UKC

Always struck me as principled and passionate about policing.

Impossible job and a shame, or not got a grip and needs to go, or revenge for Downing St parties investigation?

Political manoeuvrings on a par with The Wire. The Met's untimely intervention has kept Bozo in office (for now.) The Labour Mayor of London is using the recent and many f*** ups of the Met to force Cressida Dick out. The mooted replacement is less Tory friendly by all accounts. It's all in the game...

This will not improve policing in the Met.

That must depend on what follows?

No one outside the police (and Johnson?) seens to have much respect for Dick who has been close to or directly in charge of numerous police failures so I doubt it will get worse.

I don't think I could disagree more. She has always struck me as an extraordinarily strong and principled person; her worst characteristic was to defend her staff, until it was demonstrable that they were in the wrong. Er, that's what managers are supposed to do.

Well, it could.

It will depend on whether they get someone who gets to work changing the culture, recruitment and training of the Met, someone who is better at preventing the existing behaviours getting into the public eye and causing trouble, or someone who takes the salary and does bugger all. I'm not making any bets on who will get it, but I suspect Priti Vacant would prefer No. 2 or 3.

Off Duty: Why don't you think it will improve Met policing? Genuinely interested in your take.

Long overdue for her to go. She should have resigned after Jean Charles de Menezes was killed.

Off the top of my head, de Menezes, Daniel Morgan enquiry obstruction, Downing Steet on off investigation,  the latest WhatsApp revelations ,Sarah Everard policing.

Yes, Ok, it.could. Particularly as Priti Patel will be influential 

Well, she’s a public servant supposed to be serving (in the main) the people of London. Disgust at the police here is pretty widespread amongst people who’d usually not express such sentiments. I’m not sure the principle of leading your organisation into distrust is quite that extraordinary.

So that was as good as it can get? Crikey.

However the Met are institutionally racist and sexist.

Cresida probably got the job as a Tick Box exercise.

Sad to hear, but at least she had the balls to step down (no pun intended).

Think a lot of people have made her the scapegoat for long running and underlying institutional problems within the MET.

No, it really wasn’t.

Not if it’s just a case of burying your head in the sand.

Who’s that? 

I weep for her and her massive pension/pay off. 

Interesting you should say that. She had retired in 2015 and didn't need to come back. She also took 40k less pa than the previous incumbent.

Still not moved

Am I right in thinking she was on £230k PA? No particular view on this, just so we have a context.

I think she went for the wrong reasons. Doesn't strike me as her fault that Charing Cross  was chock-a-block with bell-ends. I mean, from the coppers I know personally, they're all pretty 'nuts magazine'.

She should have gone because she tried to protect Johnson from the consequences of his law-breaking and lying.

Did she go because the Met is brim-full of utter tools? Or because she didn't have the bollocks to hand Johnson a FPN and his P45?

What a trooper.

Yep. £230k, for 40,000+ staff and managing a 3+ billion pound budget.

I bet she really tried to make changes, but with an institution, it takes years until the 'old guard' retire or are replaced before the shoots of change can be seen.

Add a senior management structure that is transient, and changed with each new political figurehead and you have a recipe for disaster.

Cressida Dick is probably the most useless Met Leader in history with a string of failings as long as your arm. Perhaps uniquely she has managed to antagonise both the left and right with the numerous cock ups under her watch.

Her failings include but are probably not limited to: Jean Charles de Menezes, Operation Midland fantasist/Carl Beech, Extinction Rebellion protests, Sarah Everard murder and vigil, The Daniel Morgan inquiry, The Euros Wembley Final, the Sue Gray report.

And that's before we get some of the worst rates of violent crime we've ever seen in London and the levels of racism, sexism and homophobia which appear to be rampant within the force and a culture which resulted in, for example, police photographing and sharing the pictures of murder victims on WhatApp.

If leaders are held responsible for the culture set on their watch and held responsible for the failings of their organisation you have to wonder how on earth she had her contract recently renewed.

I wonder what an equivalent CEO would take? 

I'm with you on this one OD. Not sure her going improves anything in policing. 

She'd been there since 2017.

Seems to imply the Commisioner is impotent? Change impossible?

To add, has Dick implemented any significant, serious chages to address e.g  sexism or corruption? 

Oh I'm not quibbling about whether the post merits it. I know it's outmoded but I still appreciate civil servants, especially the ones whose work is immediately tangible to me; teachers, nurses, bin men, police, fire, that kind of thing.

You haven't elaborated on why her resignation will not improve Met policing.

I don't think that's true but I also think that changing an institution like the Met - which needs to keep working whilst implementing change - is an oil tanker.

CEOs of employers like mine often earn about what she was on with, in the case of mine, about 5% of the staff and the budget she had to manage.

Probably not if Pritti Patel has any part in choosing the successor.  I don't think even the Tories would have the balls to give it to Sajid David's brother but no doubt it will be some other 'safe pair of hands' who will keep the cops out of their business.

Funny she's going the day after the cops said they might look into Boris's flat redecoration.  She got put in a place where the Mayor would push her out if she didn't start doing her job and the Tories would push her out if she did.  She's probably blown the chance of being a baroness too.

Christ on a bike. The police/Met get slagged off for not pursuing Savile; then when policy is changed to give complainants the benefit of the doubt they get slagged off for adhering to it!

Regarding de Menezes - quite a lot of people have died, both in London and Manchester, as a result of genuine, real terrorist incidents. But terrorists don't come neatly packaged with post-it notes saying 'I am a terrorist - shoot me.' Based on flawed intelligence Dick made a wrong call; in other circumstances, eg in Manchester, maybe the same call would have saved 50+ lives. 

And all the time she is dealing with these exceptional incidents, she is functionally responsible for an organisation of 40+k individuals, responsible for everything from the toilets being cleaned, to recruitment policies that have to reconcile gender and ethnic diversity with political targets and standards of educational attainment.

I don't believe anyone who is slagging Dick off, either here or elsewhere, has held a genuine managerial role in their lives. 

She's had 5 years to start changing the culture of the Met and demonstrably failed. An utter shame because she is probably a fundamentaly decent person.

Look, I'm not personally commenting on all of the things I listed, I simply stated that she has pissed off everyone,  wherever you stand, usually several times.

Maybe we can all find something in that list where we think she did ok but in many of those incidents there were independant investigations which found her wanting.

You can perhaps justify a few of the incidents if you like you but you can't justify all of them.

And not having held managerial roles never stopped anyone on here slagging off politicians but I don't notice you jumping to their defence.

The question is what has she done to address the failings? Apparently little.  That is the main issue.

You also seem to be saying the odd innocent death is fine if it might save others, which is quite something. 

That should be One of the mooted replacements... Neil Basu. Has spoken out against Bozo's patented brand of dog whistle politics before though, so possibly put himself out of the running already.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/10/who-might-replace-cressida-...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/07/no-deal-brexit-would-harm-u...

That's a cheap, Daily Mail type jibe. I will say that as long as terrorists operate, innocent people will die, either as a direct result of their actions or as a result of other people's efforts to counter them. Mistakes will be made; everyone is human. In both cases the fault lies with the terrorists.

Including the misinformation published immediately afterwards lying about him jumping over the barrier and so forth.

Yes mistakes happen but attempted coverups of them are unforgivable.

I think people would overlook “the serious operational failings” but the lying and cover up was not a heat of the moment thing. 

Do you think you could point out Cressida Dick's role in the post incident press briefings? I'm sure it'll be referred to in the Stockwell 2 report?

I think we’d veered off the Cressida Dick a bit, I was responding to Rob’s general point, I probably could have been clearer. Cressida Dick was only responsible for operational failings although

And you think that is a long time?

And the excuse for our Prime Minister is?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4163774.stm

I stand corrected

Just listening to 6 Music reporting this and they said 'the search for a new commissioner is underway.'

Is it like the Dalai Lama then? How will they know when they've found them? Are there tell tale marks or signs? 

