Safe Speed Forums

Arrgh! It's difficult. You have to know where to draw a line. For example I will comment on general issues in the more public domain. In private... sometimes "guilty" of letting things slip on occasion of dilemma to a much trusted person like Ted who would hear me out as a sounding board and just give a reassuringly balanced point of view. But we are buddies as well as related sort of through his wife.

Leaking things to the press though... you sign up to keep certain things in interests of the Force and somehow leaking documents and perhaps jeopardising an internal and external inquiry is not really on. If the inquiry had been completed, released and reported and whitewashed .... then perhaps after the event - a different matter of conscience for the person concerned. Before all inquiries are complete though ... and leaking evidence which is still being assimilated and pieced together... that to me would be a breach of entrusted confidence and thus I would have to support suspension and dismissal. Public deserve truthful answers on this - but they deserve considered and fully investigated and accurate answers as opposed to early speculation which would undermine faith in any inquiry.

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Yes, I can see your arguement in that, iIn Gear

it must depend though upon the the "confidence" of the organisation for which you work?

If you have previously seen years and years of: "cover ups" and feel that THIS: is a straw TOO far? I'm not so sure. The "Mafia" operates this way, and DON'T make the mistake in believing that it is NOT here in the U.K.

I believe that corruption is "rife" in our "British Society", in fact, I think we almost "invented it"!

You know it actually amazes me that anyone ever seeks a job in the public sector at all these days. Teaching, the medical profession, the police, fire and ambulance services, the armed forces are all constantly getting ragged upon for some perceived malpractice. Yet all of these jobs carry some distasteful aspect that their detractors either couldn't or wouldn't do themselves; dealing with classroom yobs, making life and death decisions over critically ill patients, making instant decisions on whether to use firearms etc.
So lets stop this rabid, foaming mouthed, ill informed attack on this incident until the facts are revealed eh?

In Gear, I hate to have to ask you this because you stike me as a reasonable copper.

You mentioned "in the interests of the {Police} Force"

What should be the bigger interest and have most protection? The Police Force or Justice itself?

It goes without saying that a lot of dirty washing could come out of this which will cripple the Met (for a short while). And although some readers here will find this hard to believe, this is NOT my prime desire.

At the end of the day, we are now living in a country where minor 'technical' infractions of archaic law are pounced upon with excessive zealous rigour (primarily for money), yet when someone dies in very worrying circumstances to say the least at the hands of the State itself, then we simply get silence, or comments aimed at fudging the issues.

The country is becoming a Police State inch by inch. People say "Don't mention the Nazis, you lose the argument" OK Let's say similar to the Stahzi, the KGB, CIA, etc, etc.

That's why we need a full, open public enquiry - and trials too if they are deemed necessary. And if they are, the mercy of the judiciary to determine punishment enough, retribution or leniency dependent on the facts. The Police cannot be allowed to get away with executing someone in broad daylight like this "on a {wrong} hunch" for nothing to be said or done about it.

The police have to do a very difficult job - don't add to the levels of those difficulties

I'd prefer the investigation to take it's time and come to the correct conclusion over the shooting. We've been leaked some information, but that does not mean to say that we've got the full picture. The biggest piece of the jigsaw that is missing is exactly what information the officers that shot Jean Charles were acting on. At the time if they believed he was about to blow the tube up then what was the alternative? The blame lies then on who gave them the information. All this has to be put in perspective in terms of the feeling that was in London at the time. Now we've have time to reflect on this shooting it looks different to the days when Londoners feared getting on a tube. It's easily possible that in another scenario the decision NOT to shoot could have cost the officers their lives as well as many of the tube passengers. Tragicaly they were wrong, and an innocent man has lost his life. Therefore I want the investigation to be extremely detailed and to find out what when wrong, and who got it wrong. Only then can we make a judgement as to what lessons need to be learnt, what punishment needs to be taken and against whom.

