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

Just to add that I feel no sympathy for them whatsoever. If it was a bunch of MPs caught talking like that in the members’ bar I would expect for them to be named and for all of them to resign.

The constant implication by the sneak that they were holding back. Well that’s not really on - lif you don’t have proof you can’t accuse.

Thank goodness the upright, unbiased, clean as a whistle BBC found this out .

I’m pretty sure that has already happened

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

and as some of us have pointed out if you don't at least stand up to it, gainsay the racism etc, walk out or report it - you are complicit in that being the culture of your workplace

(to be clear: I was in the army in the 80s, i pointed out sexist and racist behaviour, my life got a whole lot worse to begin with but it worked out ok in the end. I KNOW what happens to whistleblowers)

no.
i.
am.
not.

Fuck off @Bloodyscarymary. Im
undergoing an acrimonious divorce after a long period of DV. What made me stay longer than I had to was police minimising my reports as “domestics” and warning me I had to behave and if I made another report, they’d have no choice but to take me in for questioning too. After yesterday’s documentary, I’m going down the official compliant route for police failings. Earlier this year, my dc told the police what they’d seen- their dad kicking and punching me and when their dad angrily replied “SHE’S LYING DONT BELIEVE HER”, the PC said “I won’t, children often lie when they see us”. My children were left traumatised and my daughter kept saying “I’m not lying, mummy tell them I’m not a liar”. Police inaction (and social care failings where I am) have left me feeling suicidal- I was made to believe my worries and concerns about mine and my children’s safety was a ‘me’ problem and not the result of broken/toxic systems.

But, I’m a woman and from a global majority so wtf do you care, eh?!

For balance, I’m a titled professional working with vulnerable children, many of whom don’t have anything positive happening in their lives- if I relied on dark ‘humour’ to minimise their struggles or used their circumstances not to do my job properly, I’d deserve everything coming my way.

You have no idea what other people’s lived experiences are so fuck off and do some reflecting.

Ps. I was once given the case of a young, 14 year old white boy who refused to talk to me (because I was a brown “bitch”) but told other members of staff at school that every time he saw me, he wanted to throw acid on my face and fuck me as I lay screaming as my skin burnt off. This young man’s aspirations for the future were to either join the army or the police…. Anything for control and power to justify hatred towards others.

I hope you and your children are safe and happier now.

Please go ahead with that complaint x

@toonananana
Am so sorry about what has happened, and I echo the post above, hope you and your children doing much better now. Am so sorry that the very people who were supposed to help you made it worse. It really has to stop. x

You do realise that recruitment doesn’t stop people with racist or misogyny views? When they fill out the application forms and or interviews, I very much doubt they would write or say anything that would show this.

Has it occurred to people that maybe some police officers become racist over time? Maybe they weren’t to begin with or kept it to themselves, but maybe they changed their view over time.

Im sorry but vetting won’t change this. When people join the police they aren’t going to say anything bad to stop them getting in, unless they are stupid.

Apart from criminal record checks or whatever it’s called nowadays, what else can they do?

Stephen Lawrence’s murderers walked free with the help of Met officers because they were institutionally racist… a former senior Met officer went on record 20 years later in a BBC documentary as saying that Doreen Lawrence was “an angry black woman” and difficult to warm to…they’d learnt nothing. Sarah Everard was murdered because a misogynist culture was just seen as “how it was”… the serving officer who murdered her was nicknamed “the rapist”.

The Met needs burning down and starting again. I don’t know what the answer is… maybe something like what happened with the Patten report which recommended that The Royal Ulster Constabulary be replaced with The Police Service of Northern Ireland. But as a Londoner I don’t trust the Met to keep me and my family safe, and I’m white! God knows how black and ethnic minority families feel.

Has it occurred to people that maybe some police officers become racist over time? Maybe they weren’t to begin with or kept it to themselves, but maybe they changed their view over time.

Yes, of course. A racist environment produces racists.🤷‍♀️

I find it strange that these police officers never encounter any violence or threatening behaviour from white men, who are responsible for quite a lot of violent crime, even in multicultural London, that cause them be traumatised into to saying offensive things about them. And that their experiences with women, not traditionally committers of violent crime in general, are so awful that it turns them into misogynists.

Or indeed that many police officers, including friends of mine, experience awful things and hover near burn out without also being racist women haters.

Richly deserved and long overdue. No pity, no sympathy, no mercy.

Yanbu op it's a really hard job and gallows humor / bravado mainly. I've heard way worse said by teachers / medical professionals etc about the public. Its human beings beings human beings and the journalist is a total weasel / creep himself.

Is it legal to record private conversations not in the workplace? Seems like a violation of privacy laws. It's also reminiscent of phone hacking when journalists were eavesdropping on phone conversations and messages. I'm not sure if this flies.

Sorry, but that’s bollocks. I’m a teacher and my best friend is a nurse, so I know what gallows humour/venting about the people in our care and their families looks like. With all due respect, I’ve never heard anyone I’ve ever worked with say the kind of things that these police officers were saying. And that’s just what they say… I watched the programme earlier today and the footage of them restraining that autistic 17 year old was shocking. Eight police officers and one stood on the bench above directing them, all to restrain one weedy kid for throwing a pillow!!! And then leaving him restrained on the floor for over two hours. Fucking barbaric.

I knew a Met officer- an acquaintance, not a friend- who used to openly laugh about using the panic alarm going off in the station as an excuse to get in there and give someone a kicking, just because he liked giving people a kicking who couldn’t fight back. Appalling.

The truth of the matter is that the job attracts racists, misogynists, bullies and thugs. Full stop and no excuses.

Okay I apologise I hadn't watched it to the end and yes you're right its horrendous. I

I find it hard to judge the police or people in the prison service in which I've worked for a while because of the dregs of society they have to deal with and most of their critics such as effete journos wouldn't last 5 minutes dealing with those people.

bollocks! I used to work in the NHS and know about the gallows humour but anyone saying anything even approaching what was said on there wouldn't have needed to be whistleblown, the whole department would have reported them.

In journalism there is such thing as 'pubic interest' which would override any such worries, something that would get taken to court if they so wish. And it's nothing like the phone hacking. Investigative journalism has been around for years, similar to undercover policing if you like.

I saw enough on the trailer!

Absolutely nothing to do with stomping on someone's ankles, possibly lying on a witness statement. Being tough enough to do an incredibly hard job doesn't mean have to be an cruel, power crazy arsehole.

If you are talking in a pub its not private. If you are talking in your place of work its not private.