March 2021 - The issues with Police wrongdoing in the UK

 March saw the start of warmer weather, and left slowly returning to normal again. Schools had reopened, and the end of march saw further restrictions being lifted, and people were now able to have two households mixing. There was two pieces of troubling news that came though, the first being a rather insulting 1% pay rise for NHS workers, despite having managed to get the country through a pandemic. This was such a surprise to me, because of course you should be grateful for anything extra that you get, but 1% was just utter nonsense. I've never heard something so ridiculous. And it made the government's promotion of the clap for carers seem so hollow. We value you enough to clap for you once a week, but we don't value you enough to reward you for your service. Disgraceful.

The other rather upsetting piece of news was of a murder in London. Her name was Sarah Everard, and she was killed by a serving police officer, who arrested her supposedly for breaching covid rules. In a horrifying twist, it was revealed that the man who killed her, who does not deserve his name to be written, was not only a serving officer, but had been frequently investigated previously for indecent exposure, as well as complaints from other about his behaviour. It then also transpired later, that he had not even been fully vetted by the Met, and that he had a history of disgusting behaviour as well as a trail of complaints. 

The Met then embarked on a process of trying to weed out these so called "Rogue cops", which then turned into a mass sacking, as so many of it's workforce turned out to be these "Rogue cops". I think that caused more concern, and it began to show a culture of abusive behaviours, as well as misogyny, racism, homophobia & more within not just the Met, but in many police forces across the UK. I understand being a police officer is an incredibly difficult job, you deal with so many difficult and dangerous situations, but surely that cannot mean that you then create more of them with your own behaviours? Even as I write now this now in March 2025 (four years later), police forces across the country are still sacking these "Rogue cops". Can anyone tell me, how many "Rogue cops" does it take to realise its a real problem in our police forces?

Anyway, I think it's something that is slowly being addressed, but not fast enough. How many more people like Sarah Everard will lose their lives due to "Rogue cops" before we have finally weeded them all out?

I think as well, this has provided police forces with an opportunity to change the sort of white middle aged straight man culture that many seem to have. I know that when I've had to speak with the police, mainly shoplifting incidents at work, that if it's a white middle aged man then you're almost made to feel like you're wasting their time. However once we had this amazing young asian officer came in, she listened to everything I told her, then asked me a wonderful question. "How do you feel about this?". I feel a range of motions about shoplifting, and I was particularly aggrieved by this incident because I had been threatened by the shoplifter, and was told he would come back and kill me at closing time. She listened to the facts of what happened, but also how I felt about it, something that the white male officer that came the month before didn't even seem to care, he just wanted to know how much was taken and if we had written it off. it just shows you how much of a different approach can change your perception of it. Because after the first incident and the white officers handling of it, I was made to feel like I had wasted his time and it was a fruitless exercise. With the female asian officer, I was made to feel like I had been heard. And that was all I wanted. It gave me a bit of faith back in the police force.

That said, I know nothing is going to happen. I've worked in the retail industry since 2011, I know how low the arrest rate is, and how even lower the conviction rate is. It's almost a pointless task reporting it, I could spend that time filling a department or doing some staff coaching. But with so much shoplifting going on, it's the only way to feel that you are being officially pro-active. Plus it demonstrated to head office how bad the problem is becoming. There's only so much you can do, reducing the amount you put out, following dodgy people about, or like I do sometimes, stand in the doorway of the shop and make the shoplifters know I know they are there. Often that's enough for them to think twice and not come in the shop. But it's only temporary, in a few hours they will be back and they will take whatever they want.

I don't know what the answer is. The thing is, so many factors and situations are at play, it's so hard to know which ones as the most responsible. And that goes for both theft and the conduct of our police forces. But I think for people like Sarah Everard, who pay the ultimate price for these rogue cops, change has to be swift and thorough. And if that means we have to re-vet every police officer in the country and sack those who fail, then so be it. Lets get some new talent, new officers, and hopefully a new direction.

Sorry for the rant, sometimes I feel like I can truly say what I want to on this blog, I mean it is my blog! But often it's an unpopular opinion to say some of these things. Someone I know had been very vocal that there was not an epidemic of police issues, how this was just an unfortunate event, and these things happen. It infuriated me, and I had to remove myself from the conversation lest I caused a scene. If this had happened only once, then yes, you might be able to say that. But it's happened multiple times, and seems to happen more frequently than the bus I catch to work. And a view like that is insulting to the victims of police wrongdoing.

In terms of work, the shop was becoming a bit more quiet, the increase of panic buying had gone, and we sort of settled into this calmer routine. Some people did organise a zoom quiz night to give us the chance to get to know each other a little bit better and do a bit of team building. I can joint second overall with 21.5 points, so I was quite happy with that. Plus I drank the last bottle of bucks fizz I found hiding in the back of the cupboard. Maybe bucks fizz makes you better at quizzes, who knows?

March was a busy month work wise, with a lot of changes going on and a lot of moving about. My backache was still there, but again, I think I just put it down to the amount of work I was doing. We also had a lovely day down Weston Shore again. We walked all the way down, then sat on the beach and watched the sunset.

I managed to find that tyre again, but still cannot take the perfect! Maybe I need to go on a training course or something to practice my skills.

But I did manage to get a good picture of the square waves coming in. I find them so unnatural but also so fascinating too.

And once night fell, the oil refinery across the water really lights up. Not the nicest thing to have on a landscape, but it does create a nice light show.