Ian Tomlinson case. PC Harwood Not Guilty.

[Worthingite]

Controversially I think the right decision has been made. His previous shouldn't be taken into account (and wasn't). He might not be a shining example of the Met Police, but if they cannot conclusively prove that he was culpable, then they have no choice.

Doesn't stop him sounding like a nasty piece of work mind, but if they can't prove beyond reasonable doubt, and the chap that was hit wasn't exactly in the rudest of health at the time, then he has to walk free. I've no doubt that his career is finished though.

 

[Robdinho]

But unfortunately we all pay for it when the odd idiot slips through the net, because people only remember their behaviour and not the good stuff.

The problem is not with the idiots that slip through the net though, it's that when they get caught in the net they are not dealt with accordingly.

I don't know enough about the ins and outs of this case to say whether this judgement is right or wrong (except to say that if a member of the public had beaten someone who was walking away from them with a stick, I would expect that person to be punished irrespective of whether the victim died of their injuries), but this guy seems to have been caught doing wrong numerous times -why on earth was he still a police officer?

The problem is that the police as an organisation repeatedly seem to shelter their 'bad eggs', covering up their wrongdoings or even denying that their doings were wrong.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

I'd suggest there is far LESS reprehensible behaviour going on by police officers these days, not more. Life On Mars may have been fictional, but there's no denying the police used to find it easy enough to fit people up, to dispense their own sort of justice, to treat people according to their own prejudices and so on. Clearly there are a few rogue types (as in any job), but no way is it more widespread than thirty years ago. As for all this freemasonry rubbish...maybe in the 1980s, but we're a long way past that now.

I can honestly say I have never, ever personally found myself at work in a position where I thought someone was being treated badly, or being the subject of inappropriate language or similar abuse by a colleague of mine. We're under the microscope more now than we've ever been, thanks to the widespread advance of technology (as well as the countless "respect for diversity" policies and procedures that dominate everything we do).

If I was seen or heard using many of the terms I quite regularly see used by other posters on here, I would fully expect to be sacked.

Obviously I don't work for the Met, so I don't know how they'll play it, but I would be somewhat surprised if Simon Harwood has a job at the end of this.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Freemasons in the police leading the attack on David Cameron's riot response

Leading police officers have set up a national Masonic lodge where they can meet in secret in defiance of fears about the influence of the secret society on the criminal justice system.

The founding members include senior officials from the Police Federation, the police staff association, which is currently fighting the Government over its plans to cut budgets.

The new Masonic lodge is led by John Tully, a Metropolitan Police officer, who has given numerous interviews in recent days accusing the Prime Minister of "fighting violence, arson and looting on our city streets with sound-bites".

Other founder members include officers from the Metropolitan Police, Essex Police, Thames Valley Police and from other forces including Northumbria, Dyfed Powys, South Wales, South Yorkshire and even a high ranking officer from the Royal Gibraltar Police.

The "Sine Favore" Lodge was opened despite the conclusions of a Parliamentary inquiry which warned of public fears that "Freemasonry can have an unhealthy influence on the criminal justice system".

The inquiry followed questions about masonic involvement in the abandonment of an investigation into a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland and with the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, which was disbanded after evidence of police malpractice.

Membership is open to all serving and retired officers across Britain and others working alongside the police, including lawyers, criminologists and even the financial advisers who manage officers' retirement plans.

The idea for the new police Masonic lodge grew out of a series unofficial get-togethers in hotel bars during Police Federation annual conferences.

Masonic rules require members to do all they can to support each other, to look after each other and to keep each others' lawful secrets.

New members of the so-called Brotherhood are blindfolded, a hangman's noose placed around their necks and they are warned their throat will be slit and their tongue torn out if they break their oath. Critics argue this could put them at odds with discharging their duty to serve the public.

The inquiry by the Home Affairs Select Committee in 1998 called for a public register of police officers who joined the Freemasons, although in the end the then Labour government proposed that officers could make voluntary disclosures about their membership. Few did.

The new "Sine Favore" lodge, is named after the Latin motto of the Police Federation, "Without Fear, Without Favour".

The founders include Police Federation Treasurer Martyn Mordecai, John Giblin, chairman of the Federation's Sergeants Central Committee, and Steve Williams, general secretary of the Federation's Inspectors Central Committee.

