Justice Delayed
The Metropolitan Police are coming under sustained attack for the length of time it is taking to complete their investigations in to the increasingly notorious 'Plebgate Affair' - which led to the resignation of a Government Minister.
I suspect this can only mean one thing - that individual police officers involved in the affair along with the Police Federation (police trade union) have some very serious questions to answer about their behaviour - as argued by Ken Macdonald in the following piece from the Times
But what I can't understand is how it can possibly take so long for the Met Police to get to the bottom of things and publish their findings - the whole business stinks to high heaven.
By Ken Macdonald
A year must be enough for the police to investigate one 45-second incident
One year ago after a long, tiring day, Andrew Mitchell wheeled his sit-up-and-beg pushbike away from his Downing Street office. You can see him on the smeary CCTV footage, heading for the gates — and, as it turned out, an ugly political row.
Today, a full 12 months later, the former Government Chief Whip remains precisely where he found himself the morning after his famous encounter with the law — that is to say, nowhere. It’s a little difficult to see why this should be so. According to a committee of MPs that reported in some exasperation last week, the police have now spent 12 months investigating an incident that lasted around 45 seconds. The first report they sent the Crown Prosecution Service was returned, apparently, on the basis that it was inadequate. Their second attempt still hasn’t appeared.
Yet the charge against Mr Mitchell was clear enough. Coming up against a uniformed jobsworth who refused to open the gates for a Cabinet minister, the Chief Whip was alleged to have sworn and to have called the officer a “pleb”.
Of course everyone understood the significance of that claim the moment the police made it. The meaning rang out loud and clear, hauling the maladroit Bullingdon past of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor along in its slipstream: that ghastly Oxford portrait of the shiny faced young pups, hands on hips, trussed up in harnesses of cream, blue and gold.
And the police got it straight away, too. The leaders of the Police Federation, the nation’s most effective (and bullying) trade union, were on to it in a flash. In a series of coordinated stunts, officers started appearing at demos with that helpful little gob spit of abuse emblazoned across their off-duty T-shirts. The Tories despised the poor cops on the beat, was their message, and wanted to pay them less. Another person who got it in a flash was the Prime Minister, who didn’t take long to distance himself from his Chief Whip.
And when the evidence against him began to “emerge” (as it always does), he couldn’t hang on. The police log had looked damning enough but when we were told that a member of the public had witnessed what had happened and that the Chief Whip had treated the officers abominably, Mr Mitchell, under ferocious pressure from No 10, finally resigned.
Except that it wasn’t true and the knitting began to unravel. That “member of the public” turned out to be an off-duty police officer who allegedly hadn’t even been at the scene. And it was just as bad when we discovered that Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, given the task by Mr Cameron of examining the evidence against Mr Mitchell, hadn’t thought to mention to anyone that the CCTV footage hadn’t seemed to accord with the police log. Mr Mitchell, it appears, was caught in the perfect storm of a shabby police culture and arctic political expediency.
Facing its own crisis of confidence, the Met seized the opportunity of launching its own inquiry, perhaps before the Government came under terminal pressure to arrange something more independent. This at least showed a modicum of nous: the suggestion that police officers might have tried to frame a British Cabinet minister, in pursuit of their campaign of resistance against pay reform, called for exceptionally careful handling.
But where the Police Federation had been characteristically cynical, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was just plain foolish. Even as he announced his investigation, the Commissioner told the nation’s media that he believed that his officers at Downing Street were telling the truth. In the face of this remarkable act of fairground clairvoyance, Mr Mitchell may have asked himself the point of an inquiry.
Yet we are talking here about the resignation of a British Cabinet minister, a resignation forced upon him at the height of his career by police allegations that are now seriously called into question. An expeditious and thorough investigation should have been perfectly possible. We are told that no fewer than 30 officers are on the case and that they are being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It seems quite outrageous that, in the face of the simplicity of the allegations and this significant commitment of public resources, the investigation rambles on, with no apparent end in sight. As the public remains locked in blissful ignorance of the truth, the suspicion must grow that the police find themselves blinded like rabbits in the face of an approaching storm, paralysed by fearful anticipation.
With several police officers now arrested and others under active investigation, the stakes could hardly be higher. If it turns out that the career-killing use of “pleb”, that lethal, single-syllabled Exocet, was fabricated, as Mr Mitchell has always claimed, it will be certain that the missile is heading straight for the heart of the Metropolitan Police.