Well... I could not go into the nitty gritty of actual police procedures in public... some things are "privileged part" of job and so on. Bit like a jury being told not to discuss the case they are hearing or a doctor not disclosing patient details or accountant not discussing his client's financial details to an outside party. That sort of thing. Of course - police cannot afford to be perceived as above the law - and it is best interests of police, government and justice for the inquiry into this to be well considered and fully accountable and truthful - nothing less would be acceptable to the public at large. You cannot go around shooting people because you think they are a suicide bomber.... lessons need to be learned: we have to take a hard look at what went wrong here - but it cannot be done with so much speculation and rumour and sundry leaks of part of the story.

Best to face a truth and do something about it than hide and cower in denial over it.



Our fine levels have remained constant Some would criticise!




Seems a never ending stream of new laws We have to read all that stuff Bedtime reading....

Not a fan of ID card idea either - or tagging cars. Believe people are entitled to own space and personal privacy. We are all potential "criminals" because we are human beings and may break a law at some time. In fact, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians break some rule each time they go out - slightly above speed limit, red light error and litter dropping (unnoticed when they take something out of bag or pocket ) - but 90% or so of us comply with most of our laws and rules - and are law abiding. Same 10% roll up in court - making a career of it!




But again - all the more reason to get on with it without leaks of a perceived "juicy bit" which is just a apart of the whole but has to be looked at within entire context. All those witness statements will have to be analysed with a fine toothcomb to arrive at the real truth - given no CCTV footage to help Also the control room will be under scrutiny and the team who led the "intelligence". Lot of information to sift through and analyse - it'll take time and Jean Charles at least deserves this extremely careful inquiry into his tragic and untimely death - as he does deserve justice to his name and memory.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Britain is not, nor is anywhere near becoming a Police State, the actions of our own security services bear absolutely no resemblence whatsoever to those of the Stasi or whoever. In fact the majority of people born in the UK over the past 60 odd years have no concept of how such regimes actually operate(d) and are totally unqualified to draw any such comparisons. The last time I heard anything so distasteful it was uttered by a group of English thugs as they sat coralled on the pavement by the Belgian police during the European Championships. One of these worthless oxygen thieves was heard to tell a local copper that 'we won the war for them and they should be thankful for it'. We? What we would that be then? The we who haven't the first friggin clue what our parents and grandparents and their counterparts on the European mainland lived through thats who.
If Britain were a Police State, then there wouldn't be inner city gangs openly dealing drugs on street corners nor hooded yobs beating the crap out of passers by, these shits would be summarily dealt with. The actions of the police and other authorities are still open to public questioning and/or debate and we still have the democratic process under which we get the opportunity to vote out poor governments.
Its true that this Government has passed a number of crap laws, and is insisting on the enforcement of another one in an overzealous manner, but don't forget there are a large number of rational and clear headed people (outside of the authorities) who support that policy; can they all be part of a police state conspiracy? And besides, those crap laws are a often an attempt to rein in the behaviour of crap, disobendient, ignorant people.
There will some sort of enquiry into the Stockwell incident, indeed the Brazliansare sending over their own team of investigators. I realise its not happening as fast as you want it too, but its got to be done right hasn't it?

I make no applogies for quoting myself earlier here, in fact, in the light of what has since been revealed...............it seems to me that I was "bang on"!

Amazingly!...........ALL the cameras on the tube station platform were NOT working, (even though underground staff say they were!) and the Police TOOK AWAY the tapes and returned them saying that they were ALL ......................................blank! MMMmmmm!


Going back to my origional question,......... why would someone within the IPCC risk all to reveal something like this? whoever did this in my opinion, had a clear sense of "the public good" and should be rewarded for their bravery.


Something smells here, and it's not the first time, ranks, closing, cover-up, enquiries "in camera", secret society instructions going out for "silence" ..........................hey listen, we, the British, invented this intricate web of deceit, over HUNDREDS of years! The "process" is well established.......