Earlier this year Mr Giblin told the Federation's annual conference that government ministers "hate the police service" and wanted to "destroy" it.

Other founding members include solicitor Tristan Hallam, a personal injury lawyer who specialises, according to his firm Russell Jones and Walker, in "road traffic accidents and public liability cases for both private clients and associations including the Police Federation".

Mr Hallam said: "Membership of any organisation is a personal choice. Russell Jones & Walker are aware of my membership."

Stewart Imbimbo, an ex-Thames Valley police officer and now a senior official at Milton Keynes council, Robert Taylor, a financial adviser, Eric Misselke, director of a police credit union which provides cheap loans, savings accounts and insurance, and the Metropolitan Police's resident criminologist Dr Attilio Grandani.

Dr Grandani sits on the Metropolitan Police Authority's equality and diversity sub-committee and is behind the Met's new controversial statistical-led policing model, which aims to combat areas of high crime as opposed to more thinly spread bobbies-on-the-beat territorial policing.

Lodge number 9856 was officially opened by a senior Masonic official, Russell Race. He is the Metropolitan Grand Master, head of the Grand Lodge of London, a corporate financier and chairman of a construction firm behind the huge Westfield shopping centre in west London and The Pinnacle office development, which, when complete, will be the tallest building in the City of London.

The lodge is based at 10 Duke Street in central London, which is also the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, one of the most important and mysterious bodies in international Masonic circles, which has an elite membership of only 75 people.

The building, known as Grand East by Masons, contains the "Black Room", the "Red Room" and a "Chamber of Death", used for Masonic rituals.

The Police Federation last night refused to discuss whether any of its officials had disclosed their involvement with Freemasonary.

A spokesman said: "Being a member of any organisation is a matter for the individual, so long as membership of that organisation does not compromise their duties and responsibilities as a police officer."

Lodge Secretary Mr Tully, vice chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation refused to comment.

Freemasons in the police leading the attack on David Cameron's riot response - Telegraph

As I stated, Cadiz Seagull, rotten to the core.

 

[jackanada]

Indeed. tomlonson was able to walk 75 yards by himself afyter being hit with the truncheon before he collaped . i would thik that any decent barrister could argue that introduces sufficient doubt into the cause of death.

I could shoot you centre mass with a gun, and if I missed the really vital stuff there is a chance you could walk a fair distance before dying. Stabbing victims have also managed quite impressive distances before expiring. Further it had already been established in court (coroner's) that he was unlawfully killed.

err think you mean Harwood. Tomlinson is ever so slightly DEAD

Thanks, have fixed that boo-boo. I would make a bad barrister based on that.

 

[dingodan]

I'd suggest there is far LESS reprehensible behaviour going on by police officers these days, not more. Life On Mars may have been fictional, but there's no denying the police used to find it easy enough to fit people up, to dispense their own sort of justice, to treat people according to their own prejudices and so on. Clearly there are a few rogue types (as in any job), but no way is it more widespread than thirty years ago. As for all this freemasonry rubbish...maybe in the 1980s, but we're a long way past that now.

I can honestly say I have never, ever personally found myself at work in a position where I thought someone was being treated badly, or being the subject of inappropriate language or similar abuse by a colleague of mine. We're under the microscope more now than we've ever been, thanks to the widespread advance of technology (as well as the countless "respect for diversity" policies and procedures that dominate everything we do).

If I was seen or heard using many of the terms I quite regularly see used by other posters on here, I would fully expect to be sacked.

Obviously I don't work for the Met, so I don't know how they'll play it, but I would be somewhat surprised if Simon Harwood has a job at the end of this.

Tell yourself that if you want. Not sure why you would think that though.

The article I posted was from August 2011, and with regard to a newly opened Masonic Lodge set up by leading police officers. It is led by Lodge Secretary John Tully, a serving Met Officer and Vice Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation.

 

[Smythe]

Im not surprised he was found not guilty, there was absolutely no evidence.......other than a video!!!!!!

 

[ifuhatepalacestandup]

Unbelievable. Actually, no, par for the course; entirely believable and predictable.

The police are literally are a law unto themselves.

