Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

691 replies

Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 21:46

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

OP posts:
alfonzi · 02/10/2025 07:33

Elleherd · 02/10/2025 07:28

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...

Exactly, this was my first thought.

Some countries do actually have strict regulations on reporting names on the media. I believe Germany has.

But here in the UK they publish the names of convicted criminals or those caught on video doing crimes all the time.

Why make an exception for the police? Genuine question. I don’t get it lol what would be the logic or justification for this?

InNewYorkNoShoes · 02/10/2025 07:34

Someone could film me secretly at work and it would be fine as I would never say anything inappropriate or hateful because I don’t think that way.
It’s about time for the rotten police to face some serious consequences.

AngelinaFibres · 02/10/2025 07:36

I hope I never ever need to call the police. I wouldn't trust a male police officer as far as I could throw him.

Simplestars · 02/10/2025 07:36

They recruit like minded individuals and add to the rot.
Expose them all.

AgnesX · 02/10/2025 07:37

I have little sympathy really. If you didn't have those opinions then you wouldn't voice them.

How can you trust people with those opinions to behave responsibly. Its scary to think that you might be on the receiving end.

ThatLemonBear · 02/10/2025 07:41

I also felt uncomfortable watching it, the officer’s behaviour was awful and must be dealt with, I did think the journalist was inciting some of it though
to be honest

AngelinaFibres · 02/10/2025 07:44

Simplestars · 02/10/2025 07:36

They recruit like minded individuals and add to the rot.
Expose them all.

This. It's the same with any big organisation with a reputation for a particular behaviour ( religious organisations and paedophiles being another one). That organisation will attract certain types and those people will fit at interview and be taken on. Anyone who joins the police because they want to do something good will either leave in horror or become part of the banter/ arsehole culture

Invinoveritaz · 02/10/2025 07:49

I found it uncomfortable viewing. I think the officers who were misogynistic/ sadistic / racist while on duty were fair game however, the police are entitled to their opinions and recording conversations when they were off duty and expressing personal opinions was not right imho.

alfonzi · 02/10/2025 07:50

AngelinaFibres · 02/10/2025 07:44

This. It's the same with any big organisation with a reputation for a particular behaviour ( religious organisations and paedophiles being another one). That organisation will attract certain types and those people will fit at interview and be taken on. Anyone who joins the police because they want to do something good will either leave in horror or become part of the banter/ arsehole culture

Yes true, I have seem some ex-Met police officers on Twitter who speak out against the organisation a lot.

One of them had a partner/wife who was Black, and many close friends from various races which is obviously not something the other officers would instantly know and you can imagine how uncomfortable he was in his job each day with the things being said.

Although not that you need a black partner or friend to find the stuff being said abhorrent.

Jellywife · 02/10/2025 07:50

Invinoveritaz · 02/10/2025 07:49

I found it uncomfortable viewing. I think the officers who were misogynistic/ sadistic / racist while on duty were fair game however, the police are entitled to their opinions and recording conversations when they were off duty and expressing personal opinions was not right imho.

Off duty and in public. Members of the public would already have overheard it.

SirBasil · 02/10/2025 07:52

the Met Police should be worried. IMO they need to all reapply for their jobs and be properly vetted to do so.

alfonzi · 02/10/2025 07:52

Jellywife · 02/10/2025 07:50

Off duty and in public. Members of the public would already have overheard it.

And also can’t people see the problem with misogynist and racist police officer. Don’t they realise how this WILL affect how they treat members of the public?

I haven’t watched it all yet, just saw a clip but from what I’ve seen views and attitudes like that are incompatible with good, fair and safe policing.

Motheranddaughter · 02/10/2025 07:53

I save my sympathy for people who deserve it

BeardofHagrid · 02/10/2025 07:54

Yes, secretly recording people when they think they are in a private setting shouldn’t be allowed. Do we really want to do back to the dark old days of the Fake Sheik?

SirBasil · 02/10/2025 07:54

MissLC · 01/10/2025 22:08

Undercover reporting doesn't sit well with me in general, though I admit I haven't watched this one (yet). It is tricky that bad people need to be called out but good people get caught up in the crossfire.
I worked in a place that was the subject of an undercover Panorama episode and did nothing wrong (& therefore wasn't featured in the program) but it still made me feel manipulated and violated. I thought I genuinely got on with the person and it's not fair that they only show the bad side of things not going well when there's so much good too.

how do you feel about undercover policing? undercover officers impregnating women who have no idea of their real identity?

