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

[Bloodyscarymary]

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

Yes there does seem to be a definite propensity to SA in the police force.

Let's not forget that some of the Rotherham victims were also raped by police officers.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/29/five-survivors-rotherham-grooming-gangs-claim-rape-police&ved=2ahUKEwibwuDf14SQAxV8Q0EAHeGPLPYQFnoECCQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw310fJysQ1FdEiqhPLNOOHZ

I feel sad for your uncle and the view he had is one shared by the majority of ppl who never had cause for any direct contact with the police - save for reporting a theft perhaps, in which case the officers were probably courteous and polite. Those on the receiving end of the bigotry and violence meted out to the ‘difficult’ members of society - petty criminals, ppl falsely accused, mental health sufferers, homosexuals, other races - even female and elderly non-violent protesters/ demonstrators would have had and do have a far different experience.

But as I said in an earlier post, this isn’t just a Met thing, I assure you it’s endemic in all forces across the country. The U.K. may have far higher standards compared with other countries across the globe but the corruption and abuse is everywhere. The Met is just having a spotlight on it due to recent highly publicised cases that’s all.

It’s not just the Met

Have a read of this article, OP. The Met police were effectively complicit in the rape of nearly 50 women by David Carrick. He even urinated in women’s mouths.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/16/met-police-david-carrick-one-woman-act-of-bravery-abuse

The same conversations are definitely not going on in every workplace. I worked in a Higher Education institution with large numbers of international students for over 25 years and not once did I hear a colleague make a racist or sexist remark. I worked with some difficult people over the years but thankfully none of them spouted racist and misogynistic views in the workplace. If they had those views, they kept them to themselves and didn't let it affect how they did their job.

The question I guess is - is the police force as a whole attracting hyper-sexualised, hyper-violent men who commit DV and SA themselves in and out of work, due to the nature of the job requiring a certain type who aren’t afraid to get stuck in when dealing with violent offenders, or are these men literally everywhere and would be doing the same thing if their job gave them the power, authority and opportunity to do so, and get away with it (until now)

It’s interesting that there doesn’t seem to be as many reports (comparatively) of women behaving in a similar way having joined the same force. I wonder why.

Yabvu. I do not pay my taxes to have these vile individuals in charge of " law and order." They were not ashamed to spout such vile views so why not expoae them?

Can I ask why they are still in your friendship group?

I have no sympathy whatsoever for these men. I do feel bad for their family members, especially their children, who may now be targets for abuse themselves.

As one from a family of coppers - all decent men - I’d say you’re talking rubbish. Good coppers want this cancer excised, and they know that exposure like this is a necessary and painful part of that operation.

That is supporting them.

True

We are 30+ years on from the absolute disgrace of the Stephen Lawrence investigation that was severely hampered by the inherent racism of the police.

Something needs to change. If this documentary gives the powers that be the kick up the arse they need, then good, it is a long time coming.

I have no sympathy for the police featured in the program.

“Letting off steam”? FML. I work in a high pressure environment with some of the most vulnerable in society each day and I don’t care how stressed or drunk I am - I would never say what those officers did. Why? Because I’m not a vile, misogynistic racist so those thoughts are not in my head.

"toxic culture" is such a copout. As though culture just "happens" independently of people making decisions, over and over again, every day.

And the "high moral standard" of....what, not being an overt racist? Not espousing battering a pregnant woman?

Fuck me.

Anyway this was some quality journalism. Truth to power, in the public interest. Great work.

Word went out that from January this year a custody leadership team would start reviewing 30 'use of force' incidents a month. Only written records, to be reviewed, not CCTV footage, and no dip sampling. All custody suite officers know about it and why there's an ongoing focus. Some chose to clean up, others to double down on their notoriety but watch their backs.

No sympathy for the exposure of their behavior publicly, whatsoever.
When news of their arrests leaked before it hit the news, lots of side bets on which police station it would be, by both police and others, were straight on the money.

Why? Because they've been so indiscreet, and whistle blowers got nowhere, that loads of people both serving officers and community already knew the sketch, that the system was being gamed, and the powers that be where in denial.

Just as this lot air their beliefs, frustrations, misogyny, and daring do, unguarded in public places at times, and exert pressure on how things should be handled, so do many who have to tolerate being around them, both with internal and external knowledge.