I know some individual coppers are decent (our very own Edna K. for example), but as an institution, I can't respect or trust them; they seem to get away with far too many things that the rest of us would (rightly) be locked-up for.

This decision disgusts me, but, sadly, it doesn't surprise me.

sorry edna i totaly agree with all of the above I personaly dont trust the majority of the police to do the right thing and i have an uncle in the police force

 

[Dunk]

Makes me angry like pretty much everyone else on here. If manslaughter was a bit too hard to get a conviction (and presumably murder was considered as a charge) then surely there must be other things he could be charged with. I'm no expert but it looked like assault, GBH, use of a deadly weapon and, urm, abuse of power. I'd feel a bit better if he got 10 years for that lot.

 

[Questions]

The average copper is only going to reflect the society he or she is picked from. Mostly good, the odd bad.
This guy is bad, that much is obvious. The covering up of him all these years is a crime though.

 

[dingodan]

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

As I stated, Cadiz Seagull, rotten to the core.

Policing in UK only works - and can ONLY work - with consent and acceptance of the public.

Don't you think people might not accept a "rotten to the core" police force and do something about it?

Use of such a massive generalisation does nothing except detract from your comments.

 

[Cadiz Seagull]

And just out of interest, a couple of people have stated that there are lots of bad police officers but then go on to say that this doesn't include our Edna of course.

How do they know?

Maybe she is the worst of the bunch?

Or maybe people are jumping to conclusions without any evidence?

Surely not.

 

[Simster]

Policing in UK only works - and can ONLY work - with consent and acceptance of the public.

Don't you think people might not accept a "rotten to the core" police force and do something about it?

Use of such a massive generalisation does nothing except detract from your comments.

But your argument doesn't hold water as quite clearly some parts of the community don't accept the police force, seeing them as rotten,racist or incompetent or whatever.

Even in Brazil I'm fairly sure those who live in middle class areas are a lot more accepting of their police force than those who, say, live in the favelas. It depends on who you are as to whether you accept the police.

I guess what I'm saying is that it only takes a critical mass in any society to accept that the police are at worst an evil necessity in order for the police to be able to do their job. It is not true to say that the majority needs to trust them implicitly to be the best they can be.

 

[dingodan]

Policing in UK only works - and can ONLY work - with consent and acceptance of the public.

Don't you think people might not accept a "rotten to the core" police force and do something about it?

Use of such a massive generalisation does nothing except detract from your comments.

"nothing can be wrong, because if it were wrong, people would do something about it. So because nobody is doing anything about it, nothing is wrong. Therefore I need not do anything about it." - Circular logic.

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

Policing in UK only works - and can ONLY work - with consent and acceptance of the public.

Don't you think people might not accept a "rotten to the core" police force and do something about it?

Use of such a massive generalisation does nothing except detract from your comments.

Well London has for years had to accept a rotten police force and that is not a massive generalisation, too many reports have concluded it! Sussex chiefs don't have exactly an unblemished record!!

 

[dingodan]

Policing in UK only works - and can ONLY work - with consent and acceptance of the public.

Don't you think people might not accept a "rotten to the core" police force and do something about it?

Use of such a massive generalisation does nothing except detract from your comments.

Btw, do you consent? Or did you at some point? Coz I don't, nor have I ever. Where does this consent come from exactly? Maybe just from compliance. Do people comply because they consent? Or do they comply out of fear of what will happen if they don't?

 

[Lower West Stander]

Let's hope the shitty tabloids don't pay him for the story or or even publish it. Regardless of whether he actually was responsible for the death there is absolutely no justification for what he did

 

[Buzzer]

Imagine if someone in a Millwall shirt had clobbered a policeman on film who died half an hour later. How many years inside do you think he'd get?

 

[PILTDOWN MAN]

And just out of interest, a couple of people have stated that there are lots of bad police officers but then go on to say that this doesn't include our Edna of course.

How do they know?

Maybe she is the worst of the bunch?

Or maybe people are jumping to conclusions without any evidence?

Surely not.

I don't know Edna but I would say, of course you can have good people in the police and wouldn't doubt for one moment Edna not being one of them. Many are good but I've witnessed many who are not. But the core I speak about is mainly the institution and those at the top, the bosses.