Met apologise for 'sexist, derogatory' language when searching woman

[ArabellaScott]

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/24/met-apologises-to-academic-for-sexist-derogatory-language

'The Metropolitan police have apologised and paid compensation to an academic for “sexist, derogatory and unacceptable language” used by officers about her when she was strip-searched.'

'Duff was arrested on 5 May 2013 on suspicion of obstructing and assaulting police after trying to hand a legal advice card to a 15-year-old caught in a stop-and-search sweep in Hackney – allegations she was later cleared of in court. '

Is anyone going to do something about the police, at all?

Go on then, you need to explain that further.

What jobs that i have been involved with have i been a 'dick about it'?

Or are you just assuming.....?

I'm not assuming @felix125. I've read your posts.🤣🤣🤣 You, and officers like you are a huge part of a massive problem that you refuse to see.

Go on then - i'm intrigued - which posts?

All of them.

I’ve actually found Felix’s posts very useful. I now understand exactly why all the horrific events that have been perpetrated by the police - from Sarah Everard to Dr Duff - have been able to happen.

I believe that Felix is probably a fundamentally good person who joined the police for the correct reasons. He is a “good cop” as he describes himself and probably representative of many many police officers.

But - and this is a large but - he is completely and utterly unable to believe that a police officer can behave badly unless he has the evidence in front of him. The basic critical thinking that most of us have done where we have taken what we know about the characters about the police officers involved in Dr Duff’s case and the character of Dr Duff herself and so drawn conclusions as to who is most likely to be lying. He just can’t do it.

I don’t think he is stupid. But he is missing something thought wise. He has been - I guess - brainwashed into “police good, public bad” and he just can’t accept that that is not always true.

And if every police officer - or at least the “good” ones are just like him then suddenly we understand why nobody stopped Wayne Couzins in the many months or even years between him first showing more red flags than a communist convention and him using his warrant card as a tool to rape and murder. It explains why the conviction rate for domestic violence is even more depressingly low when it is a police officer who is the perpetrator than it is when the perpetrator is a member of the public. And it explains why Maurice Cohen cleared Kurtis Howard of any wrong doing against Doctor Duff and why she had to fight for nearly 9 years for the truth about what happened in that custody suite to come out.

@Mumoftwoinprimary, this is exactly right and much better expressed than my previous enraged posts.

He doesn't see it and he won't see it. And that's the problem.

All the way through this post I have said repeatedly - ".....The language used and the comments made were wrong and if the process which i described on page 6/7 for searching was stepped outside of and she was assaulted for no reason other than to effect the search - then it was wrong..."

I can't see how you can say that i am blindly supporting the officers involved in this.

What i am saying is that there are too many unanswered questions to justifiably make the assumptions that some people on here are doing

So, for example, just because someone is found not guilty at court - it doesn't follow that the other person is lying. So no one can say that the officers have lied, its just assumptions, yet people on here seem to live in a black & white world where its either right or wrong and there is no grey area.

We also can't just assume that the 'characters of the police officers' involved must mean that they have lied throughout the entire incident. We still don't know if the arresting officer was involved in the following custody incident for instance.

And I'm not 'police good, police bad' - I am saying that there is perhaps a middle ground here that needs to be discussed - which i have been with many other posters on here. Policing is not straight forward.

I have asked on here a number of times about what people would do if they were a custody sergeant and were presented with a person who was refusing their details. How would they be properly risk assessed to ensure they would not be in a position to harm themselves or others.

The language used by him 'search her like a terrorists' was wrong - and i have said so several times on this forum. But the fact still remains that people do sneak things into custody on an alarmingly regular basis which the custody staff have to manage. Now, i am not saying the Dr Duff would be doing this - but how do we know? Do we take the chance? What if she was actually a self harm or suicide risk and went in to the cell and hurt herself using a concealed item - would the police be a fault for not looking after her welfare. We wouldn't know that risk as she was refusing her details.

You're always going to get evil people like Couzens in any organisation. And you will always have the people who he chooses to surround him, not coming forward. But this will not be the majority of officers in the Met. The vast, vast majority of officers would not have known him at all or what he was up to.

These WhatsApp groups are not force wide things. They tend to be just for a particular team - we have one for our response team - the posts are mainly about who can bring some milk in or who's taking their kids to the local soft play area on days off.

