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

I think they are disgusting and deserve what they get. I don't believe people should have signed up to be in the police if they aren't able to resist peer pressure or have enough integrity to do what is right even when others are being horrific.

I don't think sacking a few people will change the prevalent culture though.

Friends daughter married a met officer. They didn't see a lot of them so were blissfully ignorant. That is until they relocated to be near our friends. The mask soon slipped. Now they loathe him and wonder why he's so unpleasant to his wife and his in laws. They say nothing to keep the peace.

He's now in the local force and you have to hope he doesn't infest the officers there.

It’s worrying you think it’s ok to have these views when you’re ’off duty’.

Let's say you are white, your child marries a black man and have children. Your granddaughter is in a car accident with a white man, the man is aggresive and angry and threatens her, she calls her dad and it all gets a bit heated and the police are called.. and this police officer turns up. The aggressive man says its all your grandaughters fault and lies and says her dad threatened him.
How do you think this will play out for the innocent party, ie your granddaughter and her dad? The policemans bias could mean he sides with the man and skirts over the actual facts.
And this is why it is important to uncover racism in the police.
If someone holds very strong negative views about one sector of society, they can not do a job like policing. A racist plumber isnt going to ruin someones life, but a racist policeman could.
I don't like racists full stop but a a racist or mysogynist person in a position of authority is dangerous.

When those views impact their ability to do their job, to treat people with respect and dignity, to apply the law without fear or favour? Or do you think they go on duty and suddenly shed that racist, misogynistic mindset?

It's wrong to have these views full stop, it doesn't matter if you are on duty or off duty. Absolutely sickening, made worse by the fact a minority of people on here are excusing the behaviour!

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.

no, they’re abhorrent

I have met four people who work for the MET police. All of them are/were awful....think they attract a certain type?

I’d want to know. If it was my neighbour, or friends husband, or god forbid, my child, I’d want to know.

Unfortunately, we have to rely on journalists to uncover these things. The met clearly werent able to deal with it. They said they had.

Trouble is the head of the Met has appeased his officers (after the armed officers work to rule etc..) when he came into post and said the service had no institutional racism or sexism...it looked like change might happen with Sarah Everard and Mark Duggan but they just dug in and circled the wagons rejecting criticism and change.

They should be publicly shamed and fired at the very least! I have no problem with their identities and faces being shown!

Found it. It was a Panorama episode called The Secret Policeman. Filmed undercover by journalist Mark Daly and and broadcast in 2003. This is an extract from an interview about it.

In one scene to be shown in tonight's programme, a trainee is filmed wearing a Ku Klux Klan mask and threatening to beat up an Asian colleague. "He'll regret the day he was ever born a P**i," he says, before adding that his aim is "to eradicate the whole fucking country of people like him". Daly also recorded racist remarks made by other trainee officers. One recruit said murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence "deserved to die", that his killing was "a good memory" and that white racists "should be given diplomatic immunity".

These officers were recorded and their identies shown on telly at the time. So do you feel sorry for them too, OP?

Yep! I have no problem with their names and faces being publicised.

So yes. YABU @Bloodyscarymary

I’ll be honest, in the overall situation it’s not the racist misogynists in positions of power that I’m most worried about.

It was shocking and disgusting. No point in complaining as no-one would take you seriously. Absolutely rotten to the core. Where do they find these people? There must be something in the recruitment process that isn’t working.

Wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't a recruitment stand at Tommy Robinson's recent gathering.

But police have to follow their code of conduct when on and off duty! God knows what they've done to ethnic minority suspects in their custody - or what their female colleagues have had to endure!

I recently read True North by Sal Naseem who was on the Panorama doc. He used to be the Director of the IOPC and exposed systemic racism, misogyny, homophobia in the force. The culture of the Met is so deeply messed up and right to the top. I recommend the book. Terrifying as The Met are the people who are supposed to keep the community safe and act without prejudice.

watch it then come back to the thread

They’ve been told time and time again to get their house in order. I have zero sympathy and cannot believe they haven’t managed to stamp this out yet.

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

No I don’t feel bad for them. I would be marched
out the door if I have behaved like that in my company. It’s about cooperate culture.

No problem at all with their identities being known and I'm enraged that they are suspended on full pay and that will probably continue for a year before they are fired - but they will still get the pension benefits. Nice work for behaving in such a disgusting and violent manner.