She is not the first and won't be the last of the high profile casualties of these angry troubled times we live in.

I just wish that those appointing her replacement choose a person of principle, one who is not swayed by short term political pressure and expediency. However I won't be holding my breath for that. A malleable Police chief would well suit certain factions right now.

In reply 

.....Are there tell tale marks or signs? 

When the child is 1 year old they put a number of different uniforms on the floor in front of it. If it crawls into the police uniform it's in

Fascinating that, surrounded by the excessive mire of (alleged) wrong-doing as we have been over the last number of years by those steering the ship, the only two high-profile resignations are those of two women - Dick & Stratton. Patriarchy is not going anywhere soon, is it?

Edited for typo

I'd say 5 years is long enough to have an effect if you are going to  yes.

You're one of the very few posters who can comment based on valuable professional experience and expertise, so what are the key strategies/changes that would, in your view?

Especially given the many years previously (with a short break) in senior roles in the met.

Retaining Cressida Dick.

You seem something of a fan-boy.

Several other Johnson aides too, who were men.

CD had a difficult task in bringing about change in the entrenched culture of the Met. and no-one should expect leaders to get everything right all the time. However she made several major miscalculations in being too protective of the officers she was leading, defending the indefensible. 

I've held a fairly senior management role in a public body. I'm aware of the balancing act needed between being loyal to the troops and the frequently conflicting demands of service users and other stakeholders (sorry).  If the messages sent by the Charing Cross officers were uncovered within the organisation I worked in I would be dismayed if the individuals involved continued in their posts let alone be promoted.

In relation to Charing Cross - you are aware that those who made the comments were sacked, and the subsequent promotion was of a female officer.

Mistakes happen, but if you make a "mistake" like that it MUST be curtains for your career. You are in charge, you pay the price if something goes wrong. Waffling about lessons to be learned simply does not do suffice. Any organization that lets you continue in your post or even fall up the stairs after some grace period is rotten to the core.

CB

I think I understand leadership and responsibility now.

If you manager a football team and the team performs poorly then the responsibility is yours and you are sacked(or perhaps sometimes resign).

If you are the Commissioner of the Met and the force fails to perform correctly the responsibility is yours and you resign.

If you are the Prime Minister and your government fails, in numerous ways, including ignoring laws that you brought in, you take the responsibility to find others to blame.

Dave

Johnson and his mob were at pains to point out that these were strategic moves rather than sackings - so as to fit their fatuous narrative that he knows what he's doing.

Is it possible that the first stage in getting rid of undesirable attitudes and behaviour is "outing" them and making them visible? So possibly things have not got worse under Dick, but she has overseen the painful start of a culture change which was never going to be completed on her watch (or probably her successor's, however good).

She was popular within the police presumably becasue unlike us public she was seen as bringing about much needed change...is that right?

Nobody has commented on May's police cuts which lead to reduced police numbers thus making change very difficult.

Khan should never have made his comments public...that should have been between him and CD......

You also get kicked out at the next election if the voters are not happy..........big difference.

Astute comment....

I assume then that you were confident that the strategies she was planning to implement would have been sufficient to raise public confidence. All academic now of course.

I'm basing my view on an understanding of the issues and role(s) that Cressida Dick has performed, as well as a general knowledge of her leadership and its impact on policing.

I would say you can be accused of at least an equal  bias - you were happy to leap right in and criticise her for being married to her DAC based on a very cursory comment on social media.

Yes, good point, and this kind of change in an organisation the size of the Met and with such an entrenched culture is/was never going to be achieved overnight, or even over a couple of years. 

Unless something terrible emerges, she will end her professional life in the Lords. I think every CC of the met has ended their days there like a retired police horse capering across the red baize and dining from subsidised nosebags.  

You have to make it obvious you are doing things.

Yes. Like sacking people and making it quite clear how appalled you are. Oh, wait...

No, that's quite insufficient.  You need a strategy to get to a point where you don't need to retrospectively sack people after each crisis. Organisational change - fiendishly difficult but thats the job.

Presumably that applies to all professions? A doctor makes a time-critical decision to save a patient based on available information, the patient dies and it later emerges that that unknown to the doctor that information was incorrect (faulty instrument, misheard / incorrect information) and it's mass sackings all round, the doctor, the consultant in charge of the A&E department?

I think she was probably doing a very good job.  Reacting is one thing.  Demonstrating on going improvement another.

Essentially yes. Making a judgement about how reliable a given bit of information is is part of the job in any kind of leadership position.

This is especially true when you know that the info may be less trustworthy than you would like it to be under ideal circumstances (e.g., identification of "terrorists" under time pressure). The info a doctor will get is usually more reliable, but still sometimes patients have the wrong leg amputated. Again, this MUST not happen, the surgeon must be sure what he is doing, and is responsible for verifying that the info on the notes is correct.

You make the wrong decision, you pay the price (unless you have friends in high places, in which case you get a second and tenth chance).

CB

I think there are some areas where making the wrong call is sufficient to be career ending or at least limiting, even if there was great uncertainty at the time.  

I don’t think doctors making the wrong decisions are comparable to the specific  behaviours of the Met that have led up to the current situation. Unless you’re meaning a surgery of Harold Shipmans.

I don’t doubt that one thing the health service and the police in general share is systematic under-resourcing so they can be argued to be unfit for purpose, followed ultimately by private sector to the rescue.

Not  true as  social media at the time confirmed the claim (wiki) and I didn't in  criticise her for it but said if it were true, it would be problematic.  You might however ask whether a leader for whom such claims are sufficiently credible to be convincing on first glance is who the met needs.

It depends whose first glance you consider credible. That comment was so laughable I didn't expect anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the Met or Dick's background to be taken in. But there you go ...

I gather she is regarded as being a good manager who protects her team. She also seems like she was a good police officer. But she's never seemed like a good communicator or leader in this role, and I suspect she is politically inept and outmatched.

To me, her most significant failing was that she always seemed to instinctively defend the force against external criticism and change. That's not what her role should be about - but in her defence, I guess it's difficult for someone with forty years service in an organisation to appreciate diverse outside perspectives.

After what happened to Jean Charles de Menezes, she should have been demoted or sacked. An innocent person died in horrific circumstances and she was the leader. That should have been enough to show her unsuitability for leadership. Instead she was promoted multiple times. Sound familiar?

I doubt as members of the public we are even aware of the nuts and bolts of organisational change in the Police.

Maybe it should be subject to intense post hoc scrutiny, maybe even including by a judge and jury.

Oh, hang on...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4163774.stm

You can't really be advocating for a position where you want someone to step up to the plate to take on literal life and death decision making, and if anything untoward happens - you're sacked.

It's a very cold and lonely place when you are making those decisions live time, as opposed to hurling abuse at the TV as it's dissected slowly, after the fact, from the comfort of your armchair.  It's very very easy to deride the decision maker when you aren't the one carrying the can, and that also goes for the operational officers deploying on jobs. I've seen great cops suddenly become considerably more risk averse when it's their name at the bottom instead of their bosses.

I think the two situations are comparable in terms of pressure and decision making. But its interesting that the NHS has had a fair number of serial killers on the payroll.

Its pretty tough  to get promoted to that level within the Police force. The level of training and grilling they get even at County level is pretty ruthless. I really doubt she was unsuitable for a leadership role irrespective of the Menezes case.

She is not an elected politican , so pseudo comparsions with them are not relevant.

I'm sure it is tough. But that doesn't mean the process is designed to select someone who is good in the role. It clearly didn't in this case. See, for example, the Peter Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

A met commissioner isn't a politician and explicitly shouldn't try to be one. But they do act as the interface between the executive and the met's local and national functions. A such, they work in a political context and have to deal with people who have political objectives and motivations. I suspect that she was unsuitable for that.

So what should be done when a police officer makes a "life or death decision" and causes unnecessary death?

