Police officer guarding Sarah Everard’s body ‘sent vile message’. We need to realise that this is now the norm
Police: we’re learning that the behaviour of our supposedly upstanding law guardians is actually vile.
It is time the people of Britain accepted that contempt is the best we can expect from police officers, whether we are alive or dead.
Only last year, two policemen caused a scandal when it was revealed that they had taken selfies of themselves with the bodies of two murdered women and shared them on WhatsApp.
The usual platitudes about “learning the lessons” were bandied about amidst the furore but it is clear that no lessons were learned at all, because –
and let’s bear in mind that this is amid a huge scandal over allegations that a policeman kidnapped and murdered Sarah Everard, and policemen brutally attacked women who were trying to hold a peaceful vigil for her –
A Metropolitan Police officer guarding the scene where Sarah Everard’s body was found has allegedly shared an “inappropriate” message about her death with colleagues on WhatsApp.
It is believed the “inappropriate graphic” contained offensive comments about her death.
The graphic does not contain photographic images, no images of Sarah, nor any other material obtained from or related to the investigation into Sarah’s murder, the Met confirmed.
Sarah’s family have been made aware of the incident.
“Made aware”? When will they receive the grovelling apology they deserve?
My bet is that they will never receive any recompense from the Met or the Home Secretary who issues the orders – Priti Patel.
It seems clear that she expects citizens of the UK to buckle down and accept that, since December 2019 at least, police have been allowed to treat the rest of us with contempt.
No lessons were learned from last year’s incident because nobody in power cares. The officers of the Metropolitan Police don’t care. Their commissioner, Cressida Dick, certainly doesn’t care – and we shouldn’t be fooled by her crocodile tears. And Priti Patel doesn’t care about anybody but herself as we all know.
In contrast, Patel has already promised to clamp down on people who – justifiably, some might say – brandished anti-police signs at the Clapham Common vigil on Saturday, that the police attacked so brutally.
This Writer is ashamed to admit that the signs were brought to Patel’s attention by Fay Jones, Tory MP for my constituency, Brecon and Radnorshire.
It seems she claimed the peaceful vigil “turned into a protest with photographs showing ‘ACAB’ signs, which stands for ‘all cops are bastards’”. Was she there, then? If so, why wasn’t she handling affairs in her own constituency, where she was supposed to be?
The public response to this, I think, can be summed up with the following tweet:
https://twitter.com/latentexistence/status/1371591180820094981
Patel’s problem is that she doesn’t understand that respect must be earned. People don’t automatically deserve it, just because they’ve managed to engineer themselves into cushy jobs.
The Met officers against whom the ACAB signs were directed clearly deserved the criticism, in This Writer’s opinion. The behaviour of the police at Clapham Common fell far below the standard expected by the British people.
And in taking the side of those brutal cops, Patel’s behaviour fell well below the expected standard too (although her behaviour has been well below the expected standard since she first became a member of Parliament).
Possibly worst of all is the fact that scandals like the Everard-related WhatsApp message will push the few decent police officers out of their respective forces.
Yes, I’ve known a few. As a newspaper reporter in Bristol and in Mid Wales, I came into frequent contact with the police and some were good people who genuinely wanted to be of service to the community.
Many weren’t, though – and because of this, and the attitude of Dick and Patel, more won’t be in the future.
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I suppose the only positive to come out of this is that the offending officer was reported by his police colleagues. I doubt that would have happened in the past.
The police need to have a reality check about their behavior
Am I the only one who has got this wrong. Hundreds of women turn up to a protest that was banned, not one of them social distanceimg , it was not a peaceful protest as most of the time was spent abusing the police. The police have to deal with a noisy crowd abusing them and trying to enforce a covid mandate. Most of these women will now get coronavirus and feel sorry for them ? Not me.
Yes, you’ve got it wrong. The vigil was peaceful until the police moved in to break it up. Or at least, that’s the way it has been presented to us all. Were you there? Do you know different?
Some of the police like this government are below contempt
Yes, you have got it very wrong. But I suspect you knew that already.
Really ? Attending a banned event and not one single person social distancing.
Were you there?
What a stupid response. You didn’t need to be, or don’t you follow the news.
The point is that you can’t trust the news put out by mass-media monkeys like the BBC who are in thrall to the Tories. Are we to take it that you are too young to remember the coverage of Orgreave, which was turned around to suggest that picketers attacked police when in fact the police attacked first?
The police behaviour has been racked up since the Covid regulations were allowed to pass thirough Parliament with no real overview as to the draconian small print. Glad to see Starmer et al will be going through the new police laws with regard to public assembly and protests etc with a fine tooth comb to flush out the Tory boys protection rackets. Their Globalist actions will cause even more unrest so this police power escalation is their defence measures when things go deep and they want to prevent the likes of the Poll Tax Riots. The heavy handed rent-a-yob police behaviour from day 1 was a message for the public not to rise up against house arrest and all the other draconian measures the Tories introduced which we will eventually see if it was genuine or just testing how far they can control and depress the populations.
This nonsense show just naked contempt for the UK population from the top down. This whole no accountability, until we’re forced into it, shows how these idiot police officers keep on getting away with vile behaviours and this is where the arrogant contempt for the public comes in.
Respect as the author states has to be earned not demanded usually backed with casual violence if not given to the police and then they wonder why no one wants to help them?