Ken Macdonald, QC, is Warden of Wadham College, Oxford. He was Director of Public Prosecutions, 2003-2008 and is a Liberal Democrat peer
A year must be enough for the police to investigate one 45-second incident
One year ago after a long, tiring day, Andrew Mitchell wheeled his sit-up-and-beg pushbike away from his Downing Street office. You can see him on the smeary CCTV footage, heading for the gates — and, as it turned out, an ugly political row.
Today, a full 12 months later, the former Government Chief Whip remains precisely where he found himself the morning after his famous encounter with the law — that is to say, nowhere. It’s a little difficult to see why this should be so. According to a committee of MPs that reported in some exasperation last week, the police have now spent 12 months investigating an incident that lasted around 45 seconds. The first report they sent the Crown Prosecution Service was returned, apparently, on the basis that it was inadequate. Their second attempt still hasn’t appeared.
Yet the charge against Mr Mitchell was clear enough. Coming up against a uniformed jobsworth who refused to open the gates for a Cabinet minister, the Chief Whip was alleged to have sworn and to have called the officer a “pleb”.
Of course everyone understood the significance of that claim the moment the police made it. The meaning rang out loud and clear, hauling the maladroit Bullingdon past of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor along in its slipstream: that ghastly Oxford portrait of the shiny faced young pups, hands on hips, trussed up in harnesses of cream, blue and gold.
And the police got it straight away, too. The leaders of the Police Federation, the nation’s most effective (and bullying) trade union, were on to it in a flash. In a series of coordinated stunts, officers started appearing at demos with that helpful little gob spit of abuse emblazoned across their off-duty T-shirts. The Tories despised the poor cops on the beat, was their message, and wanted to pay them less. Another person who got it in a flash was the Prime Minister, who didn’t take long to distance himself from his Chief Whip.
And when the evidence against him began to “emerge” (as it always does), he couldn’t hang on. The police log had looked damning enough but when we were told that a member of the public had witnessed what had happened and that the Chief Whip had treated the officers abominably, Mr Mitchell, under ferocious pressure from No 10, finally resigned.
Except that it wasn’t true and the knitting began to unravel. That “member of the public” turned out to be an off-duty police officer who allegedly hadn’t even been at the scene. And it was just as bad when we discovered that Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, given the task by Mr Cameron of examining the evidence against Mr Mitchell, hadn’t thought to mention to anyone that the CCTV footage hadn’t seemed to accord with the police log. Mr Mitchell, it appears, was caught in the perfect storm of a shabby police culture and arctic political expediency.
Facing its own crisis of confidence, the Met seized the opportunity of launching its own inquiry, perhaps before the Government came under terminal pressure to arrange something more independent. This at least showed a modicum of nous: the suggestion that police officers might have tried to frame a British Cabinet minister, in pursuit of their campaign of resistance against pay reform, called for exceptionally careful handling.
But where the Police Federation had been characteristically cynical, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was just plain foolish. Even as he announced his investigation, the Commissioner told the nation’s media that he believed that his officers at Downing Street were telling the truth. In the face of this remarkable act of fairground clairvoyance, Mr Mitchell may have asked himself the point of an inquiry.
Yet we are talking here about the resignation of a British Cabinet minister, a resignation forced upon him at the height of his career by police allegations that are now seriously called into question. An expeditious and thorough investigation should have been perfectly possible. We are told that no fewer than 30 officers are on the case and that they are being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It seems quite outrageous that, in the face of the simplicity of the allegations and this significant commitment of public resources, the investigation rambles on, with no apparent end in sight. As the public remains locked in blissful ignorance of the truth, the suspicion must grow that the police find themselves blinded like rabbits in the face of an approaching storm, paralysed by fearful anticipation.
With several police officers now arrested and others under active investigation, the stakes could hardly be higher. If it turns out that the career-killing use of “pleb”, that lethal, single-syllabled Exocet, was fabricated, as Mr Mitchell has always claimed, it will be certain that the missile is heading straight for the heart of the Metropolitan Police.
Ken Macdonald, QC, is Warden of Wadham College, Oxford. He was Director of Public Prosecutions, 2003-2008 and is a Liberal Democrat peer