What a load of shit. The one "carrying the can" for the incompetence of the Met was de Menezes. You simply should not be able to kill a person by accident* and continue as if nothing had happened and even be promoted to the top of the pile for your pains.

If you do, the whole organization is rotten to the core, which as been amply demonstrated ever since, if any indepent confirmation had been required.

And of course you should be "risk averse" when contemplating shooting someone! We are, fortunately, not yet in the US.

CB

* I am talking about the person who makes the decision, not about the armed officer actually firing the gun.

What do you think? How on earth would you recruit somebody to make life or death decisions, if they knew they could could get it right 9 times out of 10, then be ignominiously dismissed if the 10th time they got it wrong?

They should be so confident of making the right decision that they are willing to put their career in line for their decisions! 9/10 is not good enough.

CB

I would consider the politics part of their training and I would be looking at that in greater detail.And at some stage any commissioner is going to have issues with either the opposition or the govt...it has in that role an enivatibility about it.

Sounds a good way to employ egomaniacs with a massive and unwarranted belief in their own infallibility. What could possibly go wrong?

It also assumes “the right decision” exists in all scenarios.

Absolutely spot on.  As somebody who has lived in London for almost 20 years I can honestly say my confidence in the Met is lowest it's ever been. 

The cock-ups, the flip flopping and U turns on every bloody decision, the culture within the Met the plain old bad calls and subsequent inability to admit or own mistakes is concerning.

Even the manner of her leaving post is symptomatic of her inability to read the room.  In the space of hours she went from "no intention of quitting" to announcing her resignation.  I know her resignation wasn't her choice, but for f*cks sake, that's embarrassing.

I honestly don't know how on earth she's managed to stay in post so long, or how she was appointed in the first place after the murder (let's call it what it was) of Jean Charles De Menezes, an operation she was directly in charge of?

She seems a nice enough and down to earth person, and I bear no malice to her personally, and I appreciate she is in one of the toughest jobs in the country but it's right that she leaves and lets somebody else oversee the large scale reform and change that Sadiq Khan has asked for.

Recruit people with sufficiently good judgement that they don't make bad life or death decisions.

Recruit people who recognise that being merely sacked for ordering the ending of an innocent person's life is actually no punishment at all.

Recruit people who don't allow an ambiguous situation to become so boxed-in that they feel their only option is to order that a person taken down and shot in the head.

Or people who do not gamble with other people's lives.

CB

I don’t know Cressida Dick and haven’t read up enough to form a view.

However I’m struck by the fact that some of the criticism here relates to the Jean Charles Menezes shooting, where as an operational commander she had to make a time critical decision with limited information with the highest of stakes, a really hard thing to do requiring loads of experience in operations and a certain set of skills and way of thinking.

the other criticisms are of her current role as a strategic leader of a large public sector organisation where she is deemed either not to have implemented cultural change fast enough, and/or not to have communicated well enough what she was doing, and that she hasn’t got the political skills which most politicians take half a lifetime to acquire.

i can’t help thinking that we are expecting whoever is head of the Met to have too many non-complementary skills.

Or people who are courageous enough do a job where they have to make life and death decisions under extreme pressure with incomplete information and who know they will have to live with the inevitability of occasionally getting one wrong. This is why high ranking police officers (and doctors) are very well paid.

That's all well and good but nothing much seems to happen before it ends up in the newspapers at which point it is imediately declared to the the work of a few bad apples.  Dick has left because she no longer had the confidence of the mayor of London, as well as a lot of other people, that she could effectively deal with misogyny, racism etc. And that lack of confidence is well founded. If she was actually doing something about it, then she should have told the public so they'd have a little bit more faith in her.  But noone has seen evidence of such activity

And no, covering for your staff,  if they are comitting crimes at worst, is not being a good, supportive team player manager.  Nor do I think Khan needed to keep his comments silent and private - why should he? There is a lack of confidence in the policing, and it is important the public know such discussions are taking place.

Interesting, although a) isn't the NHS the second biggest employer in the world after the Indian railways? So perhaps we need to compare NHS serial killers to Indian railway worker serial killers.

And then b) I guess like the police perhaps understandably attracting a certain type of macho and possibly aggressive young man (in some cases, obviously not all!) wouldn't the medical professions attract the thankfully very few pyschopaths (particularly female) who have an urge to hurt people? Where else could you gain access to potential victims?

Very off the thread though, so apologies. But I have always found "killer nurses" bizarre. It's not a UK thing alone though, there were a couple of cases when I lived in Finland, and wasn't there a German nurse who is believed to have killed dozens?

What a load of shit. To use your phrase.

A lengthy IOPC investigation, a coronial inquest, and a HSAW trial.

Is that enough scrutiny for you ?

Thus speaks someone who has never dealt with extremely dangerous individuals intent on doing harm.  Policing at that level is about making hard decisions from a position of uncertainty, and any professional involved in the management of that level of risk would agree.

https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/risk-2/risk/

The person firing the gun is, quite rightly, subject to a similar level of scrutiny, ensuring that his judgment, based on the information he was aware of at the time, was sound.

I can't believe you are suggesting that they get a carte blanche if the decision making above them was as blatantly catastrophic as you appear to believe. 

Ant terrorism is exactly gambling other peoples lives. Potential bomber or potential bomb victim.

Which, if Dick and the rest of the people on the operation had done their jobs well enough, they would have realised De Menezes was neither of.

IOPC, one crow not pecking at the eyes of another.

Not to be trusted as far as you can vomit.

CB

Which is very easy to say from a comfortable armchair at 2pm on a Friday afternoon, with the last terrorist attack in the UK having occurred many months ago and many miles away.

"Done their jobs well enough" - Sheesh!

Using a photo on a partial ID card recovered forensically from the scene of an attempted attack, to ID, trace, locate and house a suspect, to put surveillance in place, covert armed support, and all the command and intelligence infrastructure and briefing requirements for that number of staff, all in place to run that level of operation - within 24 hours.  Yeah, crap job.

IOPC portrayed as a positive ally of policing. It's certainly an interesting take.

Not sure how you view a jury at a trial or a coroner....

That is inevitable.  Even mistakes are probably inevitable.  Covering up and lying about it is not, however. It is this that Dick repeatedly did with numerous events.

We've established she wasn't involved in the issues post De Menezes - you got some more examples?

what she says in that link is effectively that no blame attaches for just following orders even if those orders have no way of preventing innocent deaths in the process.

Everyone compliant with that policy from the ministers downwards has criminal responsibility for killing innocent people.  It's no different at all from "credible intelligence" allowing the US to kill women, children and aid workers with drones with no opportunity to establish on the ground whether they are terrorists or not

Of course those people are far away and have lives of which we know little so perhaps it is OK.

Good luck getting that approved!

I thought most surgeons have psychotic traits, as a 'normal person' would tend to be overwhelmed by slicing a fellow, living humans heart/brain up? We should add 'psychopath' to cb294's job spec for Met Commissioner..

Or is it a case that predators of all descriptions are attracted to positions of authority, be it medicine, police, ksocial work, youth organisations, the church?

It's a strange one. IIRC Beverly Allitt started of as a sort of Munchausens by proxy type, poisoning kids so she could be the hero that saved them, and it went on from there.

Piece of piss then? If only life was that simple.

I promise you that I would rather take the risk of terrorists killing me thanthe risk that I, or any of my family, or anyone else's family could be gunned down by state actors without challenge.  If you want to live in a state like that go and live in Russia with Rob

Yeah it is easy to say. What happened that day should not have happened.  Or would you dispute that?

Pewrhaps you're suggesting that every time the police put a suspected terrorists address under surveillance, it's a part of normal procedure that other members of the public are liable to get shot in the head?  Weird that there aren't more instances of it happening then eh? 

Or maybe a number of people got it very very wrong that day and in actual fact this was an almighty f*ck up?

Jean Charles De Menezes wasn't even the same race as the man they ID'd ffs.  They had CCTV comparison images of the man they were actually looking for and still they murdered him.  

