Today, Friday 17th January 2014, Sky News is running the above story – A fair cop?
Of the 1005 people poled for this news story, 53% said they believed that there is a culture of cover-ups within the UK police forces and just 18% said they thought there wasn’t.
With the damaging ‘plebgate’ affair seeing an officer openly accept that he lied hearing the MP in question utter those words; facts coming to light in 2012 confirming that statements given by officers in the Hillsborough disaster were deliberatly doctored to cover up police failings and the mud thrown at the Metropolitan Police during the phone hacking scandal, it’s hardly surprising that the public hold such beliefs.
Read more here – http://news.sky.com/story/1196380/police-cover-up-wrongdoing-most-britons-say
Despite the barrage of accusations levelled at the police in recent years, 72% of poeple said that they would still trust the police to act if they reported a crime.
It’s not easy to properly or fairly analyse these sorts of figures. However, it’s essential that wrongdoing by officers is investigated thoroughly and impartially. We at Guile Nicholas, have all too often witnessed investigating officers display an openly worrying attitude to protecting their own officers rather than approaching an investigation with an open mind. While police officers continue to investigate their own wrongdoing, the desire to protect ones own is never likely to leave the forces entirely. This is an issue that has been debated many times over many years. Will these recent scandals prompt another round of debate? Unlikely, but perhaps they should.
