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

Oh hello police officer….

If you paid attention you could see that their colleagues knew they were being misogynistic- one custody officer was clearly outraged at how the pregnant woman who had a visible footprint on her pregnant belly was being dismissed. So you know it’s not just your made up biases either. There is evidence. And because of the evidence the individuals have been removed from work.

And no matter how many times people have been kicking off - the police cannot fabricate evidence against people. It’s not bias, it’s abuse.

The fact you can’t see it and justify it is a massive glaring red flag. 🚩

@Bloodyscarymary, a lot of people have missed your point, while I agree with you. The initial response form the Met Commissioner bore this out. Eleven people removed from duty. One custody team replaced. 'Looking at' other custody teams. This is a 'bad apple' response from inside, when what's needed is a 'rotten barrel' approach from outside.

Imagine having to work with the very worst in society all day, then some left wing arse hole coaxes you to say who the worst criminals to deal with with are, then you lose your job.

We'll wait for the BBC to do undercover investigations of a certain religion and detail all the hateful things said about non-believers, especially Jews and homosexuals. I'm sure that will be coming any day now...

If the complaint is about culture in the workplace, then why did they need to film people who'd been drinking in the pub thinking they were having a private conversation with a friend? Don't think that I'd want to be professionally judged by a conversation in those circumstances. Still doesn't excuse any inappropriate comments but you're scraping the barrel if you can't get the 'material' you want from the workplace, so you have to resort to those sort of tactics.

I wonder how all the wonderful staff at the BBC would stand up to that sort of scrutiny?

What those officers said in the pub isn't in any way comparable to black humour among medics. I've heard a lot of black humour from medics. I've never heard them make jokes about killing patients, hurting patients on purpose, or discriminating against particular groups of patients.

Also, what medics do takes places in public, with oversight from family, friends, random passers-by, and huge teams of colleagues from related disciplines. When patients speak up about mistreatment, there's a much higher chance they'll be believed. What police officers do takes place in locked premises, and is generally seen only by other police officers. When people suspected of (or guilty of) a crime speak up about mistreatment, the chances of people believing them are way smaller.

The Met's culture isn't a secret. Communities policed by the Met have been telling the world for years what it's like. Journalists catching people on camera (or getting access to WhatsApp conversations and records not available to the public) seems to be the only way those in charge can be pushed into taking action.

I'm now beginning to worry about the safety of the undercover reporter after reading this vile comment.

I think that the point of naming and shaming is that its undeniable rock solid published proof. The organisation can't deny it, suggest that the reporter misunderstood or that words were put into people's mouths. I think the point of publicly naming and shaming is that it can't be covered up or kicked into the long grass by the people running the organisation. There is also the potential for the exercise to be repeated in a year or so..... I also suspect (didn't watch the program yet) that there was a reason for deciding to make this program....maybe someone approached the BBC?

Nope, don't feel sorry for them at all. They need exposing and removing from the police force (and all future positions of authority). Hopefully this investigation will give the police more powers to get rid of people like this.

You feel bad for racist and misogynist people who are supposed to protect all communities? really?

The Met has had so many issues over the years and it needs to be disbanded and replaced by a completely new force. Their recruitment and management processes are obviously not working and their officers are a danger to the public.

On the radio on LBC this morning, 10 suspended and 2 more had something else done (I think less serious?).

What those officers said in the pub isn't in any way comparable to black humour among medics.

I agree totally. My point was that if a nurse did express views about older people "wasting" hospital beds on a similar program, then be they drunk or sober, I would expect similar treatment.

I agree. Going to the pub with colleagues and secretly recording them after a few drinks to shame them on TV is really low. Recording the yucky office behaviour is not as bad. It's a stressful horrible job so not surprising they have a banter culture and a nasty sense of humour really. It does need to change, but I bet a lot of those professions are similar, fire fighters, prison officers, doctors etc.

Police these days get such abhorrent abuse. Day in day out awful awful stuff they just have to take. It’s no surprise some snap.
however, it’s simply no excuse and that footage was awful.

Not really. The police forces in the north with the grooming gangs didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory. 🤷‍♀️

There’s good and bad in every profession.

why? I don't think "a few drinks" would make people say anything apart from the actual opinions they hold.

But at least the people deflecting and focusing on the reporter are showing themselves up as agreeing with the police officers views whether they admit it or not.

I will call it now those sympathising with the racist, misogynist officers have racist and/or misogynist views themselves.

A man sat in a pub spewing such views is still going to have those views when he is sat behind his desk at work, and dealing with the public. Sticking on a uniform or suit won't make him change personality.

His personality doesn't change when on duty.

I think some feel uncomfortable because it’s a load of white guys being shown up as being a load of vile thuggish pigs , kind of bloke who could be your brother - I suspect if it had been a load of Asian/ black guys then as far as a rather large group of the British public are concerned that would have been fine- indeed they would have been braying for them to be named. It is a tough job and not for everyone but you need maturity and empathy and to stick to ‘the law’ and my only slight misgiving is that sadly we have plenty of knuckleheads in society who will use this as ‘we are all far too soft’ and raise these guys to hero status

The rape comments made about Muslim women by one officer to the end we’re disgusting and evil, if I understood them correctly.

Everyone is entitled to a view on immigration and on religion in their private life, sure. But what we saw was straight up racism. Genuinely, that’s not the sort of opinion a police officer should have, even off the clock.

Would you be ok with a teacher saying these things as long as they weren’t in the classroom?

We already saw the videos of them using excessive force and straight up abuse, so you can’t even brush it off as just dark humour.

I really don’t think doctors and firefighters share these views as you say. Bad people are attached to the police so they can be the big tough guy beating on others. Several of them even admitted to it!!

or the jokey things that were clearly just bravado

Heyyyyy it's just banterzz man, just banterzz

Unless our police are now all 12 year old boys trying to look tough, then YABU

yup and we should never stop persecuting (not a typo) the bad.

One of the guys didn’t say anything racist as such though. He said scum bags and toe rags. He wasn’t taking about any particular race as fad as I saw.

Im sure any tea room in the police would say things that.

It did seem the guy undercover obviously joined the police under false pretences and I wonder how he passed vetting.This programme will only harm the relationship between the police and public further, I don’t see what good it has done .

Well yes, that's sort of what the OP said. We can read that. However the point is that this approach makes it less likely that effective action will be taken. Scapegoating bad apples while leaving the rotten barrel intact does not address toxic culture.

You’ve either not watched it, or your trying to wind people up because there is no way this is your honest view after watching that.

Oh yes!
These officers and behaviours continue to exist, and there exists people who continue to support them.
It's a never ending cycle unfortunately 😔.