Ferchissakes, one of the f*ck ups was that they weren't able to film De Menezes and confirm the ID was because the surveillance officer (who wasn't even a proper surveillance officer, but a soldier on secondment) was taking a piss when he was meant to film the guy.

If you're telling me that this is all normal operating procedure, and that there were no failings that day I'm embarrassed for you mate.

Finally, let's not get it twisted here - the intelligence work on the gym membership card to ID the suspect and learn his address and put it under surveillance was all sound, nobody said it wasn't so don't conflate the investigation with the operation, one was sound the other anything but.

With you on this one. Sometimes people have to make a decision. They need to make it now. No, they can't wait. No, they don't have all the information, or even most of the information. Yes the decision is important.

Sometimes the decision turns out to be wrong. That is very sad. But castigating the decision maker is not the correct thing to do. Rather, look at why the wrong decision was reached and rectifying that. Might be better training, might be a better method of selecting suitable decision makers. But at the end of the day someone has to make that tough balanced decision.

We have? Where else was the information coming from if not the person in charge?

See also Daniel Morgan enquiry

This article in the Guardian is good and crucially does not even mention the de Menezes case, whose discussion I feel does not really help in the task of assessing Dick’s time at the Met. I find it depressing and tin-eared that a serving police officer does not understand that many Londoners think the Met has gone very wrong recently, and that that is a problem. That doesn’t make those of us who think this anti-police in the slightest - I certainly support bringing numbers of police officers up to 2010 levels or similar - but we have to see real openness and reform, not a knee jerk denial of problems.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/11/cressida-dick-could-not-sol...

Yes Offduty is odd. Often insightful and illuminating comments on policing etc. But, utterly incapable of seeing the police as others increasingly do or admitting to the structural failings that are apparent to almost everone outside the police. It's  always "a one off"  or "an equiry found xyz", or "they have been sacked". Never  "we need to change the architecture of police in this way to address the problems stategically".

It was a tragedy 

What a silly suggestion.

Or maybe, just maybe, these are the risks that happen when you are dealing with threat at this extremely high level, and with this extremely rapid timescale.

So who are you blaming? The surveillance officer with the wrong ID? The surveillance officer sat next to him in the train? The armed officers that fired?  The Intel officers that couldn't produce HD quality colour images and provide them in super duper clarity to the officers on the ground?

Yep. All surveillance officers should be catheterised or something.

Well son, those of us that could read would never think that I'd suggested either.  I'm not sure what planet you come from where fast time hunts for escaped terrorists are business as usual 

Given that one was entirely dependent in the other, it's hard to separate them. Better intell might have prevented the incorrect ID.

the policy which led to this state execution of an innocent person brings with it a loathsome and criminal idea that the British Subject is subject to being "expendable" or "disposable" in the course of law enforcement (ie secondary to the ends being achieved).  apart from soldiers in military service this is a concept alien to modern English jurisprudence which makes it criminal in the same way as final solutions were criminal in the eyes of the Nuremburg Tribunal.

The means can be and in this case were criminal ways of accomplishing ends.

I don't think that's right. If the suspect had been a bomber about to blow up a tube train, are you saying shooting them would have been wrong?

'I promise you that I would rather take the risk of terrorists killing me thanthe risk that I, or any of my family, or anyone else's family could be gunned down by state actors without challenge. '

With respect, that's just a silly thing to say, an empty statement. And besides, I think most people would think that if you were cornering someone who 'only' had the ability to kill just one person, then you would be prepared to take a risk ... but if the cornered person had the ability to take out 50 - as they did at the Ariana Grande concert... 50 teenagers and children, just there enjoying an evening out, would you be comfortable facing 100 parents and explaining 'well yes, I was pretty sure he was going to blow your kids into small pieces, but I had to read him his rights, see. Nothing else I could do.'

'which makes it criminal in the same way as final solutions were criminal in the eyes of the Nuremburg Tribunal.' Oh for goodness sake. Throwing conscious SOE agents into crematoria; herding children cold-bloodedly into gas chambers; making lampshades out of tatooed skin; freezing fully conscious humans to see if/how they could be revived; burning and burying still living bodies because the has chambers and crematoria couldn't keep up. That's what Nuremberg was about. Not quite the same. 

Far too much armchair punditry here....

In your model of practice there would be a change of leadership at the top every year if not more so....I'm not defending her but the idea that someone's head at the top of the police will roll for every high profile mistake won't get us anywhere.

It isn’t. I’m not sure why this myth persists. It’s not even in the top ten, neither is the Indian Railways. Various militaries,  Walmart, McDonalds and the Chinese Railways all employ more people.

Hang on, my suggestion that you view what happened was all part of normal procedure is "silly", and then in your next paragraph you basically well say these things happen with this type of thing and it's acceptable.

Make your mind up, you can't have it both ways - either in normal procedure this is an acceptable risk in this kind of case; or normal procedures were not followed and this was an unacceptable tragedy that should never have happened.

Quite clearly what went wrong was the fault of a number of individuals, or procedures, which all contributed towards the end result.  A perfect storm of mistakes, which is a useful analogy, as normally when a storm sinks a ship the captain goes down with it.

There were a number of opportunities to prevent what happened happening, but nobody managed to have the presence of mind to be able to stop it. 

Now who is making silly suggestions?  There are other ways to manage jobs around the call of nature that don't involve catheters.

In most jobs where someone is doing a role that is important where people's lives are at risk, say a pilot, somebody takes over and holds the fort (or in this case camera) till they get back from their comfort break. 

That there weren't the systems and procedures in place to allow this to happen in this case is laughable.  Or it would be were the consequences not so grim.

No need need for that.  

What utter nonsense

Better intell might have prevented the incorrect ID.

Agreed, add that to this list of contributory factors then.

Unsurprisingly there is a gap between "Normal procedures" and "carrying out a fast time dynamic man hunt, based on imprecise intelligence, for a terrorist who may be intent on further attacks".

Normal procedures might cover the standing up of intelligence and operational command centres. Use of fast time briefing tools. Ability to deploy from home locations or requirement to parade on for kit. Wider briefings and wider force involvement. Use of the strategic/tactical firearms command structure with operational firearms command advice. Etc 

It certainly was a combination of factors, and the perfect storm analogy is good. Placing "fault" at individuals is not necessarily correct though. Fit a catheter to the surveillance officer who went to the toilet? Give laser eye surgery and a massive flashlight to the surveillance officer who gave the possible ID? Introduce to SOP that when you are following a suspect who takes what appear to be anti-surveillance tactics the assumption should be he's behaving innocently?

If only you'd been there with your 20:20 hind sight glasses.

And when you are urgently throwing together a covert surveillance team at short notice with very limited familiarity with the suspect, the area, the ingress and egress routes. Yep. We will all standby until a full team can be deployed, and let's double crew all the single crewed spots to prevent it.

The only concrete suggestion to improve things has been - "more staff deployed" 

Fair enough - just echoing the familiarity of "mate" 

At least you are accepting the job was operating based on uncertainty. So thats something I guess. Are we sacking the Intel officers then? Or just not deploying until we have an HD picture that's been notarised?

I apologise for responding to Daily Mailesque criticisms by referring to the actual findings of enquiries, or the actual results of Investigations.  Next time I'll just resort to opinion based on tabloid beliefs.

"We need to change the architecture of the police to address the problem strategically" - I suggest appointing a strong leader who has repeatedly stepped up to the plate in their career to take high risk roles and responsibilities. Maybe someone with a strong background in hostage negotiation - god knows thats a high stakes game.  Someone who has the confidence and respect of the staff, because then they can really lead change.

I think a leader who has some empathy and understanding with their troops, and won't throw them under a bus dependant on the latest political media driven storm, but yet is happy to make their displeasure felt quite clearly. Perhaps it would be useful to get someone in who can dispel the instant dismissal by numerous activist and community groups as being just another pale, stale male.

Good luck with that.

