SELECTING MET POLICE COMMISSIONERS

The opportunity to express opinions on matters of significance to legally minded readers is a privilege. On reflection these opinions can be divided into two aspects of our system of justice: the general or macro view and the detailed micro viewpoint illustrated by examples which might or might not be statistically significant for the PhD student of criminology but are illustrative of what I could describe as the common person`s opinion. It is in contact with police that most criminal legal matters begin. When faith in the correct operation of police starts to erode, faith in our society`s ability to function as a cohesive unit also begins to deteriorate. And so to today.

A look at the treetops of the Metropolitan Police and one would expect that an example of probity of the highest order would  exist.  After all, the very highest of government powers through the very highest of the government`s   investigatative organs are employed to ensure that the 16 officers appointed at Chief Constable rank which for the Met includes those of Deputy Assistant Commissioner and above are of exemplary character and ability. At the current time it is public knowledge that the most senior officers to have left prior to their contract end date in recent years is as below: 

Met Police Commissioners are normally appointed for five years under contract. It is well known that there has been pressure on the current Commissioner that she be relieved of her post.  This of course has been denied and the likelihood is that she will see out her contract. The day after Paul Stephenson resigned in 2011 his deputy also resigned. In 2017 the then Deputy Commissioner Sir Craig Mackey was allowed to continue in his post until his contracted retirement in December of that year although he behaved in an apparently  cowardly fashion when a terrorist killed a constable guarding the House of Commons. The case of former Assistant Commissioner Maxine de Brunner is another worrying example of what is going wrong at the country`s biggest police force. Accounts of her behaviour which led to her leaving are available from earlier posts with additional reference here.  Sir Ian Blair resigned his post prematurely owing inter alia to his involvement in the shooting of  Jean Charles de Menezes.  The current Commissioner Cressida Dick was the gold commander in that tragedy. 

A similar history of the premature resignations of Chief and Deputy Chief Constables in county forces would expose the various shortcomings of the selection process. That will be a post for another day.  But not to worry; most retiring Met Commissioners are offered at least a knighthood (damehood) if not a seat in the House of Lords where £300/day for their attendance can top up their generous pensions. 

MAXINE DE BRUNNER: CHUTZPAH OR ARROGANCE

I had intended to begin by describing the topic today as an individual who had chutzpah:- the classic definition of which is that given by Leo Rosten: "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan."  But in the case of Maxine de Brunner of whom I last posted last Thursday May 24th that definition just doesn`t do justice to the unashamed arrogance of this woman.  When she was an Assistant Commissioner at the Met that arrogance should have been extirpated if those at the very top of that organisation had any wider concerns of their public role apart from polishing the turds within their fiefdom.  Still I suppose old habits die hard. 

It seems that the aforesaid disgraced police chief who has cost her previous employer over a million pounds in trying to defend the indefensible seeks to persuade business organisations that her opinions and advice are worth paying for in the form of presentations filtered through her speech giving agent Speakers Associates.  On the basis that the old adage; a fool and his money are soon parted, applies to business I can only assume that any company that employs this person deserves to go down the pan sooner rather than later. 

MAXINE DE BRUNNER: A DISGRACE TO THE POLICE

Recently BBC TV has been showing short docudramas from forty years ago; "Law and Order" in which the corruption of the Metropolitan Police, often hinted at but rarely investigated, is depicted in all its rotten reality. That rottenness has never been entirely eliminated owing perhaps to political awareness of what problems and embarrassment the revelations would cause or the fact that the corrosive constituents are still in place; greed, pride and ego. 

The history of an ex senior Met officer Assistant Commissioner Maxine de Brunner is a history of all that is wrong with the Met. I first commented upon her activities  on 10th June 2016  and then a month later and finally on 19th August 2016.  This sad sordid story is now concluded. Chief Inspector  Adrian Denby a decorated and respected officer has been awarded £870K as a result of de Brunner`s sex discriminating actions against him. That it has taken two years to achieve the wronged officer`s vindication is a disgrace.  That the Met is considering an appeal compounds its folly. What is equally disturbing is that the Home Office refuses to divulge under the Freedom of Information Act the numbers of senior police officers convicted of misconduct; such refusal being only an indication of how serious misconduct by senior officers is on the increase and that the confidence of we the public would take a massive hit if the truth were known.  

