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

So why do they take it out on the victims?

What's that got to do with jumping on someone already on the ground being held by police? What about the lady who had boot prints on her pregnant stomach not being believed and her rapist partner let out on bail? Oh yeah, great stress relief. 😕

The funny thing about this perspective is that apparently these tough men doing brave deeds at the sharp end of things apparently wilt at a tiny bit of criticism and can’t —or won’t—do their do their jobs.

No one should be working for the Police in exchange for back pats and accolades.

No one here refutes that it is a difficult and at times dangerous job, but no one is forcing anyone to work for the Police either.

It being a difficult and at times dangerous job does not excuse racism, misogyny or criminal behaviour.

You should not excuse them by saying "it's such a hard and thankless job". There is no excuse for people like them.

oh what a bunch of bollocks

Hitler was kind to animals.

frankly I don’t care if these vile sexist, racist, xenophobic thugs are kind to old ladies or give generously to the poppy appeal. They are still vile misogynistic, racist bigots and they are in positions of power.

I don't understand what that's got to do with what I posted.
I've not said that the bad people shouldn't be called out... I said that the people who aren't bad, vile, sexist etc get caught up in the vile people getting caught which I wish they wouldn't.

Victims of what.
Anyone who works in the fringes understands the completely anti social behaviour some people have - violence, lies, general nastiness.
Most people get they need to be professional whilst on the job.

MN gets called out for “ hating” men. Of course we don’t but as a group we recognise men are over represented in many areas , crime and violence being the obvious ones.
I’m not horrible to anyone in real life but the gobby, anti social, thuggery is mostly men and I will happily discuss this over a pint with other women.

@bumbaloo and the krays loved their old mum!! Thing is I hate to say it but the police and army wives on mumsnet often seem very over represented in terms of their numbers within the ‘relationship’ section -and mumsnetters dealing with abuse, sexual sleaze, domestic violence , controlling partners etc - now i do wonder if it’s a chicken and egg situation - dealing with a lot of shit daily twists the mindset and empathy and it’s very nacho dominated culture or it’s just a lot of guys with dickhead tendencies are attracted to jobs that enable them to be legalised aggressive thugs ( I do appreciate by the way the majority of guys in police or army are not like this and to be frank deserve a medal for coping with a thankless task)

It’s funny how people can glibly talk about humour when they’re unlikely to be the butt of the joke.

Clearly nothing has been learned nor anything changed since Sarah Everard. These evil monsters need to be made an example of and shamed in the strongest possible terms until things actually improve.

Voted, yes, YABU (nothing to do with your self determined poll)

Oh @Bloodyscarymary when will you see sense?? Most of the documentary was not pub chat .. they showed these vile creatures physically and verbally abusing those in custody. If these men were such scum 🤨🤨 you think they’re not?? Please tell me why? Tell me why good honest men kick people when they’re being held down, abuse an autistic child, scoff at abused women … why do honest men do that? 🤨🤨
Your young male soldiers analogy is stupid - firstly, many of these officers were not young. Secondly, are the young male soldiers you’re referring to in a position of power and abusing people they’re supposed to be looking after?
The documentary said most officers were good, honest etc. It told the story of scumbags.

You need to wake up and smell the coffee.

Absolutely this.

Come on OP, give your head a wobble.

I think you are confused about the thread inf. My comment “why do they tske it out in the victims” points out that attacks on (eg) the pregnant woman , the autistic boy, and people in custody, or the two murdered girls are not a proper response to the bleating about how tough the job is. These are all victims of crime, racism, snd misogyny but the poor brutalized police force seems to preferentially take its traima out on them rather than the hardened criminals supposedly responsible for the trauma the police are suffering.

The sergeant was more than just a sexist creep. He hyper-sexualised the workplace and his overtly sexual comments about the women he met in his private life and female prisoners were abhorrent. How uncomfortable must the female officers have felt listening to that day after day? It was obvious that they hated it but didn't dare challenge or report him because 'he's got the stripes'. They didn't report as they didn't think that they would be listened to or that any action would be taken. Also, what sort of fucked up institution promoted someone like him?

I’ve watched it now and whilst I entirely agree that man is an absolute disgusting specimen and entirely deserves to lose his job…I will say again, you cannot remand someone based on the fact that they are an awful person.

Remand means the case will be heard at trial the following day. If the case doesn’t pass the threshold test in terms of how complete the evidence is, the CPS won’t charge someone with an offence and then you can’t remand them. So for example, if key witness statements were outstanding or there was CCTV that couldn’t
be obtained within the 24 hour time limit, CPS will refuse to charge. And if CPS refuse to charge, the police
don’t have the option to charge. I will also say, there is also a good chance that the court would let him out on bail the following day, awaiting trial.

They said the man was bailed so that means the investigation is still ongoing, it just wasn’t ready to put in front of a court. Bail conditions would be put in place to prevent him seeing the victim (albeit in theory!).

Again, I am not defending that man or his comments, I am just saying you cannot say the police didn’t do their job because they didn’t remand him. Even in the documentary, they acknowledge they don’t know the full facts.

I don’t think it helps the situation of dealing with the people who are awful if they also get berated on decisions where people don’t know the full facts which could actually have a sound basis.

A lot of that documentary was horrific and I hope a lot of them lose their jobs but that particular issue needs more facts.

It’s a shame the documentary didn’t say that out of x thousand arrests in Charing X we recorded these things happening. The guy was there 7 months.

And stating some ‘some police do a good job in Difficult circumstances’ -is about as pathetic praise as you can get . And how many work at Charing x ? It’s manned 24/7, that’s a lot of staff.

not saying these lot dont need dealt with but to then to go on about ‘it’s not one bad apple’ with no reference to numbers is poor reporting.

As a side, I have a family member in the police (not Met). He is nearing the end of his career now. He was a very gentle and kind young person but there was a massive change when he joined the force. Very opinionated and self-righteous, know-all and inability to see anything from another persons perspective. This change was noted by several family members.
No doubt you toughen up when you join that kind of work, but there is definitely a culture among male officers.

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.

This is the entire bloody problem FFS.

No fan of the police but most people would agree with them. We're all racist some hide it better than others.

No fan of the police but we're all racist some hide it better than others.

Hard no.

No, we’re definitely not.

How do you work that one out?