Aren't our police wonderful.

[JohnM]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/23/fire-chief-wrongly-accused-of-sex-attack-freed-after-three-years/

[Billypop]

Absolutely disgraceful. The poor man.

[clwydianrange]

Will they pursue the perpetrator with the same obvious vigour

[Billypop]

Will they pursue the perpetrator with the same obvious vigour

 

From what I can gather there is no perpetrator, just a serial liar who was believed by the authorities without proper investigation.

[Mark S]

A friend of my Dad had false allegations made against him, it pretty much killed the poor bloke. He was diagnosed with cancer and then had a heart attack. If he was in a position to put all of his strength into getting 100% fit and not stressing about the false allegations he just maybe would have got through it.

[JDINTHEHIZZOUSE]

Cant stand them since 3 off duty female officers attacked my missus when she was dancing by herself in a pub,her mate had nipped to the loo. next thing,our peg was arrested,none of the girls were.She spent 17 hours in a cell,fortunatley she got found not guilty on all counts by the courts,but it pretty much put our lives on hold for 2 years while we waited for a court date

[tonyXIII]

How about a charge of negligence against the investigating (sic) officer?

 

Probably too costly, but it would be interesting.

[Bedford Roughyed]

More details of the case here -

 

http://barristerblogger.com/2016/07/21/shocking-case-david-bryant-reveals-fallacy-can-always-spot-liar/

 

(the comments include suggestions that the Police might not of been allowed access to the accusers medical history.  Other comments are interesting for all sorts of reasons)

[Bleep1673]

A friend of my Dad had false allegations made against him, it pretty much killed the poor bloke. He was diagnosed with cancer and then had a heart attack. If he was in a position to put all of his strength into getting 100% fit and not stressing about the false allegations he just maybe would have got through it.

 

Coming from a medical background, allegation of a sexual nature do no contribute to cancer & Cardiac problems

[tonyXIII]

Coming from a medical background, allegation of a sexual nature do no contribute to cancer & Cardiac problems

No, but such allegations can contribute to psychological problems such as depression, which in turn can make recovery from physical conditions much more difficult.

[Stan Doffarf]

Another example where the police have excelled themselves. 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-36845738

[Tiny Tim]

Coming from a medical background, allegation of a sexual nature do no contribute to cancer & Cardiac problems

 

Also coming from a medical(ish) background I'm pretty sure untrue allegations cause stress which can affect blood pressure which in turn can result in some pretty serious cardiac complications. It might be harder to make a direct link to cancer, but certainly the stress of being falsely accused of something will take it's toll on the body and could quite clearly affected the recovery (or non-recovery) from cancer.

[Mark S]

No, but such allegations can contribute to psychological problems such as depression, which in turn can make recovery from physical conditions much more difficult.

I thought I had made that explicit by using the term 'stressing'.

[tonyXIII]

I thought I had made that explicit by using the term 'stressing'.

 

I wasn't responding to your post. I was responding to Bleep's post, which is why I quoted his post in mine. Reading his post suggests that he didn't get the reference to "stressing".

 

I am now responding to your post, which is why I'm quoting your post in mine. I found nothing to object about in your post.

[Mark S]

I wasn't responding to your post. I was responding to Bleep's post, which is why I quoted his post in mine. Reading his post suggests that he didn't get the reference to "stressing".

I am now responding to your post, which is why I'm quoting your post in mine. I found nothing to object about in your post.

Apologies, I only responded to your post in order to maintain the conversation. I appreciate that you were backing my point up.

[Martyn Sadler]

Another example here that is somewhat Kafkaesque.

 

When involved in an altercation, get your hate crime allegation in first.

 

The police and the CPS seem to throw common sense out of the window.

[Jasper]

The title of this thread says - 'Aren't our police wonderful'.  I think that the majority are.  I found this on another site -

 

Blog by C/Supt John Sutherland, Met Police...

Yesterday in London, at about 11.25am, armed criminals attempted to rob a jewellery store in Piccadilly.

Members of the Flying Squad, carrying out an intelligence-led operation, moved in immediately to arrest them. All four suspects were detained, but not without a desperate struggle. Four officers were injured, one of them severely. He remains in hospital in a serious condition. Two axes, a machete and a knife were used on the officers and recovered at the scene.

Yesterday in London, just after 6pm, a man was attacked on the Winstanley Estate.

Police officers attended the location and found a man in his thirties who had been stabbed. Despite their best efforts, he died at the scene. Two other men who had also been stabbed were found nearby and rushed to hospital. One witness, quoted in the Evening Standard newspaper, stated that there was “blood everywhere”.

Yesterday in London, just after 8pm, a van collided with a pedestrian on Regent Street.

Police officers, and colleagues from the Air Ambulance attended the scene but, despite all their best efforts, the man died at the side of the road. It was the desperately sad duty of the police to find and inform his next of kin.

