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The behaviour of UK police officers.

I think this one is odd.


The decision avoids clear language to indicate the officer was involved in the illegal use of drugs and NO. An "indicated familiarity with and association to" those things covers most cops, if they have attended calls to and raised crime reports for the illegal use of either. Then it states "If the public were sighted on the content of the messages individually or collectively, it would seriously undermine trust and confidence in policing.". So the messages were never public and we only know about them because of the publicity caused by the hearing.

It smacks of the cop was not liked, so he is being done for the most spurious of misconduct.
 
bluesjnr said:
...

Turns out preaching in the UK is worthy of the attention of plod. ...
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That is because many members of the public consider it to be worthy attention of the police. Stop looking at incidents in isolation and consider the role the public play.
 
Nessie said:
That is because many members of the public consider it to be worthy attention of the police. Stop looking at incidents in isolation and consider the role the public play.
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The officer made no mention of a complaint from the public. It very much sounded to me that the "public" were having a great time celebrating whatever it was they were celebrating. We are in this thread looking at and discussing numerous examples of poor behaviour by UK police. This is one such and not an isolated incident.

1) Oluwole Ilesanmi (London): Arrested in 2019 outside Southgate Tube station after a complaint of Islamophobia; the Met Police later paid him £2,500 for wrongful arrest
2) Angus Cameron (Glasgow): Arrested in 2022 while quoting the Bible on Buchanan Street. He later secured a financial settlement including £5,500 in damages after police logged an unsubstantiated non-crime hate incident.
3) Dia Moodley (Bristol): Arrested under the Public Order Act in late 2025 for comments on Islam and gender, but Avon and Somerset Police officially dropped the criminal investigation in May 2026.
4) John Steele (Rotherham, June 2025): Surrounded by four police officers and detained in Rotherham town centre. He had approached a public outreach stall run by a local Muslim woman raising awareness for domestic abuse victims. Using a small microphone, he asked how Islamic scriptures could be reconciled with the stall's message. He was arrest under the Public Order Act. Backed by Christian Concern, the criminal investigation was ultimately dropped and Steele was vindicated.
5) Hatun Tash (London, June 2022) : The Ex-Muslim Christian evangelist was arrested, strip-searched, and held overnight by the Metropolitan Police at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.. She was taken into custody after police alleged her presence was causing public distress and provoking aggressive crowds. In September 2024, the Metropolitan Police officially apologised and paid Tash £10,000 in damages and legal costs after acknowledging her detention and search were unlawful.

There's 5 cases for you with a total of £18,000 paid by the tax payers due to the actions of... how can I put it? Ah! I know, I'll use a phrase once used by yourself.

Actually, I won't as it's incredibly rude and I don't want to stoop to that level.
 
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Nessie said:
I think this one is odd.


The decision avoids clear language to indicate the officer was involved in the illegal use of drugs and NO. An "indicated familiarity with and association to" those things covers most cops, if they have attended calls to and raised crime reports for the illegal use of either. Then it states "If the public were sighted on the content of the messages individually or collectively, it would seriously undermine trust and confidence in policing.". So the messages were never public and we only know about them because of the publicity caused by the hearing.

It smacks of the cop was not liked, so he is being done for the most spurious of misconduct.
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He showed "no remorse for his actions", offered no credible explanation and officially resigned from the force ahead of the hearing.
 
Rolfe said:
Here is what happened outside the Scottish Parliament during an organised and officially approved rally for women's rights. Tom Harlow, a male stripper and trans activist, set up an extremely loud sound system on a small decorative peninsula in the pond and blasted "music" at earsplitting volume so that the women speaking could not be heard. He had no permission or approval to do this and he was breaching noise-level regulations. Police stood guard over him and prevented the women from approaching him.

View attachment 75210

The police even had a shift rota organised.

View attachment 75212

There's a great picture from a different angle that shows the peninsula in its entirety, with Harlow sitting entirely surrounded by water apart from the narrow isthmus which is being diligently guarded by the cops.