And one not found to have obstructed the inquiry into Met's investigation of the murder of Daniel Morgan.

I do get that this was a rapidly put together operation and that these were extraordinary circumstances, which called for extraordinary measures.  But when the standard operating procedures are deviated from to the extent that innocent members of the public are murdered by the hands of the people who are meant to be keeping them safe, then something, even you must admit, has gone wrong somewhere?

If I'm honest, at the time I was and still am surprised that a UK Police operation was allowed to go as badly wrong as this did.  I thought that there would be systems and procedure in place so that there is absolutely no chance a police officer would shoot dead an entirely innocent member of the public. I can't think of any other instances where this has been allowed to happen?

Very much a perfect storm and agreed that the fault isn't on the individual officers.  In fact I genuinely feel sorry for the guy who pulled the trigger.  He did what he was told to do and did it well and now he has to live with it.

However I dispute that view that De Menezes' behaviour played any part in the decision making process.  His actions were entirely normal, but then after the events there was a whole load of rubbish flying around that made it look as if the police could be forgiven art least in part for their actions, or as mitigation at the least - that he wore a heavy jacket on a warm day (light denim jacket, it was 17 degrees), that police ordered him to stop outside the station (they didn't), that he jumped the barriers (he used his Oyster card, and even picked up a copy of the Metro on his way in)...

I think that the perception of the officers was that he was taking anti-surveillance tactics when he was actually acting normally is another failing that can be added to the list.

 The officers preconceptions of the suspects guilt or innocence, or anger at previous events, or whatever it was that made them perceive his actions so wrongly surely isn't part of SOP? 

I think it's self evident that the job was based on uncertainty, given that De Menzes was entirely innocent and ended up seven bullets in his head.  It's impossible to be 100% certain about something that isn't true. 

I didn't call for anyone to be sacked for the operation.  However I would say that I am surprised that Cressida Dick remained in post after these events, and incredulous that she was promoted to the level she was after she played such a key role in directing events that day.

On the plus side, pretty much every copper who joined the Met would be nailed on to get to at least Chief Superintendent before they retired (or got sacked).

Walmart and McDonald's worldwide though? Or just in the US? Most McDonalds in the US are independent franchises anyway I believe. But otherwise i take your point!

Are you really blaming the media for the outrage over police officers taking photos of dead women and sharing them around? There is only one guilty party in this.

I'd expect every member of the police with even a grain of decency, (and before you wade in I'm of the view that this is the vast majority) to want these guys thrown under a bus, more literally than metaphorically. Anyone circling the wagons around this sort of thing deserves nothing but contempt at best. 

no, if you can see someone about to do harm and therefore you know with certainty (beyond a belief in identification) there is no problem, nor, providing that due care is exercised, in accidental death in the crossfire occasionally happening.

What I am talking about is allowing the possibility of X being executed without challenge in circumstances less than that where the state actors simply "think it's him" and shhot first and identify later.  That makes members of the public disposable and expendable

no it was about more than that.  For instance waging a war of aggression, committing crimes against peace.

But basically, denial of right to life which IS what the Stockwell case amounted to as he was shot without challenge or identification let alone trial

Warsaw Ghetto Style

That is rubbish.   You don't have the right actively to kill someone innocent to save other innocents

I heard that the railway track runaway train argument/thought experiment established that it was psychopathic tendencies that were linked to the idea you could kill someone at random to save others

AS I said, rubbish, as I'd expect more from you

The handling of the Everard protests was so blindingly, stunningly tone deaf that should have been enough to put her on notice.

More recently the Met’s lack of knowledge of occasions for which they provide the bloody doormen has been another massive misjudgment.

Whether replacing her proves to be an improvement will depend to what extent their party affiliation influences the choice, but I think she deserves to go for the simple reason that people who are normally pro-police don’t trust the force she runs. 

Anyone circling the wagons around this sort of thing deserves nothing but contempt at best. 

But she didn't circle the wagons around them.

Quite the opposite.

They were suspended, investigated, charged, put on trial, imprisoned and sacked.

Met Commissioner Dick said: 'I deeply regret that at a time when they were grieving the loss of their loved ones who were taken in such awful circumstances, they faced additional distress caused by the actions of two police officers.

'What former PC Jaffer and PC Lewis chose to do that day was utterly unprofessional, disrespectful and deeply insensitive. I know that is the view of colleagues across the Met who utterly condemn this behaviour.

'I apologised to Bibaa and Nicole's family in June last year and, on behalf of the Met, I apologise again today. 

 OffDuty is referring the the constant baying-for-police-blood in the press and social media, and the need for due process, rather than knee jerk reaction preferred by arm chair pundits, politicians and UKC-ers.

The enquiry revealed no wrong-doing on behalf of the met.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/30/police-handling-of-sarah-ev...

Indeed.

I'd chip in that culture change requires a respected leader...and those appear rare in policing.  She did seem to be pushing in the right direction and have the support of the majority of the force.  It'll be rather easy for a replacement to be missing either or both of those things

That's generally the justification for air strikes that kill, say, an ISIS commander but kill his family members too surely? Indeed it was the justification for most bombing in WWII. 

Interesting debate - on the subject of Stockwell, OffDuty appears to be the only person who has any understanding of the complexities and difficulties of an armed surveillance operation, with incomplete intelligence, high-risk of a mass-casualty terrorist attack and a collapsing time-frame.

The arguments against appear to be drawn from a deep well of no operational experience whatsoever.

I'm not sure that it's fair to paint Dick as a sort of 'bogywoman', either.

Accusing her of 'circling the wagons' around police officers whose behaviour was found to be unacceptable, when in reality she did exactly the opposite. And, dragging up events like JCDM and the Sarah Everard Memorial, which have been thoroughly investigated and for which she has been exonerated, just makes make the 'anti-Dick' side of the argument seem unreasonable and implacable. 

I'm undecided on whether-or-not she shouldn't have been sacked, but I hold her in far higher regard than the person who got rid of her.

So she made all the right noises, spoke of her disgust etc…  We know that.

But then Khan publicly said that the next time he spoke to Cressida Dick he wanted to see her plan for the whole scale reform of the Met that he wanted to see, as he was beginning to lose confidence in her.

It’s not that her plan didn’t meet his expectations, it’s worse than that, she refused to meet with him.

If her level of disgust was so great, why couldn’t she pull her finger out and enact the large scale reform that it’s clear to so many Londoners is required?

She either couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and for that reason she had to go.

It wasn't a question of rights.

It was a question of law.

And the police were exonerated under UK Common Law and ECHR, following JCDM's death.

Under the circumstances, the killing of an innocent person, JCDM, was not illegal.

It's a tough pill-to-swallow, but the events have been scrutinised, probably to a degree greater than any other police incident in history. And the officers were exonerated of criminal wrong-doing.

If you don't accept the finding of the three exhaustive enquiries, I suspect the only thing you will accept is CD's head on a plate.

As I was saying; implacable.

Just because it’s illegal, it doesn’t meant it’s not immoral and wrong.

I don't think it's reasonable to paint Khan as pure-of-heart.

His policies towards controversial policing powers such as stop- and-search and the terrorism act have contributes in no small amount towards the knife crime epidemic, and the terrorist attack up-tick of a few years ago. 

His major concern is his political future, and how his questionable oversight of his questionable Police Commissioner might damage it. 

As reported in the Telegraph;

" Behind the scenes the Mayor of London had pulled the rug from under her feet in a move that Dame Cressida’s supporters believe has everything to do with politics and personalities, and little to do with policing.

Mr Khan, they are sure, has ambitions beyond the capital, and the Met under Dame Cressida’s leadership was becoming a hindrance.

Susan Hall, chair of the police and crime panel at the Greater London Assembly, said: “He makes sure that when there is mud being thrown none of it sticks to him.”

A man who is widely tipped for a future run at the Labour leadership needs other people to take the blame for any failings over law and order."

Khan needed headlines, he needed to look tough, he needed to divert attention from his own failings. He needed CD's head on a plate.