Yesterday in London, at about 10.30pm, a woman was murdered and a number of other people were injured in a knife attack in Russell Square.

Police officers – including Armed Response Vehicles – raced to the location and were on scene in less than 6 minutes. With little or no thought for their own safety, they chased and detained a suspect. He remains in custody in a South London Police Station.

Yesterday in London, away from the headlines, police officers and their police staff colleagues went about their jobs. They searched for missing persons and they arrested domestic violence perpetrators. They investigated serious sexual offences and they searched knife crime suspects. They protected the vulnerable and they confronted the dangerous. And they did a thousand other things besides.

Yesterday in London, hidden from public view, police officers and their colleagues were investigating terrorism, organised crime, human trafficking, child abuse and every other form of human wickedness.

Yesterday in London, that’s what the police were doing.

In just one city.

On just one day.

It’s what police officers are doing every single day – in every single part of the country.

[Bedford Roughyed]

The Police on the whole do a tough job, a dangerous job.  They have to deal with people across the whole range.  They generally try to do the job to the best of abilities.  They are expected to know a wide range of laws (they love someone quoting the actual law at them...), and do so despite pretty big budget cuts.

 

They have to look after one another, because they know when there is trouble it's their mate that will back them up.  And thats where things generally go wrong.  They back each other up no matter what.

[Shadow]

I think the police do have a difficult and often dangerous job and are often stretched to the limit. Which is why it's nonsense for them to propose dealing with 'hate crime' such as wolf whistling (Nottingham police are proposing this) or someone calling someone an effing queen or something.

Whatever happened to sticks and stones? Burglary is a really horrendous crime, I'd rather they focused more on genuinely traumatic stuff like that than non physical name calling.

 

This illustrates the problems facing the Police when lazy journalists cherry pick individual elements of a policy and report them totally out of context and reduced to the point of absurdity.

Nottingham Police are not re-categorising Wolf Whistling as a hate crime  what they are doing is taking seriously cases of uninvited physical contact, verbal abuse and intimidation including that against women. Personally I think that's admirable but doesn't fulfill the lazy journalist's need to get a quick and easy headline.

[Robin Evans]

Police...... hmmmmmmm.....

Perhaps best i stay out of this one.... my slant is not necessarily positive....

[Shadow]

Would you rather the police focused on your house being burled or someone who's feelings had been hurt? Verbal abuse? To what degree though? All it's doing is encouraging drama queens and deflecting resources away from people who genuinely need it. Physical contact has always been classed as technically assault anyway, so why does it need to be reclassified now? Intimidation has too long been an offence...have they not been doing their job recently?

 

Or maybe you think the police have unlimited resources and should have no priorities at all and class everything as 'serious crime'. 

 

'Help I've been burgled' 'Sorry Madam, you'll have to wait, someone has got hurt feelings here'

I'd rather the police focused on people feeling safe. If that means treating sexual assault as such then that's a good thing. If you look at the link I posted you'll see it doesn't refer to wolf whistling and hurt feelings but assault and intimidation. 

[Martyn Sadler]

According to the Nottinghamshire Police in the article linked to by Shadow: "A hate crime is simply any incident, which may or may not be deemed as a criminal offence, which is perceived by the victim or any other person, as being motivated by prejudice or hatred.”

 

That's a rather confusing definition.

 

If it's a "crime", then surely it has to be deemed a "criminal offence".

 

Otherwise it isn't a crime.

 

And as for the "victim" or "any other person" perceiving some words or action as a hate crime, that is what leads to injustice and brings the law into disrepute.

[Griff9of13]

Ian McNabb (of 80s band The Icicle Works), the police and his 82 year old mother

[JohnM]

Favourite response of the police when you ask them to do something?  "i'm sorry sir, can't help you there..that's a civil matter!"

 

There are over 200,000 "police workers" in England and Wales and the vast vast majority of them are decent, honest people doing their best dealing with lets be honest, some awful people and awful situations. The McNabb referred to above does sound a little difficult and aggressive. Effing and and blinding at a cop is not always the best way to get your point over...maybe a formal complaint might be better. He won't make one though.

 

Here are the grounds for breathalysing someone: https://www.gov.uk/stopped-by-police-while-driving-your-rights/breath-tests  Be keen to know on what basis the police thought she had been drinking.

 

In my view, the problem with the police comes  with solidarity in the face of challenge from individuals,from disciplinary proceedings and from from formal investigations

[Robin Evans]

Some of the stuff i witnessed in 1984/85 has somewhat prejudiced my opinion forever.

Subsequent issues typified by the police actions and reactions to the Hillsborough tradgedy underpin a lot of what you suggest in your last point john.

I find it incredilous that in rotherham councillors, senior team officials from children services, education and even OFSTED themselves had been censured and had people removed from post yet so far, the police.... so prominent by their failings highlighted in Jay have yet to expeeience one officer removed by syp.