A TIT FOR THE TOP AT MANCHESTER POLICE

Is there any wonder why police in this country are steadily losing the respect of those whom they purport to serve.  Another senior female officer appears to have had tantrums more befitting a toddler following the example of Maxine de Brunner at the Met. This involved an Assistant Chief Constable allegedly baring her breast to a female Superintendent in a demonstration that breast size is not an important factor in securing promotion. Greater Manchester Police was the constabulary involved. This organisation is quite often in the news for the less than salubrious goings on within its ranks.

When the next scandal at Scotland Yard hits the headlines as it surely will perhaps the Home Secretary will take seriously public lack of confidence in policing.

POLICE BIG SHOTS GET AWAY WITH IT AGAIN!

On June 10th I first posted on a certain Maxine de Brunner. It was July 19th when I last posted on her antics. At that time she was referred to as Deputy Assistant Commissioner Maxine de Brunner; not any more.  This person has a history of being a disgrace to that most senior uniform she wore to serve her own vanity and aggrandisement. Recently after her arrogance finally provoked action from the Met. Commissioner she has been allowed to retire, presumably on her maximum taxpayer funded pension, without any official internal action against her despite recent government guidelines to the contrary.  It appears that there is now a slight change in wording of the regulations from allowing a twelve month window after retirement when charges could be brought  to let that period be extended “in exceptional circumstances”. It seems that her boss has once again protected one of his "own" in preference to acting for the public good.

Actions of misconduct to a lesser or usually greater degree of senior cops over the last few years directly impinge upon the public`s confidence in authority in general including government.  They also reduce the respect in which senior police officers are held by their subordinates. Police and Crime Commissioners were established inter alia for just such purposes.  Apparently the current Commissioner after previous ill judged actions is in his last year of office.  The Home Secretary should seek his replacement from a totally different box from whence her predecessor chose Hogan-Howe. 

DO SENIOR POLICE DESERVE OUR TRUST?

Until perhaps about thirty or so years ago tales of police corruption were front page news.  Headlines were made because such stories were relatively rare.  It was even more unusual to find that senior officers were involved.  Rarely did the blame ever fall upon those of superintendent rank or higher.  And it was anathema  to think that chief constables or, for the Metropolitan Police, those of deputy assistant commissioner rank, were in any way less than 100% honest and straightforward in all their dealings whether within the force or without.   In recent years five chief constables have resigned with more than a whiff of corruption or at best incompetence or misconduct surrounding them.  Whilst actual criminality amongst senior police ranks might still be unusual acts of serious or gross misconduct are becoming all too common.  

On June 10th I posted inter alia about the behaviour of Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Maxine de Brunner.  A fuller report on that incident is available here. It seems that actions whilst perhaps  not actually corrupt but perhaps reprehensible and worthy of being defined as gross misconduct are endemic in this highly placed police officer`s modus operandi. In 2014 she mobilised uniformed police officers to "perform" at her son`s private school: this, at a time when the Met, as with all other police forces was and is facing drastic budget cuts. This person in whom we, the public, expect 100% propriety having got away with  such devious self satisfying actions once attempted in her arrogance to repeat her performance last month for a similar event at the school where she is now chairman of governors.  That deployment of officers has now been cancelled by the Met and she is facing a misconduct investigation.

In another example of highly suspicious police activity the house of a senior police officer in Manchester was bought by his own force in 2014 in order to allow its owner who was involved in the investigation of Dale Cregan who had killed two police officers and a father and son in 2012 to move out fearing retribution from Cregan or his associates.  The property was then sold at a loss to a family who were not informed of its history.  It is beyond belief that Greater Manchester Police put their own situation above that of the new purchasers without consideration of the fact that threats to the house`s occupants would still be likely from anybody approaching the house to do harm to those inside.  Perhaps that threat was indeed weighed in the balance and dismissed. 

These two revelations are public knowledge owing to investigations by a free press.  Leveson would put handcuffs on such events. An article in the Spectator in 2015 is revealing.

This is a sad state of affairs and does great discredit to our new prime minister and her predecessors.  There will be hell to pay if the public`s tolerance of corruption in any form including gross misconduct  of the most senior police officers in this country  is allowed to continue unchecked by new procedures. If there were less emphasis by their highly paid press people on how lucky we are to have them and how good they are at "keeping us safe" and more attention to cleaning out the undesirables of all ranks society, ie you and I,  would be better off.