They should be held to a (much much) higher standard than regular people

Longtimelurkerfinallyposts · 02/10/2025 07:55

VimtoIcePop · 01/10/2025 23:44

I think you're probably right but I also think my point stands.

I wasn't singling out Muslims btw. It was being discussed on another thread and seemed a relevant example. It's a very interesting dynamic because people are extremely wary of discussing the latter and you're much more likely to be called a racist than engaged with.

But the facts are there that 1200 sexual assaults were perpetrated in a single evening and there have been numerous smaller scale group assaults (plus many in the middle east where it's common).

I mean, the number of sexual assaults committed on that one night probably outnumbers sexual assaults perpetrated by Met officers in the last decade.

Your ignorance shines through.

You're suggesting that fewer than 120 sexual assaults are committed by Met officers each year. This seems extremely unlikely - I'm sure the number is much higher.

You know that there are over 33,000 Met officers?

You realise that statistically, male police officers are more likely than almost any other group to perpetrate domestic violence - which often includes sexual violence - against their partners? (some of whom are female police officers)

That's without all the cases of police officers sexually assaulting/ raping other people. There are lots of cases which have come to light - incl instances of them targeting vulnerable women who have been victims of crime.

There are various theories about why they behave in these ways. But it's clear that the Met has both a culture of toxic masculinity & a culture of impunity (with officers lying & falsifying evidence to back each other up, minimising other officers' misconduct and ignoring criminal abuses of power).

Jellywife · 02/10/2025 07:55

alfonzi · 02/10/2025 07:52

And also can’t people see the problem with misogynist and racist police officer. Don’t they realise how this WILL affect how they treat members of the public?

I haven’t watched it all yet, just saw a clip but from what I’ve seen views and attitudes like that are incompatible with good, fair and safe policing.

Sorry I think I’ve been misunderstood- I have no problem with them being recorded, they weren’t in their own homes. If I was in a pub and heard police officers talking like that I’d be horrified.

alfonzi · 02/10/2025 07:57

Jellywife · 02/10/2025 07:55

Sorry I think I’ve been misunderstood- I have no problem with them being recorded, they weren’t in their own homes. If I was in a pub and heard police officers talking like that I’d be horrified.

Sorry if I was unclear - I was agreeing with you and adding to what you were saying!

WaryHiker · 02/10/2025 08:01

Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 22:38

On the contrary, I completely see how that would impact how they treat victims of crime. I think they should be fired! My AIBU is about publishing their identities, faces etc in the documentary.

Judging by what has happened in the past, if their faces had not been shown, very little would have happened to them.

You must have read articles and statistics on how many police officers are accused or even convicted of X,Y and Z and are simply relocated to other forces.

gotmyknickersinatwist · 02/10/2025 08:02

Bloodyscarymary · 01/10/2025 22:11

This guy I didn’t have a problem with being in the documentary because he was discussing a case in the office. I also don’t have a problem with the recording of actual instances of police violence or discussions about that.

The ones that made me particularly uncomfortable are the off duty conversations, or the jokey things that were clearly just bravado (like the finger breaking guy - I really doubt he has ever done that and we have zero context of what else was being said by others in that conversation).

The most concerning to me was the really young officer at the pub drinking with the journalist, who was prompting him, agreeing with what he said and literally egging him on to share his views when he realised he had gone too far. Yes he was horrifically racist - he should be fired as police officers must be held to a high standard of morals. But I’m not sure he deserves that conversation to be completely public for the world to see for all eternity.

clearly just bravado
This is the excuse time and time again. 'It's harmless banter! Don't be so sensitive! It's your issue if you can't take a joke!'
Apply that anywhere else, in any other work or school or social setting.

Even off duty, they are still trained police officers and it should be ingrained in them to call out & shut down such behaviour.

The Met seems like a rotten institution.

Thissickbeat · 02/10/2025 08:02

No. Their behaviour and attitudes are despicable. There's loads of men like this in the UK though.