Knowing who and where not to end up around, is part of London survival, for all sorts of people including those who don't commit commit offenses.
Met officers have to adjust or give up their careers to avoid some places and units, and some of it's an open secret.

Openly disgrace the reputations of those who try to work to decent standards, and seek to undermine those who think it's a job with personal standards, rather than a rule book to get around and freedom to create your own world and replicate your own dodgy values and supposed 'justice' by abusing the power and position you hold, and there's a reasonable chance you can now expect to be arrested in uniform, not receive cover up from on high, and be shown publicly as exactly who you are, and your family, neighbors, supermarket cashiers, etc, all be aware.
It isn't something no one knows could happen if they carry on, yet a certain type consistently do. Some gamekeepers and poachers have the same traits.

There's a simple solution to avoid these issues, understood by most serving police officers.

I agree their identities should be hidden although only to ensure their families protection, we’ve seen it before where someone has been in the news for whatever reasons and their family has been ostracised, their homes vandalised along with them being verbally and in some cases physically attacked for their loved ones views/behaviour when they are as appalled as everyone else.

I can’t believe people are still using the term ’bad apples’ to refer to the met. This is a force which has been found to be institutionally racist and misogynistic. At one point they were investigating 1000 of their officers for domestic abuse and other forms of abuse and harassment. The Centre for Women’s Justice had to bring a super complaint against them and other forces because of their failure to deal with domestic abuse properly. There are numerous cases where they have failed.

They are public servants and we need to hold them to a higher standard than minimising it all as ‘bad apples’

The BBC that gives Nigel Farage airtime far in excess of that his number of MPs warrants but doesn't give the Greens anything like the same? That left wing BBC?

Agree wonder what would come to light in their own canteen of the BBC if there was undercover filming given their misogynistic, child sex abuse culture?

I remember when I first saw ACAB I thought like you - surely not every single cop, bad apples etc etc.

I've been in and around protest and campaign groups for two decades now and I firmly believe it, going off the behaviour and attitudes I've witnessed from police officers, almost without exception.

The structural reason that ACAB is true is that the police (and military) aren't actually there to protect us, the people. They're there to protect and if necessary enforce what the state wants. When your interests align with the state's interests it's easy to conflate those things, but anyone who's protested against the state or is part of a marginalised demographic (Black and LGBT communities) knows instinctively that the police are not on their side. A lot of middle-class white women learned this very, very quickly during the Sarah Everard protests.

When you see Iranian police stamping out the Mahsa Amini protests by force, or the Hong Kong police squashing pro-democracy protests - please be under no illusion. Our police force would do exactly the same thing if the government demanded it.

To your point about the kind of person these professions attract, I completely agree. By their very nature the police and military attract people with authoritarian characteristics, who believe in the rule of might and the use of force to stamp out dissent.

Second reply nails it.

Well you're a lovely person 🙄

Should we do the same for the loved ones of the general public who brag about or discuss their crimes and proclivities, and get recorded?
Or get caught and prosecuted and the stories and evidence of what's come out of their own mouths hits the news?
What about those spouting racist diatribe, whose families are appalled?
Police officer? Protect him? Reform sympathizer? Don't protect him?

Does being at work in a public service uniform at the time, mean your family should be more, or less, protected from the repercussions of your actions?

What is it about the appalled families of criminals or racists, that mean they shouldn't be protected from being "ostracised, their homes vandalised along with them being verbally and in some cases physically attacked for their loved ones views/behaviour when they are as appalled as everyone else."

I'm just raising the question of who's wider circles are and aren't worthy of protection, and maybe all these big mouthed individuals of whatever stripes need to be putting many others ahead of their desires, rather than we have one rule for one group, and another rule for others...

This thread is so depressing and worrying.My DD wants to join the police- county not Met. I wonder if the culture is as bad outside the Met? Anyone have any insights?

They’ve never happened in any workplace I’ve been in and we work with some of the most vulnerable - and yes at difficult - people, at the worst times in their lives.

They weren’t “telling the truth” they were telling their truth based on bias, racism and hatred of women. Letting off steam doesn’t remotely cover it - I’d be in front of my regulator if I said the same things and rightly so. If the job is so hard that they can’t exercise common decency and respect, that “blowing off steam” amounts to prejudice, aggression and misogyny they need to do something else. That behaviour and those views + power is a wholly toxic mix which should be exposed every single time and the perpetrators sacked, arrested and charged.