My previous message about broken policing in the UK confirmed

I have recently read something which should have shocked me. But as I have been studying the UK police for about 20 years, it was just like reading a favourite book read many times before. Others might think there must be some mistake, believe me there is not.

What I read was of course Leon Brittan's widow breaks her silence over child sex abuse probe. I will copy some extracts below.

You might hope that this is only a problem in the Met. But it is not. I have seen exactly these behaviours in any force I have looked at.

I have seen lies, incompetence, corruption, protection and coverup just like this over and over again from the Chief Constables and PCCs of Dorset, Devon and Cornwall, and Hampshire and many other areas. And I have fully documented this going back many years at www.dorsetspeed.org.uk

Lady Brittan sat as a magistrate for 26 years. I will just list some of the comments, as I say, reading this was just like reading any of my articles going back close to 2000:

-Failings by Operation Midland police have already been highlighted by retired High Court judge, Sir Richard Henriques. He identified 43 major blunders and accused officers of misleading a judge
- cover-up culture
- Not a single person in this case has resigned, lost their job, been fired, demoted or disciplined. Nobody whatsoever
- The fiasco not only cost the taxpayer millions of pounds but also severely damaged the reputations of other innocent public figures
- submission includes expert legal analysis of the watchdog's 'whitewash' report on the bungled police probe
- If, in a case like this, accountability does not involve firings or resignations at the point of responsibility, what then is accountability?
- Brands the police watchdog inquiry that cleared five Midland officers of wrongdoing 'as good as a whitewash'
-Sir Richard's bombshell 2016 report called for five Midland detectives – including controversial 'gold commander' Steve Rodhouse – to be investigated for misconduct.But following what he has termed a 'lamentable' inquiry by the police watchdog, not one of the officers faced any sanction.
- Mr Rodhouse, since promoted to deputy head of Britain's version of the FBI, the National Crime Agency, on a salary package of around £300,000, was cleared of wrongdoing after just four months without even being interviewed
- ineptitude of the IOPC watchdog
- Lady Brittan, 80, tells the Mail today: 'I suppose as a former magistrate, indeed the wife of an ex-home secretary, I've always believed that a strong moral compass is essential to every public body and especially to police forces, and above all, to its leadership. I think it's very important. However, it just seems to me the Metropolitan Police has preferred its corporate or personal ambitions to a strong moral compass
- And one of the things that interests me is as an outcome is the police appear to have a culture, which is cover up and flick away.'
- In March last year, a devastating report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary said Scotland Yard chiefs were more concerned with restricting access to the damning judge-led inquiry into the VIP child abuse scandal, than in learning lessons from it.
- Among those who have provided evidence to MPs is Lady Brittan. And what she has to say will be a damning indictment of a police service she believes not only failed in its most fundamental duties, but was mired in misconduct, then let off the hook by a watchdog that failed to uncover the truth
- many of the senior officers involved have been promoted
- nobody wants to admit to any mistakes
- she believes the institutional rot goes right to the top.
- police establishment closing ranks to protect its own
- As for the police watchdog, she is scathing: 'I did not believe they were what we expect a watchdog to be. Watchdogs have to be much more robust, independent, get at the truth, be not afraid to castigate senior officers and command the respect of the public. And that, I did not see in this particular case. I saw a lot of waffle and a few learning points. My point to them was: 'If this was not misconduct, what is?' No answer to that. My view is that the report is pretty much close to a whitewash.'

Here's a favourite ... Matt Horne, head of professional standards at the Met, was appointed by the Met after being found guilty of misconduct in his former role as deputy chief constable of Essex Police!!!

And you will find in my articles that Coilin Smith, ex "Head of professional Standards" at Hampshire initially believed and stated that both the primary points in my complaint were correct. He was then obviously corrupted, I suspect by PCC Underhill, as he stopped communicating, delayed for a year, wrote there was nothing wrong, "retired" and vanished even before Martyn Underhill allowed me to see and question it!

You couldn't make some of this up.

Can UK policing go any lower?

Ian Belchamber