Rotting from within

A once ritualistic love-in with the Police Trade Union turned into the biggest telling off in recent political history. Stunned and shocked were the delegates at being told by Teresa May that
if they will not clean up their
act, the government would do it for them.

It is chilling that a police officer can volunteer to be a false witness to an incident at the gates of Downing Street. One wonders how such a person was recruited, trained, passed out and served. One wonders at the culture that allows three officers to behave as they did after meeting Andrew Mitchell.

There are clients who are philosophically resigned to being stopped routinely by the police, for being at loggerheads with them as a matter of course.

It is a strange and perhaps welcome by-product of the whole Plebgate affair that politicians – especially Conservative politicians – come to realise that the Law and Order world contains rotten apples as well as ‘Dixons of Dock Green’.

Years ago, barristers defended clients in the Midlands who repeatedly claimed of being ‘fitted up’ by the police, and
met with a certain degree of private scepticism. Then it all came out that the West Midlands Regional Crime Squad had indeed contained a number
of ‘bent’ coppers.

The vast majority of police officers behave with the
utmost professionalism and
high standards. In the area of disclosure, the culture seems
to me to have progressed remarkably from the days when little or nothing was divulged
at all.

We, as defence advocates, have a duty to provide meaningful case statements; otherwise, how is it possible for the prosecutors to understand the potentially far-reaching extent of materiality and, hence, disclosure? The involvement
of the CPS must have made a significant difference.

There is a real bind at times, based on the fact that police have intelligence as to who the local ‘villains’ are. We all cry out for this sort of local policing.

The problems come when it over-reaches itself. This must lead to tension in localities where the police are keen to catch the people they want to catch and prosecute, but they do so by swamping areas in ‘stop and search’, picking up the innocent in the trawl.

We do not want our police
just to react, but they must not overreact. ‘Noble cause corruption’ has long been discredited. There is no ‘end justifies the means’. It is all a question of leadership, training and culture. Things go wrong when leadership fails.

As a profession, we pride ourselves on our high standards as a result of ‘how we were brought up’. A respected pupil supervisor will train their pupil
in the correct ways. Hopefully, a pupil who goes ‘bent’ will be weeded out.

Neither the Bar nor the solicitors profession is without its own rotten apples. But we hope to prevent it by self-policing
and training.

That’s what is so chilling about the Police Federation. This is an organisation that leads, speaks and acts for the police. The leaders set the tone. Atrocities in war are failures of leadership and training. Failures in professional life are failures of leadership
and training.

Nobody can afford to be complacent – lawyers included. Otherwise we might get a visit from the home secretary too. SJ

Felix is the pen name of a barrister practising in London

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