Take, for instance, the shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistaken for a suicide bomber in 2005.Īnd who can forget the fiasco, a year later, of the Forest Gate raid in which hundreds of officers swooped on an East London street, claiming one of the homes was a base for the manufacture of deadly chemicals? During the raid Mohammed Abdul Kahar was shot at close range inside his own home.
In fact the Yard’s counterterrorism activities leave much to be desired, as a catalogue of incompetence and flawed intelligence attests. Some of the convictions brought about by her work must now be regarded as unsafe.
SCOTLAND YARD UNDERCOVER DETECTIVE TRIAL
A woman of integrity she’s not, as her own trial revealed. I wonder how many so-called Muslim terrorists are languishing in prison on her evidence. April Cashburn wasn’t some lowly grunt at the bottom of the pile – she was a detective chief inspector involved largely in counter terrorism. Last week an anti-terror cop was sent down for 15 months for trying to sell a story to the News of the World. Not a week goes by without someone further tarnishing the image of the world famous Scotland Yard through greed, corruption, lies and sleaze. Sadly, three decades on, nothing much has changed. I remember one Durham policeman telling me how he and his fellow officers had ‘set about’ the men from the Met warning them if any cash went missing from wallets and lockers they would be the chief suspects! During the Miners Strike not even police colleagues bussed in from other outside forces felt at ease sharing their South Yorkshire billets with the London cops, such was their reputation for dishonesty. A public inquiry will probably be too little, too late, but – like Hillsborough – the liars need to be exposed and justice needs to be delivered.īut back to the reputation of the Met. They goaded the heroic colliers, especially during the Battle of Orgreave, which will soon be the subject of an investigation into claims of fabricated and co-ordinated police evidence. Coming from a coal mining community in the North, I will never forget how the “London Filth”, as they were referred to by strikers, waved their payslips and overtime bonuses at the pitmen on the picket lines during the Miners’ Strike of 1984. My first memories of their bad behaviour stem from the 1980s when I was working as a regional journalist.
And when it comes to the guardians of the law in the UK the main target of my criticism is usually the Metropolitan Police – and with good reason. I’m not, but I do despise corrupt coppers who think they are above the law.
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