Well, at least we've managed to establish that it wasn't murder, no-one broke the law, and no-one should have been sacked. Progress.

As for the morality of the police shooting someone who they believed was about to blow-up a train full of commuters, only to find out that he was completely innocent....that point could be argued that until the cows-come-home, without resolution.

As an interesting side-note; the police who shot Usman Khan 20 times on London Bridge, whilst unarmed,  relied on the same use-of-force legislation as those who shot De Menezes to justify killing someone who actually posed no threat.

They thought he had a bomb, so they shot him.

Turns out that he didn't have a bomb.

Their honestly held belief justified their use of force..even though all they actually needed to do to resolve the situation was to handcuff him.

We'd be living in a far more dangerous world if the police weren't protected in this way.

How could they possibly operate if they're not allowed to make honest, sometimes tragic, mistakes?

I didn't say she did, and I'm aware of what CD said afterwards, which was appropriate.  

My post was directed at Offduty's description of "media-driven outrage," which looked like he was holding the media responsible for public outcry over the various outrages committed over the past year by Met officers rather than the officers themselves, and by extension, the Met for failing to keep scum like this out of the force. 

OffDuty is quite right to suggest that some elements of the media are unreasonably hostile towards the police, and drive unfounded outrage.

There are many examples, but their coverage of the Sarah Everard Protest is a good example of this.

So if it wasn't CD who circled the wagons, who was it?

I haven't heard of anyone within the police, or without, defending the behaviour of these officers.

Right, that's an objective news source.

I'm sure you are an honest and ethical type who would never cherry pick information to suit the point you are trying to make so allow me to fill in blanks in the above sentence with an introduction from wiki to give your argument more context: 

Susan Mary Hall is a Conservative Party politician who has been a member of the London Assembly since 2017.  She has been the leader of the London Conservatives on the Assembly since December 2019. Susan also tweets many incorrect things on Twitter, often embarrassing herself.

and

Hall is a critic of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.

This is the best bit:

In November 2020, Hall expressed admiration for the way that controversial White House adviser, Sebastian Gorka, dealt with an interview by Kay Burley. Gorka has been criticised for Islamophobia and alleged support for far right and anti-semitic organisations such as the Hungarian Guard.[12]

Following the storming of the United States Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in January 2021, Hall compared the riot to other British politicians' opposition to Brexit.[13]

Classy. Though in her, and your, defence; Donald Trump didn't like Khan either. 

So, her criticism of Khan is unfounded? Seems well justified to me.

It's not difficult to go on a google fishing trip, concerning the background of any of the protagonists. But it's not exactly productive, and it doesn't counter the argument.

Try this for size:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/mayor/sadiq-khan-shared-platform-with-five-...

To whom were you referring, re 'circling the wagons'? I'm not aware of anyone defending these officers.

I might join....plod to DI in 12 months!

Meanwhile....in the real world!

Equally the NHS is hundreds of individual trusts, tens of thousands of private contractors and all sorts of other complications. All big organisations thought, with well over a million people under an identifiable brand, which I assume was your original point. Of course when it comes to murderous employees, I would have thought the US Postal Service is the case study.

Not sure I painted Khan as anything, just that he demanded something that he, and the majority of other Londoners wanted and she didn’t even try to deliver on it.

You can talk politics and headlines all you want, but it’s just noise, he and the rest of us Londoners need change which she couldn’t deliver. That’s it.

No. I actually still regard his death as murder. 

Yes, nobody will ever be held responsible and perhaps the actions of that day are covered by the law. But they deliberately killed a man because they failed to to establish he was the man who they thought he was. 
 

Murder in my eyes. Don’t care what the law says.

'She and the rest of us Londoners need change which she couldn’t deliver'

Could anybody?

Blimey. You represent all 9 million Londoners?!

I suspect Khan will be out of a job soon, self-inflicted collateral damage.

Perhaps you should fill his boots?

Well. You're wrong.

Just a point on terminology; psychotic means that someone is experiencing hallucinations and/or delusions. Nothing to do with being a ‘psychopath’ or being a serial killer.

I just looked back at contemporary discussions of the shooting, and the coroner's trial.

I had forgotten that the coroner directed the jury to restrict the scope of the trial, and their verdict. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes#Inquest

Interestingly, of the 'statements of fact' the coroner asked the jury to decide on, their decisions match pretty much my thoughts from the immediate aftermath of the killing.

The HSAW trial did not present charges of illegal killing. It gave a damning verdict against the Met.

I'd also forgotten that the Met delayed referring the killing to the IPCC for more than six days, vs the required 24 hours. In fact, they initially refused to refer it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Blair#Shooting_of_Jean_Charles_de_Menezes

Then there were those mysteriously blank station CCTV tapes, where all five CCTV recordings had failed.

It was also unusual for the HSAW trial to precede the coroner's trial.

At the time, the reported Operation Kratos 'shoot to kill to protect' policy, and operation of that policy, appeared to me to be utterly flawed (and it still does):

• it was flawed from a technical PoV (killing would prevent detonation)
• it was flawed from a legal PoV (removal of the presumption of innocence)
• it was flawed from an operational PoV (STKTP encourages waiting until a confirmation & kill order is given, whereas conventional policing would encourage tackling earlier, in a safer location: see the inquest 'possible contributory factors')

Due to the secret nature of that apparently flawed operational policy, it may still be in force.

I said recently that the killing was a tragedy, but the resulting cover up was what did the real damage to the reputation of the Met. And it was a cover up, with a concerted misinformation campaign from the start; "JCdM jumped the barriers, was wearing a bulky jacket, was carrying a rucksack, had an expired visa". That misinformation was presented to the media by the then Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair (now Baron Blair, BTW...)

Operational errors occur. That is inevitable. They should be properly investigated, and procedures modified to try to prevent repeats.

But cover-ups should never happen. And yet that still seems to be the Met's SOP in dealing with operational errors.

Maybe not 9 million Londoners, but possibly 10s of millions of the UK population who are becoming day by day more aware how rotten the Police are.

The ex Deputy CC of Nottinghamshire (I thinkit was) Police was on Newsnight a while back stating how the Police are riddled with racism, homophobia, misogyny, corruption, thuggery etc etc. and it's getting worse.

Crikey. And as a deputy chief constable they couldn't do anything? How awful.

What. And I say this with the utmost respect. The actual f@ak are you talking about?

Where have I, or anyone else, attempted to defend that incident?

Literally shrugging my shoulders in bewilderment. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/met-police-cressida-dick-photos-murde...

An ex-DCC can't do much more than I can.

Just imagine if she had taken an underhand payment to get her home redecorated with expensive wallpaper in return for favours.

Or held mass parties at Scotland Yard during lockdown.

I'm glad when generally we live in a country where some of the foundations of the establishment, I'm thinking Judges and Police, are above such abhorrent behaviour. 

As for the politicians and media. I despair.

I didn’t say they’d done anything objectively wrong. I’m sure a mass gathering during covid was completely illegal and they used authorised techniques to disband it.

I said it was tone deaf. Putting the police in a position where pictures exist of women at a peaceful (if illegal) event getting mashed in to the floor by male police at an event for, and shortly after a woman has been murdered by a male police officer? You don’t need to be a genius spin doctor to see how that’s going to play out, do you?

You can’t say she had the responsibility of ‘judgment calls’ when it comes to shooting innocent people in the head but no latitude to handle that considerably less pressured event differently.

So, you're holding-up an operation in which the Met didn't do anything wrong as a glaring example of why CD should be sacked!

In fact, the conduct of the officers was deemed praiseworthy and restrained by the enquiry, in the face of considerable threat and provocation.

Seriously??

What possible chance would anyone have of surviving as Commissioner when praiseworthy conduct is deemed to add weight to then case for dismissal?

She literally couldn't win. No-one could in such circumstances.

