That the police don't vet their officers

[OneTC]

And if not, why not?

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-64289461

As a female cop I despair at the damage these kind of cops and the force failings have on public opinion of the police, and that's without going in to my feelings for the victims of the corrupt officers.

@gold22 - thank you for recognising that. I can’t imagine being a female police officer is easy either.

@OneTC - depends on the level of clearance. An appeals process on vetting which is subjective is quite problematic.

For example, you may never know why you failed higher clearance. For a police or probation officer to be able to make an appeal as of right is outrageous. Fair process (and btw it's not criminal law here) would suggest that you could ask for one and present reasons. Then maybe you actually get the appeal. But a process where you just get one if you ask? Ridiculous. It is totally subjective.

Clearance about risk is where you offer information about yourself for employment and the risks you present. It is not normal employment law.

As it was Carrick managed to put his renewal off and then apparently appealed so it came 6 years later. You see how this can be abused.

Well, partly since his mates on the force have more than once had a go at me in public for ‘grassing’ on him, I don’t feel especially safe around the police.
partly because I’m disabled as a direct result of his actions which means I couldn’t anyway.
partly because I don’t have any faith that my volunteering would change anything about the ‘protect our own’ mentality and bully boy culture.
and partly because it’s not my job to fix the police force ‘as a volunteer’ it’s the people who are meant to be the experts who get paid a ton of money who should be doing that.

I think for a first allegation no, when we are on allegation 2 or 3 or 9…yes.

What’s your feelings on a culture of sexism and bullying in the police force as a woman? I’m genuinely interested how your experience has been.

I cannot understand why people on this thread are defending Carrick and Couzens and all the rest of them. And they are defending them by saying being a police officer is a hard job. Yes it is and made harder by officers like Carrick who is a rapist and a torturer and Couzens who is a rapist and murderer.

You'd think decent officers would want to get rid of them. I would. Instead we have people who claim to be police officers' wives saying the answer to this is us volunteering.

I am luckily quite unlikely to be the victim of trash like this because I am not in the demographic where I am likely to come to serious harm at the hands of the Met - or bad apples as apologists like to say.

I'm not a single woman dating men - whether or not serving Met officers - or a young black person, either a schoolgirl who Plod thinks I smell of weed or a young black man particularly one in possession of a nice car.

But who knows? I do sometimes walk home alone late at night and not that far from Clapham Common like Sarah Everard. And I am an interfering old bag so this might happen to me. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10453691/Cambridge-graduate-recalls-clothes-cut-officers-intervening-stop-search.html

I deliberately linked to the Daily Mail because if they are saying it's bad, it's got to be, hasn't it?

So I have no confidence in The Met or posters making apologies. They have to earn it.

This is my local police station btw www.standard.co.uk/news/london/met-police-charing-cross-iopc-operation-hotton-b993054.html

Would you fancy your chances of reporting a rape there?

Apparently another one of this terrible cases listed for next month.

Carrick is getting a life sentence, and presumably a long term.

If you are a police officer and you commit a serious crime it should mean longer in prison. I dare say Carrick was advised that the weight of the evidence was just so huge that he should plead guilty and try and get a "discount" on his sentence.

I shouldn't think that will work- he's going to be classified like Couzens, a terrorist of women.

@LexMitior - I agree, if you are the enforcer of the law and you break it, it should mean harsher outcomes.

Apparently another one of this terrible cases listed for next month.

@LexMitior yes but like Carrick's and Couzens's are covered by reporting restrictions so the details aren't widely known but I'm guessing it's not going to be good for The Met and their apologists.

I was trying to work out Carrick's sentence according to judges' rules. My head spun at the aggravating factors. It will be a long time but arguably it would be shorter if he was a common or garden rapist and torturer and hater of women rather than someone in a position of trust and authority like a police officer. But then it might not have been so easy and not so many people would be sticking up for pore old coppers doing a hard job.

It does, as the breach of trust element is considered.

I mean it should be in statute, not sentencing guidelines.