I am a good cop and always put my victims first and will always call out bad behaviour when i see it. I'm a tutor, so install this in the new recruits. I also call out bad behaviour in our 'support services' when i see it. Nurses, medics, teachers, mental health staff, victim support and domestic violence & sexual offences support - have all made inappropriate comments and acted in ways which are wrong - and I will challenge them all the time.

Thank you for showing us all what a good cop is @Felix125. For years MNetters have been trying to explain how "good cops" are a huge part of the problem, you have just shown them how much of a problem.

What i am saying is that there are too many unanswered questions to justifiably make the assumptions that some people on here are doing

Remind us what you assumed before making your first post @felix125?

@TooBigForMyBoots

What i am saying is that there are too many unanswered questions to justifiably make the assumptions that some people on here are doing

Remind us what you assumed before making your first post @felix125?

My first post was asking what the circumstances of the arrest were?

And if the arrest was lawful

@TooBigForMyBoots

All of them.

So, you disagree with the following

The language used and the comments made were wrong and if the process which i described on page 6/7 for searching was stepped outside of and she was assaulted for no reason other than to effect the search - then it was wrong..."

From your first post on this thread @felix125:
I assume she has then go on to assault the officer in some way, which is why she was brought into custody.

You assumed Dr Duff assaulted a police officer. Why did you assume that?

Don't take the quote out of context?

I was asking a question of "...What were the circumstances for her original arrest - I'm assuming a male was being stop searched and she was interfering with that process?..."

And then onto "...If the arrest was lawful at that point..."

This was in answer to an earlier comment raised by Scrollingleaves - about the arrest being 'clearly unlawful.'

My point being that we can not determine that it was necessarily unlawful.

But further, it raises the question that if no assault had taken place, why the court did not peruse a perjury case against the police?

But I think we have already covered this ground in the previous pages.

It's not out of context. You assumed that Dr Duff assaulted a police officer. She didn't. Why do you assume she did?

Its in the context of the question of that particular post

We've been through all of this before - go back to page 13 on wards where we discussed this.

In essence neither of us were there, so neither of us can say she did or she didn't - and i made that point quite clear on page 14/15.

In essence neither of us were there, so neither of us can say she did or she didn't - and i made that point quite clear on page 14/15.

We can look at the evidence @Felix125:
We know that the Magistrates commented on the honesty of Dr Duff's testimony.
We know that Dr Duff was acquitted of all charges. We know that Dr Duff is innocent.
We know that Dr Duff is honest.
We know that Dr Duff suffered sexual humiliation and years of stress at the hands of the police she encountered that night.
We know that the police involved are unprofessional liars involved in at least one cover up.

You want to tell me why you assumed the arrest was lawful, apart from "the arresting officers said so"?

We've been through all of this before and you have asked similar questions. Go back to around page 10

Have the courts commented on the 'dishonesty' of the officers testimony? If so, why hasn't a perjury case been brought against them?

We have no transcript or case file from the process to judge what happened

Why have CPS & the courts pursued the case through the judicial process if they believe that the officers have lied?

Just because one person if found not guilty - its doesn't follow that the other person has lied.

I have discussed the reasons for the search and the problems that an unidentified person poses in custody. How do you want custody to minimise the risk to a person who refuses their details?

We still do not know if the officer who arrested Dr Duff was involved in any part of the custody incident.

If the arrest was not lawful, why hasn't Dr Duff brought a successful case of unlawful arrest? Why has CPS and the court pursued the matter further? Why hasn't the court brought a case of perjury?

I read your posts. It's frightening that you think that the way to deal with women who are passively protesting and asking for a solicitor, is to violently and sexually assault them.

The custody officer didnt order it because of any risk, his words were very clear. He and the other officers present lied and covered it up.

As for your disingenuous nonsense about charging the officers with perjury, courts are reluctant to do it for many good reasons as you well know.

If you want to know why Dr Duff isnt taking it further,

Asked about the impact of pursuing the complaint for eight years, she said: "The process of going through this complaints procedure - I've just felt like I've been on trial for eight years... I've just experienced a barrage of victim blaming and gas lighting."

"What I've experienced over the past eight years is a legal system which is absolutely set up to protect the police from accountability and to prevent complaints from getting anywhere, to just disappear them into a bureaucratic abyss."

Your posts on this thread bear that out @felix125.

@TooBigForMyBoots

I read your posts. It's frightening that you think that the way to deal with women who are passively protesting and asking for a solicitor, is to violently and sexually assault them.

The custody officer didnt order it because of any risk, his words were very clear. He and the other officers present lied and covered it up.

