Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Met officer charged with rape and stalking

7 replies

username44416 · 31/08/2024 11:41

When are the Met going to sort out their men problem? Throughout my life, I've heard about domestic abuse by police officers, they're renowned for it. When are they going to recruit decent human beings who don't rape and murder members of the public?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/31/met-police-officer-charged-rape-and-stalking

Met police officer charged with rape and stalking

The accusations against PC Jake Cummings relate to three women, and include voyeurism and coercive behaviour

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/31/met-police-officer-charged-rape-and-stalking

OP posts:
TerfTalking · 31/08/2024 11:47

Another one? Quelle suprise!. Pretty sure there are a fair few still out there waiting for the knock on their own doors.

Honestly, as a middle aged woman with no reason to dislike the police, I have zero faith in any of our police forces. Corrupt and institutionalised racists and misogynists.

Hufflemuff · 31/08/2024 11:52

Because these arseholes join the police because they want to be given power to use over others!

I think the entry psychiatric testing needs an update! If there even is one!?

samarrange · 31/08/2024 12:03

The issue is not so much in hiring, it's in supervision and discipline. The culture needs to change to not tolerate sexist banter, to not cover up minor wrongdoing that leads to major wrongdoing. But changing culture is hard, because the people who have to do it are the senior leaders, who rose through the ranks in the middle of exactly that culture.

I don't think the police are hiring convicted criminals, or even people who have been close to being convicted of serious offences. But I'm not sure how we can weed bad people out in advance, if they have no previous record. We can't look into people's souls. There are no foolproof personality tests that will tell you if someone is significantly more likely than someone else to abuse their power.

To some extent the job of police officer, like some other jobs that involve dealing with people, will attract a percentage of the wrong sort of people. But then, we also expect the police to be streetwise and to be prepared to use force, if necessary. Statistically, the people who meet that description are probably more likely to have a tendency to commit violent crimes as well.

And we need a lot of them. We could have a 5-year probation period with an office's every move followed by a partner or with daily replays of their bodycam footage, but it would cost a fortune, and it would probably put people off applying. There are all kinds of ambiguities and tradeoffs.

So I'm afraid that these kinds of stories will continue, even if we do manage to fix the culture (which will be hard). I think about the best we can expect is that we pick up the bad people earlier, after they have committed one offence and not several. And maybe we can do something at the level of society or education to make men less awful, because ultimately, these offences are basically "men as usual", just with added abuse of official power.

samarrange · 31/08/2024 12:05

Hufflemuff · 31/08/2024 11:52

Because these arseholes join the police because they want to be given power to use over others!

I think the entry psychiatric testing needs an update! If there even is one!?

I think the entry psychiatric testing needs an update! If there even is one!?

I think you may be a little optimistic about what the psych___ professions can do to predict future behaviour among the ordinary population.

redalex261 · 31/08/2024 12:07

@samarrange nailed it.

Edingril · 31/08/2024 12:08

Once they know about it yes it should be dealt with but if there no police record before they are recruited which I presume may rule them out in the first place, they wouldn't have it tattooed on their forehead so how would they know?

Aquamarine1029 · 31/08/2024 12:10

There will always be problems like this with jobs that provide easy access to victims and bestow power for their predators.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page