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

There was racism.
There was misogyny.
There were lies and cover-ups.
There was deliberate violence.
There was glorifying in deliberate violence.
There was dismissal of those raising legitimate concerns.

Junior officers will not take the flack.🙄 Racists, misogynists and bullyboy violent scum in the police will.

YABVU @Bloodyscarymary. We should never condone, apologise or overlook prejudice and violence. Especially not when it comes to those whose job it is to maintain and enforce the law.

Unreasonable @Bloodyscarymary, really fucking unreasonable.

I would argue that without this kind of reporting, nothing changes at all.
At the very very least, these people will lose their jobs and they are no longer in power to harm others. That's a win I will take happily.

As an ex Met officer I can offer some thoughts on this...many, many people in society (especially men) have misogynistic and racist views so it's not unrealistic to expect the same in policing. That said, it was drummed into us at training school over 20 years ago that we must be held to a higher standard and having/expressing these views was unacceptable and extremely serious. I'm really surprised and concerned about the disgraceful stuff reported in the documentary as it wasn't my experience during my time in the Met. It's a really tough profession where you literally lay your life on the line for others and for the most part my colleagues were amazing.

Well, if in thirty more years it’s sorted most of the problems inherent in the police force out I’ll eat my words. Unfortunately I don’t think that’s going to happen.

No, I don't suppose it is. But every single one of those nasty gits that gets kicked out is a little win. Every one.

And the sooner they are identified, exposed and kicked out, the better it will be for the police and the country as a whole.

I've avoided being publicly outed as a racist, misogynist or violent criminal for over 40 years.

By not being a racist, misogynist or violent criminal.

so what would be the difference if the program had not been made? I think you are being passive. You are saying "this won't help" but aren't recognising that change happens because of public pressure (getting bored with saying post office scandal now)

me too

AND its also a message to others that they can't think that everywhere is the same and that everybody gets away with it.

he didn’t say anything, he was very much outnumbered. But they are no longer friends. DH has nothing to do with him.

Charing Cross police station was roundly criticised in 2022 for similar behaviour. Cressida Dick and to resign.

And nothing has changed.

So yes to exposing these individuals.
Yes to naming and shaming.
Yes to a root and branch reform of the Met.
Yes to the resignation of Sir Mark Rowley because he was brought in three years ago and nothing has changed.

It wasn’t just the racism that really rang home, it was the downright sleaziness of several of the guys , even with female colleagues around plus the fact that several were clearly ok with a bit of light torture and prepared to lie to cover up for other colleagues . This is how guys like Wayne couzens can hide in broad daylight - if the general culture is one that a bit of out and out sleaze is considered funny and just banter and it’s ok to cover up and have a laugh about stamping on people or breaking their fingers etc then some blokes become sheep in an environment like that and want to be seen as ‘one of the lads’ - it’s well known that abuse between couples is referred to as it’s ’just A domestic’ Thiszwas highlighting the Met, but in particular I think it was highlighting that particular area of the Met - several senior guys in charge there clearly gave vibes that ‘what we say goes even if it’s outside the law ’ and to be frank needed booting out . I’m quite sure there are people in the public out there who won’t have an issue with all this as they too would behave as such in that kind of an environment - but it felt more like a ‘hardboys ‘ together at Millwall football club in the 70s than modern policing - it’s a tough job, no one doubts that but as they clearly haven’t policed themselves from previous outings then sometimes only a bit of ‘public outing’ will do it.

Is believing in physical evidence and the testimony of victims of violent rape a left thing now?

Would you want the police officers featured to investigate your rape @Lovethystupidneighbour? The rape of your mother, daughter, sister etc?

Police spend most of their working day around the absolute dregs of society, the scum of the earth, the lowest of the low. I don't see how that can't affect them. And I don't think it's unique to the Met, or to Britain, it's endemic to police forces around the world.

I am not applauding them for doing their job.

Police spend most of their working day around the absolute dregs of society, the scum of the earth, the lowest of the low.

And that's just their colleagues.

I don't see how that can't affect them.

Which is why we need to identify and remove such scum, before it effects new recruits.

You do realise many officers are actually volunteers don’t you? Maybe you should give up your time and do some volunteer work with the police. You might come tumbling off your high horse fairly quickly

After today's terrorist attack in Manchester and police putting themselves in harms way with a potential bomber, might be an idea to lay off the police a bit.

Get over yourself. I've done my bit and got the medal to show for it.
Again. I expect them to do their job, as I was expected to do mine.

And I got a load of stick for calling out misogyny and racism.

I'm perfectly comfortable with my view of the police as a whole, as well as the individual officers I know.

I thought the Sargent was a sexist creep but he was just one person, seemed lots of colleagues didn’t like him. It was mainly about this one guys behaviour, the argument was pretty week. The nhs has a dark humour too. To be honest we don’t want wimpy police. Like surgeons soldiers some things need some toxic masculinity. They have to deal with pretty crap , dangerous, violent and ridiculous behaviour. The whole thing seemed pretty below the belt, secret filming and edited. It’s not like they had torture chambers and forced confessions. Try other countries police forces.I'm glad people are prepared to do the job because I couldn’t do it .

Me too.

Watching it now, wow, colour me shocked that it’s all men.

Yes and I think it’s also notable that after 7 months undercover they had to fill most of the documentary with pub chat. If these men are such scum then why wasn’t there video after video of them using force, dealing with complaints of racism, discussing actual cases and perpetrators in derogatory ways?

I think if you took a sample of young male soldiers and big city police across the world, posed as a peer and egged them on to share their views during smoking breaks/at the pub, laughing and encouraging them - you would get very similar responses a lot of the time.

The majority of the police force are doing a bloody good job and a really hard job too. This documentary should have been aired in a different way and it would have been more useful for society if they actually dug into the WHY of all of this.

Very little of what the officers were recorded as saying can be classified as humour.

It was them saying Somalians are ugly, showing disdain for x group, suggesting a pregnant DV victim was lying about being kicked in the stomach; talking about breaking people’s tendons; laughing about brutal treatment of inmates etc

where actually was the dark humour? Because if we saw that, people might actually take the same view a you.