The Police Service Still Shies Away From Examination

I was never the sort to pull legs off spiders or burn them under a magnifying glass. I was more interested in using that magnifying glass to examine, to search for fascinating detail and to learn. I grew a little more wary of examining spiders when, at about the age of six, one that was languishing in our old enamel bath bit my enquiring hand.

Obviously I meant it no harm, but it reacted with an instinctive defence mechanism. It lashed out against me in the only way it could.

A similarly thoughtless and unnecessary act of retribution has been meted out to a brave man of unimpeachable integrity, James Patrick. James is a serving officer in the Metropolitan Police. Earlier this year, dismayed by the onset of police reform driven by ideology rather than logic, by vested interests instead of necessity, James wrote a series of blogs called The Police Debating Directive. It is here on Blogspot.

In these well written blogs, he follows the trails and connections of most, if not all, of the key players involved. All, and I do mean all, of the information used is in the public domain, available to anyone with a search engine and an inquisitive nature. Like someone unpicking a sweater, he follows the threads wherever they go, as the edifice unravels around him. Not a single piece of information, save James's general experiences of being a serving officer, has come from any privileged sources.

It was in the process of reading these blogs that I discovered that the Association of Chief Police Officers, ACPO, is actually a limited company. Yes you read that right. A limited company is at the head of the UK Police service, and has been for years. Do I discern a conflict of interest?

The blogs relentlessly followed the motive forces behind police reform. The light shone by James got brighter and brighter even though the path got ever darker. Every measured statement is supported by facts in linked or footnoted articles.

In order to generate some much needed funds for the charity Care Of Police Survivors, the blogs were collated and self published into a book called The Rest Is Silence. This is available in Kindle form as well as hard copy and I heartily recommend you find a way of reading these collated essays.

The book and the content began to attract a wider audience. It gained attention in police stations across the country, by operational officers as well as those "upstairs".

It was almost inevitable that the spider chose to bite. James has been served with disciplinary papers for Gross Misconduct by the Met. I assume someone feels that James has brought the Met or service as a whole into disrepute. As I said on Twitter when I learned of this; "Some things are sad. Some things are predictable. Some are sadly predictable."

Disrepute. Yet what could be further from the truth? Had the subject of the blogs been a major corporation or even, say, the NHS, then the questions James has raised would, or should, be causing a great deal of soul searching in the national press and Parliament.

But this spider doesn't like to be examined too closely. Especially by one of its own. As soon as the cover was lifted, it scurried away in search of another hiding place and went into defence mode.

It is an accepted fact in the sciences that the very act of observation changes the nature of the thing you seek to examine. Except the dark and deep recesses of the police service.

Don't get me wrong, ACPO is mostly happy to throw its foot soldiers to the wolves periodically, to give the impression of being progressive. However when it comes to questions of real leadership, ACPO suddenly loses its fighting spirit. We could only speculate as to why. A cynic might say that Chief Officers are too busy toadying up to Government, ensuring their future knighthood or Peerage. In some cases both. Did anyone else notice that at the height of the Plebgate issue, Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe refused to back the accounts of his officers in Downing Street, instead issuing a joint statement with the Cabinet Secretary encouraging everyone to 'move on'. In the last week or so, with Andrew Mitchell safely resigned, and almost as everyone forgot the matter, Hogan Howe now decides to say publicly that he thinks the officers were telling the truth.

I wonder, was the fence he was sitting on so high it took him that long to get down from it, or did he have at least one eye fixed on a cosy seat in the Lords to go with his police pension? I can't answer that question, but if I was a serving Met officer, I'd want an answer to that question. And one other question. Why is shining a light on (at best) morally questionable conduct by Ministers, Senior Officers, and think-tanks considered Gross Misconduct?

In the light of recent revelations about Hillsborough, the public needs to know that the upper echelons of the service are open to scrutiny. That it is not only open to examination, but welcomes the opportunity to show how the service has changed since 1989. That is, if it has at all.

The scandal of Hillsborough was that senior officers changed the accounts of lower ranking officers to silence or stifle criticism of those at the top. That philosophy still seems alive and well in 2012.