When one woman did succeed in accessing the peninsula and remonstrating with him, not so much on behalf of the women's rally but for another group nearby who were quietly trying to read out the names of dead children and who were also being drowned out, he wielded an open rainbow golf umbrella, moving it so that it was always between him and her. At one point when she almost overbalanced as the umbrella was threatening to push her into the water, she took hold of its edge.

View attachment 75211

Photographic evidence shows that two spokes of the umbrella were broken from the start, well before Susan approached him, and the part of the umbrella she touched was not the broken part. However Harlow then went to the police and claimed that she had damaged his umbrella. The police initially indicated that she was going to be charged with criminal damage, until the outcry over the whole thing, plus video footage of the entire incident from several different angles showing that she had not caused the damage, caused them to back off with weaselly excuses.

The initial police response to criticism was to insist that Harlow was merely exercising his right to free speech in a public place and they could do nothing to stop him, indeed it was their job to facilitate and protect him. Also that any complaint about noise regulations wasn't their remit, and should be addressed to the city council.

Compare that to the many reports of police frogmarching people away from pro-trans rallies who were merely standing there with a written placard, on the grounds that such behaviour is disruptive and harassing.
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Here's an account of the way police treat people who oppose (or are perceived to be opposing) a gathering of their favoured "marginalised and vulnerable" darlings. Compare and contrast to the way Tom Harlow was treated.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2094357143214313519
 
Rolfe said:
Here's an account of the way police treat people who oppose (or are perceived to be opposing) a gathering of their favoured "marginalised and vulnerable" darlings. Compare and contrast to the way Tom Harlow was treated.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2094357143214313519
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I watch Steve quite a bit. To be fair the little co-op scrote was arrested. Probably let off with a caution at some, later, point.
 
bluesjnr said:
The officer made no mention of a complaint from the public. It very much sounded to me that the "public" were having a great time celebrating whatever it was they were celebrating. We are in this thread looking at and discussing numerous examples of poor behaviour by UK police. This is one such and not an isolated incident.

1) Oluwole Ilesanmi (London): Arrested in 2019 outside Southgate Tube station after a complaint of Islamophobia; the Met Police later paid him £2,500 for wrongful arrest
2) Angus Cameron (Glasgow): Arrested in 2022 while quoting the Bible on Buchanan Street. He later secured a financial settlement including £5,500 in damages after police logged an unsubstantiated non-crime hate incident.
3) Dia Moodley (Bristol): Arrested under the Public Order Act in late 2025 for comments on Islam and gender, but Avon and Somerset Police officially dropped the criminal investigation in May 2026.
4) John Steele (Rotherham, June 2025): Surrounded by four police officers and detained in Rotherham town centre. He had approached a public outreach stall run by a local Muslim woman raising awareness for domestic abuse victims. Using a small microphone, he asked how Islamic scriptures could be reconciled with the stall's message. He was arrest under the Public Order Act. Backed by Christian Concern, the criminal investigation was ultimately dropped and Steele was vindicated.
5) Hatun Tash (London, June 2022) : The Ex-Muslim Christian evangelist was arrested, strip-searched, and held overnight by the Metropolitan Police at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park.. She was taken into custody after police alleged her presence was causing public distress and provoking aggressive crowds. In September 2024, the Metropolitan Police officially apologised and paid Tash £10,000 in damages and legal costs after acknowledging her detention and search were unlawful.

There's 5 cases for you with a total of £18,000 paid by the tax payers due to the actions of... how can I put it? Ah! I know, I'll use a phrase once used by yourself.

Actually, I won't as it's incredibly rude and I don't want to stoop to that level.
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Prove that none of those arrests were initiated by complaints from the public, about the named people. By public, I would include passersby and shop workers in the town centres some of the incidents took place in, and in the Tash case, the people who were running the stall.

