Wendy Chamberlain is the only female former Police Officer in Parliament. We are very lucky to have her. She gave a brilliant interview to Sky News yesterday about the murder of Sarah Everard and what the Police needs to do now to regain trust.
She explained very well how the Police are getting it wrong and what they need to do to get it right.
7 Comments
Wish she were head of the Met rather than a backbencher.
I think Cressida Dick is doing a good job in London despite all the attacks on her by some politicians who want to replace her with a male commissioner.
@Jason Connor
Cressida Dick has a track record for failure.
She is the person who should have on her desk the sign saying ‘The buck stops here’.
She should go – and without a fat payoff.
I for one would wish to see her replaced with someone qualified and prepared to listen to women and minorities and to take on what appears to be a toxic culture of mysogeny.
But I really don’t care about the successful candidate’s gender.
The reputation of the Metropolitan Police Service is completely discredited and should be disbanded as it cannot carry the confidence of the public. We need a new policing authority with more inclusive values at its heart rather than a quasi-military culture which exists today based on ‘closing ranks’ when things go wrong. A watershed moment is upon us, will we take it…
Politicians will now likely create bad laws in an attempt to be seen to “doing something”.
We saw that in the Stephen Lawrence case. The 800 year law on double jeopardy was overturned. This gave the police powers to have a second try if anyone was acquitted of murder in a way they didn’t like. Which is usually the case! Now the police, the same police who lack public confidence, can simply look into their evidence bag, pull out a new sample of DNA which they somehow “missed” previously and have another go. I know of one such case which has almost certainly resulted in a huge miscarriage of justice. There doesn’t seem to be any requirement for police and expert witnesses to be truthful in their evidence. They can claim, without consequence, an accused to be 4 inches taller than he is, for example. Supposedly, there are still laws on perjury and perversion of the course of justice but getting them enforced when police and their paid “experts” break them is not a trivial matter.
The next thing likely to go will be the ability of an accused to be able to present all the available evidence. If Liam Allan were to be tried under the new proposals to give alleged rape victims total confidentiality over the contents of their text and email messages, his chance of an acquittal would be slim.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42873618
@ Peter Martin,
The problem is not one of too many criminals being found guilty, but too few. In what way is the double jeopardy where compelling evidence comes to light after acquittal of s suspect, bad law? Advances in DNA testing have meant that families , sometimes after decades finally see justice.
I find it shocking that you use the case of Stephen Lawrence to bolster your argument.. I saw Doreen Lawrence on the front row of the Labour Conference, alongside a political leader who was a former Director or Public Prosecutions who came across as an honest man, a man of integrity, one that you do everything in your power to undermine, preferring instead the re-election of a man who is the polar opposite.
There are laws on perjury and pervasion of justice. No ‘supposedly’ about them.
@ Jayne Mansfield,
I can assure you it is “supposedly”. When I reported my evidence to the police I was told, by the Force solicitor, that it “would not be appropriate” for the police to investigate and so possibly undermine the findings of a jury. My report of a crime to be investigated wasn’t even recorded on the system.
The IOPC took the same line. So the legal position, at least according to them, is that the law on perjury and perversion of the course of justice stops after a guilty verdict. I’m happy to supply all the details if you are interested to know more.
I’m all for more convictions of criminals but not more convictions of innocent people. The tradition of Blackstone is that it was better than ten guilty people should be acquitted than one innocent be wrongly convicted. But many people, including yourself by the sound of it, want those numbers reversed.