With the word "police" in it

@limitedperiodonly you complain about people defending “all the rest of them”. Why shouldn’t people defend hard working and dedicated individuals who have committed no crime? These sweeping generalisations are nonsense.

Actually I would extend that to any class of public sector personnel who have police powers. There are rather a lot of them!

But we are talking about a pervasive culture. These are not one off incidents. Look at the Charing Cross station scandal. This is commonplace acceptable behaviour in this profession. People can NAPALT all they like, but it’s enough of them that the police need to face up to it, not have their defenders try to shut down legitimate criticism.

Why should anyone have to defend hard working and dedicated individuals @Greenshake?

Grateful as I am for their efforts I just take it as read that people, police officers included, do the jobs they are paid to do without raping and murdering those who they meet in the course of their business.

It doesn't seem like too much to ask. But it seems it is.

It''s like @OMG12 insisting we can only offer constructive criticism if we volunteer to do those jobs in our spare time for no payment.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a public spirited person who helps old ladies cross the road and is kind to animals but I have my own job to do. If I had to be a Met police officer on a volunteer basis as well I don't know how I'd fit all that in as well as swapping WhatsApp tips about rape like at Charing Cross, photographing murder victims for fun www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/06/two-met-police-officers-jailed-photos-murdered-sisters-deniz-jaffer-jamie-lewis-nicole-smallman-bibaa-henry as well as burning the evidence as Wayne Couzens did.

I have I missed anything out? Of course I have. How many Met officers are currently under investigating for offences of domestic violence and other offences against women?

Is it 800 for 1,000 offences or 1,000 officers for 800? How many of his "toxic" officers did Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley say he wished he could sack but his hands were tied? I think it was 150. Whatever it is it seems quite a lot.

You have your opinions, I have mine. I just don’t buy into these generalisations - as the fact is that these Officers ARE the minority.

👏👏👏👏

This is going to be highly controversial bit here goes:

The police force should be dominated by women with very few men being permitted to join. And with all the top jobs being women too.

I think that would solve most of the problems within the police.

The current problem with the police is because it is dominated by men. I think we should be able to name the problem.

Let the NAMALT begin/s

I think vet is the wrong word as they are vetted but only for convictions/cautions and financial issues. Are you suggesting every new recruit receives psychological profiling, or someone delves into all their social media presence since 18? That would he very impractical..
I do think complaints and allegations should be investigated thoroughly though but this relies on either victims or colleagues/associates to make those concerns known.
We should all play a part even if it's just reporting someone for being rude or not taking you seriously.
Sadly 'bad' people will always be drawn to positions of power.

@JudgeRudy - if private employers can do psychological tests and delve into social media histories, the police definitely can. I don’t think it’s impractical to make new recruits sit a psychological assessment, in fact I’d call that bare minimum.

They do get social media checked by the way but it is reliant on candidates handing over their usernames. Most police officers I know do not use their real or full name on social media. I can see why for security reasons when it comes to dealing with criminals, but also means they can’t easily be checked.

Neither, if they still have two brain cells still in working order ...

Even when occasionally police gets it right, it feels more like that was done by mistake, not by design.

You realise that your post could be a good pretext to start a NAWALT thread?

SwordToFlamethrower
This is going to be highly controversial bit here goes:
The police force should be dominated by women with very few men being permitted to join. And with all the top jobs being women too.

You could do

But on the same argument - nursing should be dominated by male nurses - due to the likes of Beverly Allitt, Gene Jones, Kristen Gilbert etc etc

We share the opinion that they probably are the minority @Greenshake . It's not because I know but I just cling to the hope despite troubling incidents.

But in my opinion it's quite a sizeable minority and those are just the ones who've been caught or the ones Sir Mark Rowley wants to sack but can't. I suspect if the Met Commissioner is admitting to a problem, it exists and it's probably larger than he's letting on.

I can't go along with people here insisting that most officers are decent, kind and law-abiding because I haven't done a thorough survey. I suspect you haven't either beyond insisting your hubby's not like that and neither are some of his friends.