February 29, 2024 - 3:00pm
The job of the police is to catch criminals, not provide cover for sexual predators among their colleagues. So how did we get to a point where police forces are being urged to carry out an urgent review of indecent exposure charges against serving police officers? It’s one of the most jaw-dropping recommendations from the independent inquiry into the rape and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021.
Until recently, most of us would have assumed that a history of “flashing”, as it used to be known, would have been a bar to joining the police or remaining in the force. Yet the report, by Lady Angiolini, reveals that Ms Everard’s killer, PC Wayne Couzens, was reported eight times for exposing himself in the years before he targeted her.
The fact that he was allowed to continue carrying a warrant card is only partly explained by the false assumption that indecent exposure is a minor offence. The idea that flashers are too timid to carry out physical attacks has been disproved many times, yet the report suggests that allegations against officers are still not being acted upon with the speed and vigour they require.
But then we discovered last week, after a former PC in the Met was convicted of multiple counts of rape, that even a history of allegations of serious sexual assaults against a child had not prevented his recruitment. And while the Angiolini report ranks as one of the most damning indictments ever published in relation to a public institution, it doesn’t tell us much we didn’t already know about the horrendous state of policing in this country.
A couple of months ago, it was revealed that 1,151 police officers in England and Wales are under investigation for sexual or domestic abuse, including 657 of Couzens’s former Met colleagues. One in seven of the overall total has been allowed to continue working as usual while 428 have been placed on restricted duties. Only 378 have been suspended. Allegations against officers are so widespread that the Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, admitted last year that he couldn’t guarantee that a woman reporting a rape wouldn’t be interviewed by a predator. Is anyone surprised that so many rape investigations go nowhere?
It has been clear for a long time that there are failures at every point in the system, from vetting of police recruits, training and supervision of officers, and investigation of complaints. Various initiatives have been announced in an attempt to regain public confidence, including Operation Onyx, which reinvestigates allegations against officers where lines of inquiry might have been missed.
But none of this is happening quickly enough for women who find themselves agonising over whether to report a rape. Couzens should never have been allowed to become a police officer, but how many more does that apply to? Scarcely a week goes by without another officer being charged with a whole series of serious sexual assaults, but it’s often taken years before they were exposed.
Senior officers need to enforce a regime where denigration of women and use of extreme pornography are disciplinary offences, and allegations of sexual or domestic violence lead to an immediate suspension. If they can’t or won’t don’t do that, we’re entitled to expect drastic measures — and that includes disbanding the Met.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeI have nothing against Trump but I think he should step aside for DeSantis – frankly Trump has had his day.
No question. Trump is passed his prime, just too old, or certainly will be by 2024 for another presidential run.
I agree David. Trump is too old and too divisive. He has changed the world – I posted here yesterday that his positions which were considered lunatic in 2016 – like trade barriers against China and re-shoring of industry to the US – are now mainstream all over the world. And he has transformed the GOP – there will not be a primary candidate who is against The Wall for instance. He should be content with that and with being an elder statesman. Of course, I know he won’t and could well win the primary and lose the election to whichever horror the Dems put up.
Totally agree. DeSantis is the future and, I reckon, a pretty easy win for Republicans in ’24.
On the subject of boosters and vaxx status being a divider, I think this article really gets it wrong. First, because the mainstream view among republicans is, and has been for some time, that the vaccines should be a matter of personal choice, especially as they do little to nothing to stop transmission of the virus. That, right there, is enough for almost every Republican, and most moderate, voters.
Second, because we are seeing more and more data suggesting that the immuno-suppressing effect of the vaccine, likely cumulative with repeated dosage, creates ‘negative efficacy’. UK data now clearly shows that for omicron, being double jabbed makes you more likely to be hospitalised and die than having no jab at all.
This means the further the vulnerable go down the rabbit hole of repeated jabs, the more path dependent their immune systems become. Here is the every-excellent eugyppius on the subject:
Unboostered Brits Infected and Dying at Higher Rates than Unvaccinated (substack.com)
DeSantis reads this data and looks ahead. Trump doesn’t.
Agreed. Trump had his fun. Saved us all from Hillary: God bless him for that. Did his SCOTUS appointments: good important work. But is hopelessly self-absorbed and needy and too disorganized to lead. It’s sunset time in Trumpistan, I fear.
First time I concentrated on anything US politics was that election. I was always Dem if anything, but old Hillary just hit the wrong note from the get go. Intuition kicked in and I started following it.
This is another article promoting a Trump-DiSantis feud. Starting to get boring. No Pulitzer here.
I know, what is this, a Democrat party political piece?
“Trump’s trademark sneakily-shrewd bluster – those unfortunate evangelical Republicans”
But then nothing to say about Democrats and the vax – except they all worship it as some miracle charm which will save them from some bogeyman.
I think most Americans know that Trump would probably win in 2024 but that De Santis, or anyone who is not Trump, would certainly turn a probable win into a probable win by huge and possibly historic margins.
The scenario now being batted about is that the elections in November 2022 will likely result in the Republican Party having complete control of the House of Representative; perhaps 250 seats out of 438. The thought is that the House could then elect Trump as the Speaker of the House because the Speaker does not have to be an elected member of Congress.
If Trump should be quite satisfied with this (it would place him in the presidency should the House and Senate the decide to impeach both Biden and Harris) then De Santis, who is infinitely better qualified and better suited the office than Trump, would have the opportunity to be elected president in 2024 and enjoy possibly historic margins in both the House and Senate.
Already there is the sense that neither the current Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, nor the Minority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, should have any leadership position in the Republican Party going forward.
I don’t think the Fauci Flu and vaccination status will have any relevance to all this.
MAGA, Speaker Trump, WWG1WGA
This is a stark example of the false dilemma. When I see a British writer opining on the USA, I take two grains of salt. The “vaccination” issue for those of a certain age, is more like Anglicanism on the sacrament of confession: “All may. None must. Most should.”
Nice comparison Liz.
And it is a good rule of thumb to disregard a foreign journalist’s take on your domestic politics. When I hear US commentators, even ones I’m sympathetic to, opine on British politics, they invariably get key elements of the story wrong.
Here’s hoping that by 2024 Covid vaccination should amount to a single booster every year along with (included in?) the flu jab for the vulnerable. In which case this will prove a non-issue then; and perhaps minds and policies can be focused on important matters such as the enormous debt mountains, sensible green deadlines, managing immigration pressures, etc. Sadly I’m not sanguine about us having seen the back of gender/racial politicking by then.
booster, jab? Waht is it with you vaccine maniacs? It is not some cuddly ‘jab’ or booster, but an injection of alien genetic material created in a lab and once in your cells hijacks their systems to produce alien spike proteins, which then burst out of them like aliens from the mid section of a person – AND highly toxic spike proteins with potentially big health ramifications, as VAERS shows, and as no studies show otherwise – them still being experimental – and also the producers free of all liability if they destroy your life….
Oh no! Why didn’t I listen to you – a wee alien has just burst out of my tummy!
I’m going to love him and squeeze him and call him ‘George’.
He may look harmless now – but watch the movie to see how it ends…..
Another completely false narrative, clickbait in the making. Being pro vax and not mandatory is not a conflict. No different than being pro choice and against abortion. And I don’t see any connection whatsoever in being pro vax while being against reducing civil liberties.
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