The Moral Cowardice of Senior Police Officers, as Captured (Inadvertently) by Channel 4

In my 25 years as a police officer before retiring in 2018, I witnessed, from the inside, the slow but steady transformation from a police force serving all members of the public and enforcing the law without fear or favour, to a police service which was essentially the paramilitary wing of the DEI industry. This was not the fault of the many hard-working constables and sergeants I worked alongside, although, of course there were some bad apples as there are in any organisation. The shift in culture was a result of lack of moral courage amongst many senior officers, who were more concerned with internal politics and their own careers than serving the public and providing strong leadership to support their staff on the front line. Since I retired this has been exemplified by the response, or lack of it, to the BLM protests in 2020 and, more recently, to the pro-Hamas marches. I accept that some officers didn’t help themselves with their draconian enforcement of the ridiculous Covid rules, sometimes even making up their own laws when it suited them. But, again, I feel that stronger leadership and a more independent-minded attitude from senior officers would have minimised this.

All of this brings me to a recent episode of a Channel 4 documentary series called ‘To Catch A Copper’. Each episode follows the work of the Professional Standards Department (PSD) of Avon and Somerset Police who investigate complaints against police officers and staff – for those who watch Line of Duty, a real-life AC12. It was filmed during peak Covid hysteria so there are lots of irritating masks and (anti)social distancing measures and it features the obligatory DEI indoctrination courses, etc. But, to be fair, most of the cases featured are as a result of completely unacceptable, sometimes criminal behaviour by police officers and support staff.

One incident, however, demonstrates the complete moral cowardice of Avon and Somerset Police and a total lack of support for several officers who, quite clearly, did nothing wrong.

The investigation was triggered by a video posted to social media by a local citizen journalist of a young black woman and her baby on a bus in Bristol being restrained by several police officers. There was no context and the running commentary clearly showed the contempt in which the man videoing it held the local constabulary. Needless to say, panic ensued at police headquarters until an investigator from PSD viewed the footage from the bus CCTV and the body-worn cameras of the officers involved.

The drama was triggered by the woman’s refusal to get off the bus, despite being unable to pay her fare and having been abusive to the bus driver. The two officers who initially attended the incident were completely calm and reasonable, even offering to give her and her baby, whom she had with her, a lift to where she wanted to go. At this she started to become more and more agitated saying she wouldn’t go in a ‘Fed’ car as she hadn’t done anything wrong. The stand-off continued with the woman becoming more and more aggressive for no reason, then talking to a friend on her phone telling them she was “about to knock out two Feds”. Understandably, the officers decided enough was enough and started to forcibly remove her from the bus, at which she kicked one of them, resulting in them trying to arrest her for assaulting a police officer. At this she grabbed her baby from the carry cot and started using her as a human shield and a struggle ensued with the baby in the middle of it, through no fault of the police. She then started shouting “I can’t breathe” and “you’re choking me” despite neither officer being anywhere near her neck, and then tried to bite one of them. She was, quite rightly, sprayed with incapacitant, and several more officers attended to assist, which is where the original social media video began.

The PSD investigator was quite clear that the officers had behaved reasonably, but, when the footage was shown to local, presumably self-appointed, ‘community leaders’ by a senior officer in a somewhat naive attempt to give them the full picture, they were having none of it. Apparently, nine out of 10 black people would refuse a lift in a ‘Fed’ car and every person of colour has an ingrained fear of white people as a result of slavery – or something – so her behaviour was perfectly understandable.

The senior officer chose not to rebut this patent nonsense and, instead, just nodded along despite it being quite clear that the officers had done nothing wrong. We were then treated to a self-flagellating speech on ‘institutionalised racism’ from the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset before it transpired that the matter had been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct by solicitors acting for the woman in question, resulting in the two officers involved being suspended from public-facing duties for the duration of the investigation, which took 12 months.

The IOPC, not surprisingly, also concluded that the officers had acted reasonably, but this was still not enough for the local ‘community leaders’ who refused to accept the IOPC decision on the basis that they were also ‘institutionally racist’. Bizarrely, the Chief Constable agreed with them and the end result was that the two officers were instructed to reflect on their behaviour and the cultural differences in play while the woman in question was never prosecuted for assaulting them. The icing on the cake is that three years after the incident the woman received financial compensation and a letter of apology for the “shocking, deeply distressing and humiliating” treatment she had received at the hands of Avon and Somerset Police.

Graham Low initially joined Sussex Police before transferring to Cheshire Police and working in various criminal investigation roles, retiring as a Detective Sergeant