Cops on Camera
Dan Hodges wades into the 'Plebgate' affair with this interesting contribution from his regular blog in the Telegraph newspaper in which he agrees that the Police and Police Federation have shot themselves in both feet.
Dan also makes a serious suggestion about the way in which new technology can help raise standards of policing - the use of lapel cameras and microphones to record what the Police are saying and doing - as they patrol the streets and make arrests.
Now it wouldn't solve every dispute or problem, but ask yourself this - how many examples of bad police behaviour have you seen when the cameras are around - for example in all of these Police TV reality shows?
None that I can recall, so I think Dan has a very good point - and isn't it amazing how much better everyone behaves when they know there are cameras around.
The Plebgate police think we're stupid as well as deaf and blind. That's why we need more CCTV cameras
By Dan Hodges
They say it’s not the offence that gets you but the cover-up. Except in the case of the British police service, where it’s now not the cover-up, but the cover-up of the cover-up that is slowly but surely destroying the last vestiges of their battered reputation.
Yesterday, in the wake of the IPCC’s unambiguous – and accurate – criticism of the investigation by West Mercia police into the fallout from the Plebgate affair, senior officers had a chance to do the right thing. They could have held up their hands, agreed with the Prime Minister’s assessment that their colleagues had clearly misrepresented the meeting they had with Andrew Mitchell, and issued an apology. But instead they chose to blunder and bluster on.
Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Association of Police Officers, popped up on Today and conceded that “there's no issue that the finding by the police service was the officers' behaviour fell below the standard". But then he questioned whether, in “the quantum of seriousness”, lying about a meeting with a cabinet minister and calling for him to be sacked was really such a big deal.
At least Orde had the good grace to admit wrongdoing had occurred, unlike the West Midland police commissioner Bob Jones. Jones, who looks like he was trained in communications by Saddam Hussein’s former press spokesman “Comical Ali”, toured the TV studios expressing outrage that the IPCC could even dare to question the integrity of officers. The IPCC’s statement “vilifying the officers concerned was gratuitous and in my opinion an abuse of process”, he raged.
I personally had the pleasure of appearing on Sky News, opposite former Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Inspector Peter Kirkham. Kirkham blamed everyone. The press, the politicians, the IPCC, friends of Andrew Mitchell. The whole affair was everyone’s fault but his old colleagues'.
The police and their supporters think we are stupid. Or if not stupid, deaf, dumb and blind. For some reason they cannot seem to understand we have seen the proof of the Plebgate deception with our own eyes, and heard it with our own ears.
If you log on to the Channel 4 news website now, you can hear Michael Crick’s phone call to the serving police officer who supposedly sent an email to the deputy chief whip, claiming to have witnessed the altercation at the gates of Downing Street. And you hear him confessing he didn’t actually witness anything at all. You can see the CCTV footage proving there were no shocked tourists at the Downing Street gates as the incident unfolded. You can hear the recording of Andrew Mitchell explaining to representatives of the Police Federation what he did actually say to police officers. And you can see the interview one of those representatives, Ken Mackaill, gave immediately afterwards, in which he claims Mitchell “would not tell us what he did say”.
But it’s not just the police that are being stupid. Over the last few years a row has been raging about “the Surveillance State”. Our civil liberties are under grave threat, we have been told. Every step we take, every move we make, Big Brother will be watching us.
Well, thank God Big Brother was watching the police officers who have apparently been trying to stitch up Andrew Mitchell. If it hadn’t been for the CCTV cameras in Downing Street, and the tape recording of his meeting with the Police Federation, they’d have got away with it.
Those people arguing that surveillance is a threat to our liberty are barking up the wrong CCTV pylon. The camera’s lens is the guardian of freedom, not its enemy.
Take the Ian Tomlinson case. The official post mortem into the death of the newspaper seller who got caught up in the G20 summit protests said he died of natural causes. It was only when the Guardian produced video footage of Tomlinson being pushed to the ground that it became clear that a police officer had been involved in his death. Further footage take by a Channel 4 news crew also emerged. The IPCC initially claimed there was no CCTV coverage of the area. It then confirmed it had been mistaken, and there were in fact six CCTV cameras covering the scene of the incident. PC Simon Harwood was subsequently dismissed from the Metropolitan Police for gross misconduct.
It’s worth pointing out that in this case three other serving police officers reported seeing Ian Tomlinson being struck by one of their colleagues. But this information was not passed on to the IPCC. If it hadn’t been for Big Brother’s all-seeing eye, Simon Harwood may very well still be a serving police officer.
But the cameras aren’t everywhere. A few months ago I drove past the spot where Stephen Lawrence was murdered. There’s a plaque there, which is now monitored by a dedicated CCTV camera to prevent vandalism. It occurred to me at the time that if that camera had been in place the night Stephen Lawrence was killed, it would have taken 24 hours to apprehend his murderers, not 19 years. In fact, had they been aware a camera was present, they may not even have attacked him in the first place.
The liberal Left has not always viewed surveillance as the enemy. In 1968, when Mayor Daley’s Chicago police force brutally assaulted demonstrators outside the Democratic national convention, the crowds chanted “the whole world is watching”. It was, and it was appalled.
I don’t want to live in a surveillance state. But I do want to live in an open state. If police officers want to stop and search someone with good cause, fine. But I want them to know they are being recorded while they’re doing it.