As for your disingenuous nonsense about charging the officers with perjury, courts are reluctant to do it for many good reasons as you well know.

You're going back over things but are not answering anything that i am asking you.

So, if you were the custody sergeant and you were presented by a subject who was refusing their details - how would you class their risk? Low risk or unknown risk? And what would be your rational for classing them as such - and then what provision would you put in place to minimise the risk further once they are in a cell? Or would you be happy to put them in a cell and hope for the best? Or are you wanting the police to disregard the provisions made out in PACE?

The language used and the comments made were wrong and if the process which i described on page 6/7 for searching was stepped outside of and she was assaulted for no reason other than to effect the search - then it was wrong.

So what would you do - just put her in a cell and hope that nothing goes wrong?

And don't simply say that she shouldn't have been arrested in the first place - we've gone past that point and she is now stood in front of you in custody.

Why do you think the courts are reluctant to charge officers with perjury? What are these 'many good reasons' you refer to?

The court do not want people in there who are going to lie. They take a very dim view of people lying under oath especially if they are in a position such as a police officer.

And Dr Duff has taken it further - hence this article. Why didn't she pursue the false arrest at the same time as this complaint? Why has she just complained about certain aspects and not others?

And which posts 'bare this out' that in some way i am protecting the police from accountability - when i have repeatedly said:

The language used and the comments made were wrong and if the process which i described on page 6/7 for searching was stepped outside of and she was assaulted for no reason other than to effect the search - then it was wrong.

If I was the custody sergeant in Dr Duff's case I would want to get her out of my station pdq and with minimum fuss. Then I would bollock out the arresting officers and look into disciplinary proceedings. I would not assume that the "lefty dogooder" had concealed a weopon. I would not have ordered the strip search to show Dr duff that "resistance is futile".

Your repeated assertions that the police behaved correctly in arresting Dr Duff and that they had to violently strip search her for her own safety bears testament to her words I've just experienced a barrage of victim blaming and gaslighting. Because that is what you are doing on this thread @felix125.

Women cannot and should not trust the police because they are untrustworthy.

@TooBigForMyBoots

Amazing that this person will not concede a single inch. If this is "good" police behaviour I would hate to meet a wrong 'un.

@Felix125

Just because you said it, does not make it so.

We see you

Amazing that this person will not concede a single inch. If this is "good" police behaviour I would hate to meet a wrong 'un.

Quite. Upwards of probably 60 posts on a thread about proven police misconduct, essentially rehashing the same point over and over again. Bizarre. I can't understand how a serving member of the police could think this is in any way appropriate or reflects well on the police as a whole.

@Aspiringmatriarch

Amazing that this person will not concede a single inch. If this is "good" police behaviour I would hate to meet a wrong 'un.

Quite. Upwards of probably 60 posts on a thread about proven police misconduct, essentially rehashing the same point over and over again. Bizarre. I can't understand how a serving member of the police could think this is in any way appropriate or reflects well on the police as a whole.

I'm answering posts raised by 'TooBigForMyBoots'

If you don't want to engage in the conversation, then no one is forcing you to

I just think its quite rude if someone asks me a question to just simply ignore them

@TooBigForMyBoots

If I was the custody sergeant in Dr Duff's case I would want to get her out of my station pdq and with minimum fuss. Then I would bollock out the arresting officers and look into disciplinary proceedings. I would not assume that the "lefty dogooder" had concealed a weopon. I would not have ordered the strip search to show Dr duff that "resistance is futile".

Your repeated assertions that the police behaved correctly in arresting Dr Duff and that they had to violently strip search her for her own safety bears testament to her words I've just experienced a barrage of victim blaming and gaslighting. Because that is what you are doing on this thread @felix125.

Women cannot and should not trust the police because they are untrustworthy.

OK

So the custody sergeant can not get involved in the investigation (under the provisions set out in PACE).

The investigation has to be completed and advice sought from CPS in order to do so.

During this time, where is Dr Duff going to go?

The only place she can go is into a cell

So, would you be happy - baring in mind she has refused all her details so you know nothing about her or her history - just to take a chance that she is not concealing anything?

I'm not victim blaming or gas-lighting anywhere in this thread - I have repeatedly said the language used and the comments made were wrong and if the process which i described on page 6/7 for searching was stepped outside of and she was assaulted for no reason other than to effect the search - then it was wrong.

I can't see how you are reading into that that the police have behaved correctly throughout.