But the "crime" was NOT the shooting, oh no. The crime that has been committed here once again, is the: "cover up". If the Police had said first off: "OK, Sorry. we got it TOTALLY wrong, we shot an innocent man and here are the tapes"..............I can understand that in the circumstances, can't you?

But no,.... all, the real crime seems to have taken place later, an attempted "cover up" of a "killing" by police officers and an attempt to sweep it under the carpet, an event that should be aired in public. After all, they are claiming that they are acting in "the public interest for a safer London"!...................

I think that we, the public have the right to decide on that........Don't you?

I don't like this idea of a coverup, nor do I like the idea that a man is now dead as a result, however, I'm glad the Police are actually attempting to solve real crimes in this manor rather than concentrate on politically correct policing and operating speed measuring equipment.

I put the blame of this on our Government, not the Police. People forget that the victim was here illegally, and if this country had better control of its borders, then he wouldn't have been here and the poor bloke would still be alive.

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www.clubrwd.com - For all things rear wheel drive

Ah well . I guess he was asking for it then Daveyboy ...... give me strength

I read allagations from the his family that they had seen evidence he was wearing a denim jacket, no rucsack an had a ticket and put it through the machine....some three weeks ago in i-c-Birmingham . Main stream news sites seamed to avoid this news... maybe because it was in the middle of an enquiry.
It all seams to have been true.

The next revelation I expect to see is that he did have a visa after all and they have now" found" his file.

The home office claimed that the stamp in his passport was "not in use" on that date. they then got wrapped on the knuckles for briefing against the man in the middle of an enquiry

Other than tabloid hacks , if anyone was going to yell "cover up" I'd expect it to be the Brazilian police who are over here. But they've apparently said they don't believe there's any cover up going on. Let's be blunt, there's certainly a catalogue of cock ups involved here - the cock ups that led up to the de Menezes shooting itself and the media cock ups since - but IMO no cover up. The fact that the IPCC had the information that was leaked to the media should knock the cover up theories on the head IMO. If they the police had tried to hide that information from the IPCC that would be a cover up, but since the leak was within the IPCC itself it's pretty clear that isn't the case. If info was coming from other sources and the IPCC was going "What? We weren't told about that" then I'd worry.

As for why the individual responsivble for the leak decided to do it, well, in the past there's been all sorts of motives for leaking info and not all as public spirited as they may seem on the surface. Ego, revenge for real or imagined slights, or good old fashioned shit stirring to name but a few. Not saying that any of these apply to this leak, but we shouldn't assume the motive was pure any more than we should assume anything else about the de Menezes shooting. AFAICT it's done little more than provoke a lot of speculation and accusations of a cover up when the reality is that we still haven't got all the facts. The IPCC will report in time, as they always do when the police screw up, and it's hardly unexpected that they don't want to drip feed facts to the press here and there and would rather release all the findings in one go when they've finished. On top of that leaked information may also bugger up a criminal trial in the future if a defence barrister can successfully argue that a fair trial is no longer possible. The only possible benefit of leaks is that it keeps things in the public mind, which was unneccesary for the de Menezes shooting since it happened so recently. The only people who've gained anything from this are the media who've probably got their viewing and circulation figures up a bit as a result. Other than that it's counter productive.

In fact the only thing I'm at all concerned about is that if, and I stress if, there's a criminal trial of any police officers involved they might get an easier ride in the courts than Joe Bloggs would. I say that because in the past, the Stephen Waldorf and James Ashley shootings for example, the police involved were acquitted to a certain amount of surprise. I have no idea if it's because juries are reluctant to convict coppers of serious offences (though I doubt it, especially in the camera era when fewer people think kindly of the police than was the norm a few years ago), or if perhaps prosecutors have been a bit too gung-ho and gone for the most serious but hard to prove charges only for it to backfire when they can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Of course it could well be that the acquittals were only surprising because the media had sensationalised the stories to most of the public while the juries got a clearer picture. Frankly I suspect the media over the courts any day since I normally hold them in only slightly better regard than politicians, but I don't really know for sure. All I can say for certain is that I was surprised that more heads didn't roll over the Stephen Waldorf shooting, and even more so for the James Ashley shooting. What will happen this time remains to be seen, but above all else it's important to get it right and for that to happen the IPCC and the inquest needs to be given the time to do the job properly.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

Nope, not at all, he wasn't asking for it, I find it very sad the same as you that a man is lying dead, its just as a result of government policy as well as a Police cock up.