It doesn't bode well for the future of policing in London, and presumably the country in general, if the Commissioner is to be treated in such a way...kicked around on the basis of the latest social-media induced outrage, misreported stories in the press, or because the the future career aspirations of the mayor.

Apologies, I stand corrected.

The opinions of politicians and the public count in a democracy. That public accountability. The current and all past commissioners have all known that. It's nothing new or a slippery slope.

Of course, but with opinions distorted and amplified by social media, I think there is a danger of some high profile positions such as met commisioner becoming such poisoned chalices that they will become completely impossible jobs.

But what is new is the level of mis-reporting, social media outcry, misunderstanding and societal polarisation.

You need look no further than this debate so see how CD is being judged on fallacy and rumour, and in some cases, abject refusal to accept fact and inquiry conclusions. 

Any comment on the lies following the de Menezes shooting or the obstruction or the Morgan investigation? Or the repeated examples of appaling behaviour by officers (whatsApp, photographing murder victims etc), with no plan or response beyond asserting it's  all been dealt with?

I think it is also your level of hysteria about social media forming the opinions of others.

What effing plan would you expect to see, or would satisfy you? In the case of Sarah Everard  it is clear that the recruitment process (which predated CD's tenure) was flawed; my understanding is that that has now been tightened. In the case of the officers photographing dead bodies, or sharing inappropriate WhatsApp stuff, they've all been sacked, which I would have thought sent a pretty clear message to the antediluvians still in post.

I am getting the impression that the likes of Khan, Abbott and some on here favour a decimation approach; just sack one in ten, whether guilty or not, to 'send a message.'

No plan...other than the written plan she presented to Sajid Khan on Thursday? 

Anyone who's ever led a reasonably sized team or institution through the long and painful process of cultural change will know that it doesn't happen without implementing specific strategies to provoke resistance from those who are most reluctant, so the issues can be tackled openly.  You have to smoke out those who are antagonistic and deprive them of legitimacy in the eyes of the rest. If this isn't done, all new initiatives are undermined and subverted. Presumably there must have been  a number of such internal strategies implemented in the Met during Dick's time as Commissioner. I'd be very interested to hear from those with greater knowledge what form they took. 

I thought the big cuts to the police service have occurred under the watch of the 'party of law and order'...

I don't think the effects that social media has on forming public opinion should be underestimated. 

Well demonstrated on this thread.

If you actually presented some specifics you might have some credibility, but as usual you appear to base your criticism on a very cursory and slanted knowledge.

Dick wasn't involved in the Stockwell 2 report criticism of police reporting post De Menezes, which itself was rather more complex than many on here are claiming.

The Morgan criticism is mostly based on her role as a DAC and arguments with the enquiry team about remote access to an extremely sensitive investigative database - HOLMES.

I'm not sure what you want regarding the WhatsApp comments - it's appalling, they've been sacked. A very clear message has been sent. 

Similarly the photographing of the bodies and to be clear, it's so obviously "the wrong thing to do" at a crime scene that it beggars belief. 

The new Dick will be appointed by the government -by Preti Patel - right? 

Do we know yet whether Johnson will have been handed his FPN by the time they take over? It doesn't seem likely that the government are going to appoint someone who will immediately bring them down, does it?

It's a very strange situation, particularly since Khan appears so instrumental in her downfall... It doesn't looks like so much like a conspiracy, more a total clusterf*ck.

It does seem strange politics if it's politics... 

You interpret it as social media influence. I interpret it equally as impressions built up over the years and fallible memory for detail. Maybe I'm just out of touch as UKC is almost my only social media.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/murder-age-social-media-top-20766979

Absolute bollocks. If you can't stand public and press scrutiny and public accountability in the era of social media don't take on public roles in the era of social media. It's like complaining about gravity. It's here. It's not going away.

There's an awful lot in that post which is not as straightforward as it might appear in Wikipedia.

Looking at the initial referral to the IOPC - at that time called the IPCC.

My understanding is that, at that time the process now in place for Mandatory referral to the IPCC of events classed as "death or serious injury" where the police may have caused or contributed to them, did not exist. It was in the process of being  introduced to the relevant legislation. Ultimately, despite it not being in place formally I believe that is the "door" through which the IPCC decided to accept the referral and commence investigation.

That would have meant that the decision on a referral is based on a complaint or misconduct - which can have a degree of subjectivity (and I suspect is why the DSI process was introduced).

That however does not appear to be the reason for the delay. Instead the concerns appear to have been around the fact that the IPCC have requirements to access and share information (with families etc) that are far wider than the police. In this case it was a live counter terrorist operation involving intelligence at SECRET level and with suspects still outstanding.

The decision taken, perhaps wrongly, by the then commissioner was to continue the crime/CT investigation and allow police professional standards detectives access rather than IPCC. It's worth bearing in mind that even nowadays a majority of IOPC investigations will be "directed" rather than Independent and as such will effectively be investigated by the force PSB team with oversight from IOPC. And to be blunt the force PSB detectives are usually better trained, more experienced and more thorough and focussed than IOPC investigators.

In relation to the inquest it is normal for an inquest to take place after a criminal trial. The HSE like to try and have their trials post inquest, but that can be a bit of a cop out - effectively they are waiting to see the inquest verdict to see if they need to run a trial. Really - in the interests of understanding the full facts it is better that all evidence relating to criminality (including HSAW breaches) are examined at court prior to inquest - rather than relying on an inquest to come to a verdict first and then be placed in the very unsatisfactory position of not having evidence beyond reasonable doubt to prove criminal offences that the jury have alleged.

(As an aside, recent case law has changed slightly in relation to jury verdicts and now decisions on unlawful killing can be made on balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt - so we are starting to see those mismatches where the criminal investigation is completed with no conviction and the inquest then goes "unlawful killing" and the matter needs to be reviewed by the police again)

The point he was making was not the scrutiny, it's the misinformation and the lasting effect which this has on peoples perceptions of the police. 

As can be seen on the thread, whereby more informed posters, such as OffDuty  spends more time fact-correcting his adversaries than arguing his point.

Your angry, sweaty rant certainly resonates with the 'rise of the armchair warrior'.

The problem being, as you yourself say, that social media and press is being fuelled by "impressions and fallible memory" rather than actual facts.

And I think it's entirely reasonable to complain about criticism by misrepresentation. I do that repeatedly on here.

I'll give you a social media LOL for that.

It was more amused at somebody complianing in the press about social media almost twenty years after the foundation of Facebook.

I see it more as the general public forming valid opinions without instant recall going back decades but seeing parallels in contemporary events. That applied before social media and still applies but includes social media now.

I'd disagree with "valid" and replace it with "ill-informed".

The problem with social media is that whilst previously a lie could travel halfway round the world before the truth has got his shoes on, now a lie can travel throughout the world and back again, be fed in to you hand, grow legs, create a social media frenzy and translate in to a riot, before the truth has even got back to the nick and downloaded his body worn video.

It's got bugger all to do with social media much of the time. Maybe I'm just a dinosaur to think that but the Cressida Dick stories were reported by journalists and subject to inquiries.

Precisely, who would when one half of a polarised country is going to be out to crucify you from the start.

Clearly not, I'm speaking as a Londoner, not on behalf of them.

What's also clear is that you don't live in London as if you did you would understand how well regarded Khan is in this city, and just how poorly the Met and Cressida Dick are.

I suspect Khan is going nowhere for the time being, he was re-elected last year, enjoying a majority only slightly smaller than the 2016 election.

Amongst your peers. You do understand confirmation bias?

So he literally was less popular in 2021 than he was in 2016.

Edit to add: I've got no particular bones to pick re Khan. Seems that he doing a good job. This decision as with his lack of support and involvement in the resignation of Dany Cotton seem to be mis-steps. He seems unwilling to take the principled rather than the populist position.

Maybe the police should be more careful not to issue misinformation...

"Conclusions:

Following the shooting of Mr de Menezes, inaccurate information was released by the MPS on the 22 and 23 July during a press conference given by the Commissioner and in a number of media releases.