I have accepted that in numerous instances, the police make errors and explained that is due to uncertainty around vague laws that need interpreting, where the police involved interpret it differently to the courts and even amongst themselves. What is needed, is far clearer guidelines and guidance for the police to follow.

Then I have also accepted that too many police officers are not up to the job. They lack the necessary intelligence and they are often guilty of anchoring and supporting the first complainer, failing to understand there are often two sides to any complaint.
 
bluesjnr said:
He showed "no remorse for his actions", offered no credible explanation and officially resigned from the force ahead of the hearing.
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There is every chance he decided, when faced with senior management who had already decided he was guilty, to jump ship before he was pushed. There are many cases where cops are disciplined and that disciplinary is later overturned, because the guilty verdict was driven by senior managers who are desperate to be seen to dealing with misconduct. I would not trust the disciplinary system as it is, to be fair. The IOPC are constantly being criticised for their decision making and having to back down.
 
The police have always been bullies, have always been liars, have always wrongly arrested people, have always applied the law inconsistently, have always decided who is worthy and "deserves" their protection and who doesn't, decided what crimes they will get of their arses to investigate and so on. But in the past this was never directed at the members of the comfortable class so who cared, it was only the scum, the perverts they treated in that way.

What is different now is that examples of their bad behaviour can't as easily be brushed under the carpet by a few officers lying in their reports as the behaviour is frequently being caught on 3rd party video and by their own body cameras and they have dared to treat some of the comfortable class as if they were the scum and perverts!

Perhaps it will be what is needed for there to be a true reform of policing but I remain cynical.
 
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Darat said:
The police have always been bullies, have always been liars, have always wrongly arrested people, have always applied the law inconsistently, have always decided who is worthy and "deserves" their protection and who doesn't, decided what crimes they will get of their arses to investigate and so on. But in the past this was never directed at the members of the comfortable class so who cared, it was only the scum, the perverts they treated in that way.

What is different now is that examples of their bad behaviour can't as easily be brushed under the carpet by a few officers lying in their reports as the behaviour is frequently being caught on 3rd party video and by their own body cameras and they have dared to treat some of the comfortable class as if they were the scum and perverts!

Perhaps it will be what is needed for there to be a true reform of policing but I remain cynical.
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Your description applies to some, but not all police officers.

What reform do you suggest? My suggestions would be;

1 - better vetting and recruitment that emphasises standards expected.
2 - a disciplinary procedure that is evidence based and not based on what the investigating officer thinks about the complainer or the officer.
3 - improved training that warns against anchoring and picking sides, emphasises neutrality and fairness and the consequences of miscarriages of justice.
4 - splitting the police into street and office based departments and direct recruitment to both. Street would be response, traffic, community policing, where officers have to be physically fit and capable of dealing with confrontation, with an emphasis on de-escalation. Office would be the investigatory departments, CID, fraud, sex crime and management, HR, planning, where officers would need to be educated to a degree standard and have skills such as cyber security, management and accounting.
5 - Clearer more consistent policy and procedure, especially over controversial issues such as hate crime definition.
6 - Better targeting of the most prolific offenders, hotspot policing and crime prevention initiatives.
7 - More resources, but to the possible surprise of many, not for the police. The police overwhelm the rest of the CJ system with the amount of arrests they make. We need more courts, criminal justice social workers, children's justice workers, probation officers, community service places and rehabilitation.
 
Nessie said:
6 - Better targeting of the most prolific offenders, hotspot policing and crime prevention initiatives.
7 - More resources....
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Just as an aside, I have a good friend (ex-Air Force buddy of mine) who joined the police as a crime-scene profiler (NOT a CSI) after he left (went over to the Dark Side). He was a member of Auckland Police's "Tactical Retail Policing Team". They use CCTV, ANPR cameras and forensic analysis to go after burglars and shoplifters. He told me that at one time, they were able to reduce the number of burglaries happening across Greater Auckland by almost 80% by arresting just five people - a gang that were committing the vast majority of the burglaries.. they were able to do this because they had the resources... then government spending cuts slashed the Police budget.. the resources dried up, and of course, the number of burglaries went up again.
 