My son hopes to go into the police, he's fiercely left wing and hates bigots but I've told him to watch this so he knows what he might come up against.

WaryHiker · 02/10/2025 08:04

MyrtleLion · 01/10/2025 22:52

Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park is literally an exposé of slavery and colonialism.

Not really, but one of the films of it was.

Whatafustercluck · 02/10/2025 08:09

gannett · 02/10/2025 07:21

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.

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not entirely sure I agree.

The British policing system is based on Peelian principles - policing by consent - in a way that other police forces around the world are not. It's why they don't routinely carry guns, for example.

I've been in policing for 20+ years, not as an officer but as a senior staff member. In my experience, there's always been a tension even within policing about whether it's a 'force' or a 'service'. The authoritarian macho types are attracted to the tactical firearms units and the dog sections etc, whereas others gravitate towards neighbourhood policing (utilising different skills/ personalities) and child protection etc. The units you'll encounter on demos (other than the large ones where officers are drafted in from other forces) are generally the alpha males, there to not think twice about using force. Even within the police service, it's acknowledged that this tension exists. In other words, policing reflects society as a whole, with roles that suit a variety of personalities.

Whenever I watch things like 24 Hours in Police Custody, I'm always struck by how well the Custody staff treat the person they're booking in, without prejudice. Yes, I know they're being filmed, they know they're being filmed. But having once in my career overseen an independent Custody visiting scheme (normal people who volunteer to visit custody suites unannounced and speak to detainees about their treatment), I can tell you that, in my local force at least, the vast majority of those detained - some very hardened criminals - stated they were treated fairly and with dignity, as is right when our judicial system is founded on innocent until proven guilty.

When I've been on large marches in London (e.g. the Stop Brexit march) there were no arrests, a carnival atmosphere, and police officers chatting happily to protesters.

Now, as for the Met. Even within policing, the Met has a terrible reputation. That's not to say that these officers don't exist in other forces (they do, I've sat on professional standards committees where they've thrown the book at them), but just that it's the largest police force in the UK, policing a densely populated territory, and comes with quite a significant number of challenges as a result. I mean, they literally threw Cressida Dick under a bus for not dealing with the problems quickly enough and replaced her with.... another man - who, similarly it seems, has failed to root out the culture that seems to still prevail, despite his obvious professional credentials.

I've begun watching the documentary and it makes me sick to the stomach, precisely because I've always been exceptionally proud to work with, for the most part, some extremely caring, hard working people, dedicated to protecting people from harm. This kind of coverage does them all a huge disservice and damages the trust and confidence needed to rely on policing 'by consent' in this country.

Police forces all have problems, because racism and misogyny is again gathering pace in society more generally - and recruitment practices focus on drawing officers from a wide variety of backgrounds in order to try to reflect societal makeup. That comes with risks, as well as benefits. What they need to get better at is utilising technology and social media monitoring better within the vetting process, so that those who pose the most significant risk (by virtue of either their associates or views) are weeded out at the earliest opportunity. The police cannot afford to have officers like this damaging public trust.

Op, I don't feel remotely sorry for these individuals for all the reasons I've stated.

And I guarantee that I will turn up to work today and be met with eyerolls of "yep, it's the Met again".

Didshejustsaythatoutloud · 02/10/2025 08:12

EsmeSusanOgg · 01/10/2025 21:59

Deeply inappropriate comments. Lots of sexual comments about people in custody / victims. One case on the BBC website shows a sergeant disbelieve someone reporting rape and domestic abuse. She reported her abuser had kicked her in the stomach. According to another officer in the video who was unhappy with the decision to bail the person accused the woman had an obvious footprint on her stomach, corroborating her claims.

This is good journalism. They have only shown those who were abusing positions of trust and did so repeatedly.

Yeah, that bit when the sergeant just shrugged about the footprint on the pregnant belly was particularly repugnant.
Shooting migrants in the head.
Disgusting

Craftysue · 02/10/2025 08:12

My cousin and her husband are both police officers. I have never heard any hate speech from either of them. They are both sick of police officers having their reputations dragged through the mud by people like this. They need routing out and prosecuting for everyone's sake.

Swipe left for the next trending thread