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www.clubrwd.com - For all things rear wheel drive

Emotions on all sides here Gent's! Eh? (I thought that Jack Straw had said that he was here...Legally!)

Even though .......none of us knew the poor bloke I think we all feel strongly. and rightly so. But let's not get into a fight with each other....

My feelings are that someone within the IPCC felt that .......things...........were going too far! Imagine in Hitlers day someone on the SS office staff leaking criminal "goings on" in their ranks, and made sure that the WORLD knew about it?.

Different thing!.......you say, our police aren't "Hitler", MMMmmm! Right, well,.... WHEN do you personally say that things have "gone too far" when you see corruption and even maybe criminal activity (in the cover up of a crime) at work? How far would YOU go in "joining the mob" ........."going along with the crowd", until you felt that you HAD to speak out? I think someone DID reach that point! Someone who knows how, "the system" works.

By the way, as regards to the Brazillian Delegation not believing that there is "cover up". Consider this: "Over 1000 people are shot in Rio every year by the Brazillian Police" a recent TV film showed the "arrest" of a man, lying in the road beside his van, a Policeman approached, took the gun that the victim had in his sock, dragged him around the van out of sight of the camera.........and fired 3 shots!............

MMMMmmm! ............Well, they would say that wouldn't they?

I just think that it's VERY worrying that we don't seem to have full control of what our ............MMmm! ......."forces" are doing. And even more so that it seems that they are NOT as transparent and honest has we would wish.

No-one, wishes to persecute or jail an Officer who: in the course of duty, has made a mistake. But on a WORLD wide level, for ALL our sakes here on this island, it is OOH! SO important that the British system is SEEN to be "Honest and Transparent". No more so than NOW!

Police!........"Own up to it"! I'm sure that then, we would ALL feel better about it.

Like I said before Draco, too much transparency too soon (i.e. leaks and/or drip feeding the press) and you can kiss any hope of a trial goodbye, even if it turns out that crimes were committed. Not ideal perhaps, but the alternatives are less so. If extra stuff leaks after the final report then you can tell me there's been a conspiracy to cover the whole thing up. But I doubt that's going to happen - firstly no evidence of police cover ups in previous controversial shootings (though I've mentioned other concerns), and second I very much doubt the Met have the ability to do an effective cover up whether they wanted to or not. If the leak is to be believed (and I hate the fact I'm even considering it given we don't know how much we still don't know) then the Met can't even organise a second pair of eyes when someone on surveillance goes off for a quick jimmy. Piss up and brewery spring to mind, never mind keeping the whole balls up quiet.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

I DO very much take your point about too much transparency too soon, Gatsobait, and of course the legal consequences. Let's hope that this is the case, and that the British Police forces worldwide image is NOT going to take a very big knock over this.

I believe this to be oh so important, not just for the police here, but ultimately for the credibility of the nation and it's governance as viewed from elsewhere in the world.

For unlike other "local or national" issues with our police, this particular event ( being in London and the nature of it) is being reported and watched on TV worldwide...........everyone, is shocked at what has taken place here! ...........How can a "British Bobby" do this?" they all ask...............

It's just NOT only a national police issue anymore, our whole credibility is at stake. If, in this case we are in the wrong............I believe that we should admit it.

And THAT means.........Mr T Blair going: .....before camera.......and saying so. In my view that would NOT be a weakness, but would show the strength of our nations democracy............