, to the point that he was charged with attempted manslaughter, & I don't know THAT many people!.

When we were burgled the feckers took everything & I mean EVERYTHING. As well as being useless, the two cops were extremely insensitive. Then to top it all off, a couple of weeks later, they found my husband's fleece (with a name tag in, his mum sewed it in for uni ) with his corporate credit card (stolen) & a large quantity of drugs, in a bush. They arrested him, at work, on my birthday! It took them 6 hours to look up their systems & see that the items had been reported stolen!

So, fucking useless, yes!

ah well, there we go then. we are all useless fuckers.
and fed up.

I didn't say they were useless fuckers!

no you didnt married
babies did.

I have for the most part had really good experiences with the Police but I have also had negative experiences too.

A couple of years ago I was in a black cab in central London chatting to the cabbie, when we were pulled over. The WPC accused the cabbie of using his mobile phone, he wasn't, we were discussing the phasing of lights. He pointed to the footwell next to him and said, "but my phone is there." To which she responded, "Well I saw you throw it down there." At this point, I intervened as she failed to notice me sitting in the back, "Can I help you officer, this gentlemen was actually talking to me and certainly not using his phone, do you think you should check his phone log?" Her face was a picture... but the cabbie was in bits. He was so shocked and when I asked if he wanted to make a complaint, she moved off pretty smartly. Now I hope that she is the exception rather than the rule...

On another occasion, I was told that I was the only person who had called regarding an incident in my street... in fact seven of us had called... that time, at least I received an apology.

To be honest it makes me just a little disappointed as I have always been brought up to trust the Police but these incidents have made me a wary,middle-aged, grey haired woman.

Night Vic - and thanks for all you have done for us and hopefully for what you might yet do. I am grateful you and others like you are out there.

thanks married (still not clicked the bloody hide button which i really do need to do.....even DH tells me to hide these threads now and he is very anti establishment!)

latte - the police are human. I stop no one now unless i am 100% sure that they were doing what i think they were.....but its not a crime to stop someone and ask them what they were doing if you think they were using a phone etc. its pretty easy to prove if they werent.
and the other thing where you got told that only you had phoned - when you phone 999 or 101 you get through to a call handler - not a police officer. Several people do that job. So while you may get told by one operator or one police officer that only one call was made - unless we have access to every call with every handler its hard to know who called and how many times - if i get told there has been one call i tend to take that as red - there could of course have been more that i am not privvy too unless the dispatcher has relayed that message.
of all the things to complain about im scratching my head at wanting an apology because you are not the only one who called.....

i truly do need to go away from this thread now. it is getting slighly ridiculous and i could sit all night and try to explain - those that hate the police will still do so and those that dont will do likewise. im wasting my breath and my touch typing skills here arent i.....

Night Vic - go on night; night; go on, you put the phone down first; night then, bye. tell you what; I'll pm you if they kick off again

no...you first

(do you remember those conversations!!)

bye.....
go on then....
bye....
goodnight...
bye.....
hello? hello? you still there?
ah.....
goodnight then.
yep
goodnight
put the phone down then....go on....you first.....
no
you first.....

i hate people who keep on saying ' i am hiding the thread' but stick around. attn seeking much