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Nessie said:
That is because many members of the public consider it to be worthy attention of the police. Stop looking at incidents in isolation and consider the role the public play.
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I was recently the victim of an unprovoked battery. I, the many bystanding witnesses, and the proprietor of the establishment all agreed on this, and all agreed that it was worthy of attention by the police. The police were summoned, interviewed the victim and the perpetrator, looked at the venue's CCTV footage, and concluded that in spite of all the evidence, the corroborating statements of both victim and perpetrator, and the clear majority opinion of every member of the public present at the time, that it was not worthy of police attention.

So it's obvious to me that (a) police have discretion, about what public opinions they choose to act on, and (b) police judgement in such matters leave much to be desired.

So appeals to "the police are just responding to public sentiment" do nothing for me. Repeating them just makes it look like a cheap dodge you keep returning to because you have nothing else.
 
Nessie said:
Prove that none of those arrests were initiated by complaints from the public, about the named people. By public, I would include passersby and shop workers in the town centres some of the incidents took place in, and in the Tash case, the people who were running the stall.
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Not worth the effort, my point is made.
Nessie said:
I have accepted that in numerous instances, the police make errors and explained that is due to uncertainty around vague laws that need interpreting, where the police involved interpret it differently to the courts and even amongst themselves. What is needed, is far clearer guidelines and guidance for the police to follow.
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Granted, you have.
Nessie said:
Then I have also accepted that too many police officers are not up to the job. They lack the necessary intelligence and they are often guilty of anchoring and supporting the first complainer, failing to understand there are often two sides to any complaint.
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Again, granted you have but I'd like to read you accepting that, often, petty tyranny is at large.
 
Nessie said:
There is every chance he decided, when faced with senior management who had already decided he was guilty, to jump ship before he was pushed. There are many cases where cops are disciplined and that disciplinary is later overturned, because the guilty verdict was driven by senior managers who are desperate to be seen to dealing with misconduct. I would not trust the disciplinary system as it is, to be fair. The IOPC are constantly being criticised for their decision making and having to back down.
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There is far greater chance he's done exactly that which he stood accused of.
 
theprestige said:
I was recently the victim of an unprovoked battery. I, the many bystanding witnesses, and the proprietor of the establishment all agreed on this, and all agreed that it was worthy of attention by the police. The police were summoned, interviewed the victim and the perpetrator, looked at the venue's CCTV footage, and concluded that in spite of all the evidence, the corroborating statements of both victim and perpetrator, and the clear majority opinion of every member of the public present at the time, that it was not worthy of police attention.

So it's obvious to me that (a) police have discretion, about what public opinions they choose to act on, and (b) police judgement in such matters leave much to be desired.

So appeals to "the police are just responding to public sentiment" do nothing for me. Repeating them just makes it look like a cheap dodge you keep returning to because you have nothing else.
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You do not want to face up to the role the public play in how "hurty words" has become a national policing scandal.
 
bluesjnr said:
Not worth the effort, my point is made.

Granted, you have.

Again, granted you have but I'd like to read you accepting that, often, petty tyranny is at large.
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You are another who does not want to face up to the role the public play.
 
bluesjnr said:
There is far greater chance he's done exactly that which he stood accused of.
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He was accused of using words in a way that suggested he was taking illegal drugs. Nothing was said about evidence he took drugs, such as failing a drugs test. He used those words in private and then police management publicised them and claimed that was discreditable to the police.
 
Rolfe said:
Here's an account of the way police treat people who oppose (or are perceived to be opposing) a gathering of their favoured "marginalised and vulnerable" darlings. Compare and contrast to the way Tom Harlow was treated.
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Sogh. Will you be providing evidence the claims are true? Or just continuing to parrot Reform....
 
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