Anybody see this? Quite shocking. The firm inside a firm. Crooked from top to bottom and when they investigated, they got them to investigate themselves! All clear and nothing to be seen of course. They used to sell 'licences' to the sex shop operators in Soho, which meant you got a warning of when a raid was coming. They got countless armed robbers off. Some of the top bosses used to go on holiday to the Costas with gangsters. Just no shame. I wondered particularly whether our own crime and policing guru @zztop saw any of these shows? I'm not having a go or anything (I note it was 'uniform' who eventually cleaned out the dirty detectives) but I wondered whether you ever were offered "a drink" during your days in serge?
I saw the program that covered the licensing in Soho. And I was one of the newly formed task unit that cleaned it all up in the early 80's, operating out of Saville Row Police Station. And there was shame, contrary to what you say. They did their best to hide their crimes, there was no blatant rule breaking. It was a closed circle.They got what was coming.
I think corruption within the police is inevitable. There must be 150,000 police officers in the uk. So among that number of people you are bound to get individuals who will act at the extreme end of benefits of the uniform. The public just need the reassurance that routines and procedures and the oversight of them, means that those miscreants are quickly identified and dealt with. Having worked with the BT Police in the 1980s and 1990s, more noticeable was not corruption, but the high degree of incompetence and indolence we had to deal with. The routine pouncing of favours. Whether that was free food and drink from easily intimidated kiosk staff, the odd backhander from taxi touts, the expectation that a warrant card guaranteed free first class travel, etc paled into insignificance compared to the low level of outputs delivered.
Oh yes. the BTP are the very worst. As you rightly say - super lazy and never wanted to come out of the office. Only really interested in nicking someone if they would stay where they were, so the cop could stroll round in their own time when they were good and ready and do it at their convenience. If anyone ran away, then that was them farked! Also knew about the 'drinks' from the taxi touts too. It was shameful how tourists and visitors to London would get ripped off by them - standing at the ticket barriers when a train arrived shouting "Underground closed! Taxi! Taxi!". Of course they're entirely unlicenced and no insurance etc. They'd drive the tourist 2 or 3 miles and charge them £70 or £80 - threatening violence if they didn't pay. I took so many tourists off them and got in big arguments and nearly fights. The BTP were ALWAYS "all tucked up" (that was the phrase they used to use) and too busy to come, but you could walk round their little yard and see them through the window all sitting about chatting or having a takeaway or whatever. We used to go down the taxi rank and tell the black cab drivers the touts were up there - they DID come quick to chase them off! I put something in our log book once about it saying something like "I doubt many tourists arriving at Euston think our police are wonderful". The BR management photocopied it and sent it to the BTP for comments, with my name on! A sergeant came straight round and told ne that I couldn't write such things and really intimidated me - intimated I'd be fitted up for something if I ever complained about them again. Those BTP get all the railway conditions (free travel etc) AND all the Met Police conditions, so they're really in clover. Thry love nothing more than nicking railway staff - mainly I think because they know exactly where they'll be when they want to stroll round and do it, The country's worst police force by some distance I'd say.
I didn't have much to do with them personally, but they had a reputation for being Met Police rejects. But I did come across them once. I was returning from Shenley Hospital having returned a resident who had been found wandering in the streets of Finsbury Park. As I was going through Radlet a call came up, that youths had smashed a nearby shop window and taking the goods on display. I accepted the call and after getting the gist from a few locals it seemed that two youths were seen running away from the shop (a pet shop) towards the BR station, and that a BTP officer had stopped a train leaving after two youths were seen getting on board a train. A good bit of luck I thought, as it was likely our two youths were effectively "prisoner" on the train. So when I saw a police officer walking away from two likely youths on the almost empty train, I was perplexed. He told me, "It isn't them mate, they've been on board since Elstree." He was a size, our BTP man. The sort of fat police officer that if he was chasing "chummy" around the streets, chummy only needed to find a narrow alleyway, and fat BTP man would be unable to follow. He was big. But, he also sounded disinterested. So I went back with him to challenge these yoofs. There they were scoffing a packet of, I kid you not, "Good Boy" chocolate drops. Pretty much bang to rights. I didn't really fancy nicking someone in Herts, when I worked in inner London, but BTP man had to be "persuaded" to nick them, not for theft of the doggy chocolate drops as much as the damage to a window that would cost a grand or so to replace. He definitely wished I hadn't turned up.
They never noticed all the stationery I nicked. I went into the job Bicless and came out rolling in them. I would have had more but austerity cut off my Bic supply and reduced me to cheapo biros instead.
I agree there's definitely corruption - if only because logic says there must be and cases come out every now and again - but it's far from rife and I'm sure the vast majority wouldn't go in for it. I saw plenty of colleagues turn down free food that was offered because they know it's not worth their job to be caught accepting it. Who wants to lose a £35k job for a kebab? And there are plenty of places these days that offer decent discounts for emergency services workers that are endorsed by the force. I occasionally got the train for free to Watford on Saturdays, saving me maybe £25, because the train company allowed it and the force okayed it. The deal though was I had to speak to the guard before getting on and knew I'd be expected to intervene if they had any issues. A lot of the misconduct these days is down to what coppers do outside of work. I know of a few drummed out for maintaining criminal associations or general stupidity off duty. The other one that does for a big proportion of the ones who get sacked is laziness in work that they then lie about in an effort to cover it up. The job can cope with a bit of laziness but there's little tolerance for liars, for very good reason.
Little doubt about the high levels of corruption that have been present in the force, following the Daniel Morgan enquiry. Even the Home Secretary and the Mail calling it ‘institutionally corrupt’. Peter Bleksley on Newsnight last night saying that undoubtedly there is less corruption among the rank and file now, but the tendency to cover up, for a lack of candour among the bosses, is as strong as ever, something we knew already from Stockwell and other incidents. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/daniel-morgan-met-police-corruption-b1866193.html
The Morgan case has always a stench about it but it's an extreme example. I can't talk for the 80s but it's a fact of life now with modern inquiries and big cases like Stockwell or Grenfell that the lawyers run the show. They advise what must and needn't be disclosed. If you are senior in any organisation, public or private, there's always an element of reputation protection that goes on. I don't see why the police should be the only body legally denied from doing that. And frankly you'd get more candour as a result of incidents big and small and without needing to make it a legal requirement if everything stopped spiraling into a witch hunt. Where appropriate let people give honest explanations without the threat of disciplinary, civil or criminal proceedings hanging over them. As it stands the system is geared up to threaten officers - even where they're cooperating witnesses - with losing their livelihood. Plus politicians regularly pour fuel on the fire with ill-informed comments, the IOPC are far too slow to investigate everything and the public can never decide from one year to the next what exactly it is they'd like the police to be doing or not doing.
I think it's a cycle. We demand more accountability, don't get it and so demand that the unaccountable receive harsher treatment and in turn they retreat further. I agree there are parallels with other public bodies, particularly in Government and in the NHS. This Government has little regard for openness or candour, openly gives it two fingers through ridiculous crony led inquiries. The NHS, despite the duty of candour among staff, has done little better of late and practitioners fear that their candour will be used by employers to avoid admitting the context of madly stretched services where mistakes happen. But this was corruption of a different level and what puzzles me now is why even 25 years on the Police were trying to suppress evidence (it probably shouldn't and suggests that a few top heads should roll). At least with this report, coupled with the Macpherson review people can say what they always knew about the culture of the Met during that period.
