It has not been a good few months for the Met. The ongoing allegations of wilfully running an incompetent hacking investigation rumble on. Many more ‘A’ and some ‘Z’ list celebs are pursuing details of their part in phone hacking. Getting information from the Met has been very difficult (deliberately?). As each stone has been turned over the scandal has grown. Rebeccah Brooks admitted to a Parliamentary Committee that News International paid coppers in the Met for juicy information. Which is a crime. Although it was not a crime for News International to employ Andy Hayman as a columnist straight after he led the initial investigation into the hacking affair. Not a crime - but very, very smelly.
Add the brutality and incompetence of the handling of protests, not forgetting the Stockwell Tube killing, the much seen death of news vendor Ian Richardson for which there were no charges, secret policemen working undercover, planning and carrying out illegal acts and having seemingly sanctioned affairs.
The reputation of the Met stinks.
Then we learn how they react to being challenged by expert witnesses. The speech by a Detective Inspector at a conference in 2008 came to light today.
“He suggested as tactics to question everything about them - qualifications, employment history, testimony research papers presented by these experts, and even going to their expert bodies "to see if we turn up anything".
DI Welsh is also reported to have referred to "judicial inexperience", using the term "so deal with back door" apparently in reference to relaying concern to judges about expert witnesses.
A police spokesman confirmed that DI Welsh had given the speech but added that The Metropolitan Police Service "is completely committed to the judicial process and would never seek to improperly influence it". BBC Online 8/2/2011
A law unto itself. Not fit for purpose.
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