There is no evidence that the Commissioner or any other member of the MPS knowingly released the incorrect information to the media and public that Mr de Menezes had been challenged and that his clothing had added to their suspicions. Whilst they did release this information it was believed by them to have been correct at the time.

Those within the MPS responsible for preparing the media releases and statements, sanctioning them and actually releasing the material should have ensured that the provenance and veracity of the information they contained had been established. Whilst they could be considered to have been negligent in not doing so account must be taken of the extraordinary pressures under which the MPS were operating at the time.

Information that Mr de Menezes was wearing unseasonable clothing originated from officers engaged on the anti terrorist operation at Stockwell and members of the public. That information is not correct, but it was passed on and became part of the MPS media releases.

The information that Mr de Menezes had been challenged was also released by the MPS. Whether or not that was actually factual is a matter for the Stockwell 1 investigation. Mr de Menezes was not given an instruction by police officers that he could have chosen whether to obey or refuse.

Ms de Vries in the MPS DPA made a genuine error when she included in the 11:41hrs 22 July 2005 press release that Mr de Menezes had been challenged. She wrongly based it on her assumption that a challenge would always be made. Her text was not changed when it was checked prior to release.

Public witnesses who gave early televised statements contributed to the release of incorrect information when they stated that Mr de Menezes had been wearing suspicious clothing and had jumped a ticket barrier. Their actions were based upon what they had perceived occurred in a very stressful situation and they were genuinely mistaken. The information they provided to the media was outside the control of the MPS.

MPS staff and witnesses from other agencies were monitoring 24 hour television news coverage following the shooting. It is believed that some of them may have been influenced by the inaccurate accounts that were being reported."

Funnily enough I do, but I'm basing my assertion on data rather than chats with my mates.  You do understand statistics?  

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/cressida-dick-met-polic...

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1562090/cressida-dick-poll-results-met-po...

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2021/10/01/3b443/...

From Guardian:

"The official data published last September captured how confidence in the Met was plummeting. Asked if “police can be relied upon to be there when needed”, 79% of Londoners had said yes in 2017. Now it was just 61%.

Another key measure was at danger level. Asked if “police do a good job in my local area”, only 52% agreed – down from 68%. In 13 of London’s 32 boroughs, it was at 50% or lower."

By around a percent or so, not bad after 4 years in the role. 

I'll let you look the stats for the recent mayoral elections yourself, but it's clear Khan enjoys an significant majority, that's not my opinion, that's what the data shows.

As I've said before, don't take first info from police perspectives as gospel for anything contentious enough and big enough to be in the press. It always seems to err in favour of the police.

Last night you posted (as part of a long post):"I think a leader who has some empathy and understanding with their troops, and won't throw them under a bus dependant on the latest political media driven storm, but yet is happy to make their displeasure felt quite clearly."

(bold emphasis mine)

This is what I'm talking about. It looks like you are dismissing public outrage over events like Couzens, the photos and the rape banter as shit-stirring by the press rather than issues which actually are 1: horrendous, and 2: worthy of public outrage. I have no doubt you concur with No.1. I won't put words in your mouth re No.2.   

I'd be very surprised and disappointed if this is what you actually meant but it is what it looks like.

Never and I didn't say you did but to me at least there appears some blurry lines in your responses between you explaining the wider context from a police viewpoint and deflecting.

My point is that following incidents like the above, you appear to default to the attitude that any criticism or questioning of the police by the public is just standard ACAB bullshit and we should keep our noses out of things we know nothing about. Your anger should be directed at the actual offenders, not just because what they did was terrible but because they are the reason you lose the support of the average citizen. It's why you personally have a number of people on here who dismiss you as 'filth' at worst and of suspect motive at best. The former are imho just a waste of air but the latter are probably representative of society, and I've never viewed MG or CB294 as anti-police nutters.  

The 'nothing to see here, leave it to us' attitude comes over a little from you occasionally and very strongly from several serving police who frequent a friend's FB page. My apologies if this is not how you feel and I do appreciate you making an effort on here but this is how I perceive it and I doubt I'm alone. As the police are our police and are civil servants, a term I use with the utmost respect, I think we the public are justified and indeed have a right to kick up absolute f*ck when a string of behaviours like the above come to light. 

Genuinely don't know why I bother when my comments get so crassly mis- and re- interpreted.

"My default position". FFS. This really is pointless.

I've obviously got you completely wrong so my sincere apologies. I'm not looking to pick faults or make you into something you aren't, but I've read what you wrote and I'm not seeing it any differently.

Keep bothering.

' the Cressida Dick stories were reported by journalists '...

Well, that's alright then. I've had some dealings with both police and journalists and I know exactly who I'd trust more. A policeman/woman makes a mistake, and they have a huge disciplinary process to undergo; if a journalists makes a 'mistake', their copy becomes tomorrows landfill; and if they lie hard enough, they end up PM.

I think what Offduty means by "won't throw them under a bus dependant on the latest political media driven storm" is that whilst Dick condemned the behaviour of the police in the photos case she defended the police in their intervention of the Sarah Everard protest. She has had her own moral compass, and she is willing to go against the media narrative when they are wrong (at least according to an inquiry) even when it's unpopular. I understand why that quality would command respect.  

You're conflating someone who doesn't throw people under the bus with someone who will always defend the indefensible. I can see why OffDuty has become frustrated because it's not a particularly difficult distinction to make. 

So the official report confirms my statement that "Maybe the police should be more careful not to issue misinformation..."

That misinformation is still being widely propagated.

An open plan to get the Met from a position where it has found to be institutionally corrupt, racist and sexist (with numerous examples), to a position where it isn't. Clear communication of this,  measurable outcomes etc. Pretty normal stuff for change management.

Not what we have which is denial.and piecemeal, retrospective action dealing with the symptoms on a case by case basis.

You could stop doing it I guess?

You understand what the prefix institutionally actually means don't you?

I think I have been pretty clear to point out that if was misinformation when I see it repeated.

I suspect that if I wasn't specific about what was misinformation, you'd be on on me fairly quickly asking exactly what misinformation I was referring to.

I also haven't been on national television, as the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, spreading misinformation. My influence is insignificant.

I actually feel like probably what the Met needs is not someone "loyal to the troops" but rather one who is going to clean up the force, whether they like it or not.

Dick's popularity with the Met is not unrelated to her repeated attempts to defend them in whatever latest crisis hammered their reputation. Confidence in the Met has dropped like a stone. Her job involves getting the public to have confidence in the police. She on that front had obviously failed and repeatedly so. The Mayor of London doesn't just withdraw their confidence in the Met chief for a laugh. It reflects a deep concern people have.

You might say it's unfair, or impossible. But to say that she's succeeded is just not true. In at least one facet of the job, she's evidently failed. And so she was right to resign

Yes. And the prefix it is exactly why Dick's approach failed.

Well regarded?  It would appear that by any reasonable metric, he's hopeless.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/12/sadiq-khan-failed-london/

I would say it needs to be both. Someone who will protect those who deserves protecting against the shite which is inevitably thrown against police officers but come down like ten tons of bricks on those who break the trust placed in them.

^ This

I think they had someone like that.

""JCdM jumped the barriers, was wearing a bulky jacket, was carrying a rucksack, had an expired visa". That misinformation was presented to the media by the then Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair (now Baron Blair, BTW...)"

Absolutely.

Given that I've presented the actual conclusions of the Stockwell 2 report regarding the bulky jacket and jumping the ticket barrier - which you've happily dismissed as all the police's fault, ignoring the fact they established that jumping the ticket barrier was NOT a Met Police press statement; just remind me again exactly when it was 'presented to the media' by Sir/Baron Ian Blair that De Menezes had an expired visa?

This is why I increasingly can't be bothered with this site any more.

That is supposed to be a excuse? It is their f*cking job to be sure.

That they are not even ashamed to put this crap out tells you all about inquiries into police behaviour you ever need to know.