“Plebgate” has shown our liberty is dependent on more surveillance, not less. Let’s have CCTV cameras on every street corner. In fact, let’s go further. Let’s have lapel cameras and mikes worn by every officer. If some police officers find it so hard to act with integrity and professionalism, then let’s force integrity and professionalism upon them.
I want Sir Hugh Orde and Bob Jones and Peter Kirkham to get the message. Big Brother works for me.
The Plebgate police think we're stupid as well as deaf and blind. That's why we need more CCTV cameras
By Dan Hodges
They say it’s not the offence that gets you but the cover-up. Except in the case of the British police service, where it’s now not the cover-up, but the cover-up of the cover-up that is slowly but surely destroying the last vestiges of their battered reputation.
Yesterday, in the wake of the IPCC’s unambiguous – and accurate – criticism of the investigation by West Mercia police into the fallout from the Plebgate affair, senior officers had a chance to do the right thing. They could have held up their hands, agreed with the Prime Minister’s assessment that their colleagues had clearly misrepresented the meeting they had with Andrew Mitchell, and issued an apology. But instead they chose to blunder and bluster on.
Sir Hugh Orde, head of the Association of Police Officers, popped up on Today and conceded that “there's no issue that the finding by the police service was the officers' behaviour fell below the standard". But then he questioned whether, in “the quantum of seriousness”, lying about a meeting with a cabinet minister and calling for him to be sacked was really such a big deal.
At least Orde had the good grace to admit wrongdoing had occurred, unlike the West Midland police commissioner Bob Jones. Jones, who looks like he was trained in communications by Saddam Hussein’s former press spokesman “Comical Ali”, toured the TV studios expressing outrage that the IPCC could even dare to question the integrity of officers. The IPCC’s statement “vilifying the officers concerned was gratuitous and in my opinion an abuse of process”, he raged.
I personally had the pleasure of appearing on Sky News, opposite former Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Inspector Peter Kirkham. Kirkham blamed everyone. The press, the politicians, the IPCC, friends of Andrew Mitchell. The whole affair was everyone’s fault but his old colleagues'.
The police and their supporters think we are stupid. Or if not stupid, deaf, dumb and blind. For some reason they cannot seem to understand we have seen the proof of the Plebgate deception with our own eyes, and heard it with our own ears.
If you log on to the Channel 4 news website now, you can hear Michael Crick’s phone call to the serving police officer who supposedly sent an email to the deputy chief whip, claiming to have witnessed the altercation at the gates of Downing Street. And you hear him confessing he didn’t actually witness anything at all. You can see the CCTV footage proving there were no shocked tourists at the Downing Street gates as the incident unfolded. You can hear the recording of Andrew Mitchell explaining to representatives of the Police Federation what he did actually say to police officers. And you can see the interview one of those representatives, Ken Mackaill, gave immediately afterwards, in which he claims Mitchell “would not tell us what he did say”.
But it’s not just the police that are being stupid. Over the last few years a row has been raging about “the Surveillance State”. Our civil liberties are under grave threat, we have been told. Every step we take, every move we make, Big Brother will be watching us.
Well, thank God Big Brother was watching the police officers who have apparently been trying to stitch up Andrew Mitchell. If it hadn’t been for the CCTV cameras in Downing Street, and the tape recording of his meeting with the Police Federation, they’d have got away with it.
Those people arguing that surveillance is a threat to our liberty are barking up the wrong CCTV pylon. The camera’s lens is the guardian of freedom, not its enemy.
Take the Ian Tomlinson case. The official post mortem into the death of the newspaper seller who got caught up in the G20 summit protests said he died of natural causes. It was only when the Guardian produced video footage of Tomlinson being pushed to the ground that it became clear that a police officer had been involved in his death. Further footage take by a Channel 4 news crew also emerged. The IPCC initially claimed there was no CCTV coverage of the area. It then confirmed it had been mistaken, and there were in fact six CCTV cameras covering the scene of the incident. PC Simon Harwood was subsequently dismissed from the Metropolitan Police for gross misconduct.
It’s worth pointing out that in this case three other serving police officers reported seeing Ian Tomlinson being struck by one of their colleagues. But this information was not passed on to the IPCC. If it hadn’t been for Big Brother’s all-seeing eye, Simon Harwood may very well still be a serving police officer.
But the cameras aren’t everywhere. A few months ago I drove past the spot where Stephen Lawrence was murdered. There’s a plaque there, which is now monitored by a dedicated CCTV camera to prevent vandalism. It occurred to me at the time that if that camera had been in place the night Stephen Lawrence was killed, it would have taken 24 hours to apprehend his murderers, not 19 years. In fact, had they been aware a camera was present, they may not even have attacked him in the first place.
The liberal Left has not always viewed surveillance as the enemy. In 1968, when Mayor Daley’s Chicago police force brutally assaulted demonstrators outside the Democratic national convention, the crowds chanted “the whole world is watching”. It was, and it was appalled.
I don’t want to live in a surveillance state. But I do want to live in an open state. If police officers want to stop and search someone with good cause, fine. But I want them to know they are being recorded while they’re doing it.
“Plebgate” has shown our liberty is dependent on more surveillance, not less. Let’s have CCTV cameras on every street corner. In fact, let’s go further. Let’s have lapel cameras and mikes worn by every officer. If some police officers find it so hard to act with integrity and professionalism, then let’s force integrity and professionalism upon them.
I want Sir Hugh Orde and Bob Jones and Peter Kirkham to get the message. Big Brother works for me.
