43 Chief Constables are members of the ACPO council ... ACPO’s ruling body, the seven-member executive committee, is virtually self-selecting. Duncan Campbell, Secret Society: Association of Chief Police Officers, BBC 1987
Cavalry charges and riot squads are the ugly face of policing. One that most chief constables wouldn’t want to see happen for real. Any more than anybody else. Although hardly anybody knew it at the time the Battle of Orgreave, which saw some of the most violent scenes in the year-long miners’ strike, also saw new policies from ACPO being tested for the first time. ibid.
Run at the crowd in pairs to disperse and/or incapacitate. ACPO riot training manual
Disperse the crowd and incapacitate missile throwers and ring leaders by striking in a controlled manner with batons. ibid.
Why should we consult people outside the police service when we’re determining operational policies and tactics? James Anderton, former Chief Constable of Merseyside
Mr Premier, I leave you for tonight with a comment on the shortcomings of police work in India. Now, a busload of men in khaki – it was a sensational case, after all – must have gone to Laxmangarh when investigating my disappearance. They would have questioned the shopkeepers, bullied the rickshaw pullers, and woken up the schoolteacher. Did he steal as a child? Did he sleep with whores? They would have smashed up a grocery shop or two, and forced out ‘confessions’ from one or two people. Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger p39
This is a real drama. The true story of one of the best known units in the British police. It’s target – ruthless armed criminals robbing banks and building societies at will ... The battle between cops and robbers escalated into shoot-outs with sawn-off shotguns and machine guns. Flying Squad: The Real Sweeney, National Geographic 2014
Increasingly, juries believed the defendants, not the police. ibid.
The clean-cut image of the police had also been damaged by a series of high-profile police corruption scandals which changed the public perception. ibid.
The smell of police corruption surfaced again in the 1990s. ibid.
You were guaranteed you would get a few digs. Noel ‘Razor’ Smith, ex-armed-robber interview ibid.
It’s effectively shoot to kill. Roy Ramm, Flying Squad
This is a bit much, isn’t it? I’m trying to work. Now look here. I’m sick of you bastards coming round here. My car was towed away; there was no apology. And you have the nerve to demand thirty pounds for its return. What is this? Russia, Herr Führer? The Comic Strip Presents ... s2e5: Gino, Channel 4 1984
I don’t believe the police brutalities at all. Ronald Reagan, interview BBC 1966
Recent times have seen Britain’s police facing criticism like never before. Adam Deacon, Can You Trust the Police? BBC 2012
One in three people think the police are corrupt. ibid.
I’ve seen police being racist. ibid.
Some fans believe that the police themselves are responsible for acts of brutality. ibid.
‘Met chief warns officers over racist abuse’; ‘Metropolitan police race row deepens as allegations mount’; ‘London’s Metropolitan Police faces racist claims’. ibid. headlines
I also met people whose lives have been destroyed by the actions of the police. People who will never be able to trust them again. ibid.
For seventeen years Mike Chitwood was a top cop in one of America’s toughest cities. But now he’s leaving Philadelphia for a new job – chief of police in Shawnee, Oklahoma. What happens when a street-wise detective from Philly tries to whip this tough little Western town into shape? Crime Stories: The Chief
One fifth of the population lives below the poverty line; the crime rate is twice the national average. ibid.
The day they picked me up – December 21st – they took me upstairs; what floor I don’t know. But they put me in a little room. Gus Rose walked in. He had a confession there he wanted me to sign. The Thin Blue Line 1988 starring Randall Adams & David Harris & Gus Rose & Jackie Johnson et al, director Errol Morris, music Philip Glass; Randall Adams interview
He came back in ten minutes and put a pistol on the table. Asked me to look at it, which I did – I looked. He asked me to pick it up. ibid.
He pulled his service revolver at me. ibid.
Randall Dale Adams, who spent 12 years in prison before his conviction in the murder of a Dallas police officer was thrown out largely on the basis of evidence uncovered by a filmmaker, died in obscurity in October in Washington Court House, Ohio. He was 61.
Randall Adams was featured in the film The Thin Blue Line.
Mr Adams had chosen to live a quiet life divorced from his past, and when he died on Oct 30 2010 of a brain tumor, the death was reported only locally, said his lawyer, Randy Schaffer. The death was first widely reported on Friday.
The film that proved so crucial to Mr Adams was The Thin Blue Line, directed by Errol Morris and released in 1988. It told a harrowing story, and it had the effect of helping to bring about Mr Adams’s release the following year. The New York Times article 26th September 2011 Douglas Martin
On the evening of 2nd November 1952 gunshots echoed around Croydon in South London. A policeman had been killed and nineteen-year-old Derek Bentley stood accused of his murder. But he hadn’t pulled the trigger; the culprit was actually Bentley’s friend, Christopher Craig. The legendary line ‘Let him have it’ has been immortalised in the big screen and in book. But did Bentley really utter those words, and what happened to his companion, Christopher Craig? Fred Dinenage’s Murder Casebook: Derek Bentley, CI 2011
Two former police officers may face criminal charges after three men jailed for murdering Carl Bridgewater were freed yesterday amid allegations of ‘serious, substantial and widespread police malpractice’.
The detectives have been interviewed about a forged confession which was instrumental in bringing the men to trial and sending them to jail for 18 years. A third officer implicated by new scientific evidence has since died.
Yesterday the Crown accepted that the fresh evidence left the prosecution case fundamentally flawed, and Michael Hickey, Vincent Hickey and James Robinson were freed on bail pending an April hearing when they will almost certainly be cleared. The manslaughter conviction against Patrick Molloy, who died in 1981, was quashed immediately.
After the hearing, the Prime Minister said that he expected an inquiry into the original convictions and another within the police. Merseyside detectives are investigating the way Staffordshire Police conducted the murder inquiry after 13-year-old Carl was found shot dead at an isolated farmhouse near Stourbridge. The officers named in court yesterday were, however, from the West Midlands force, assigned to the case by the regional crime squad. The Times article 22nd February 1997 Ford, Farrell & Midgley, ‘Police may face Bridgewater trial’
The Crown Prosecution Service has decided no charges will be brought against 10 police officers accused of fabricating evidence against the Bridgewater Four.
When Michael Hickey, Vincent Hickey and Jim Robinson were freed by the Court of Appeal last year after 17 years in jail, the CPS was asked to investigate three separate allegations against the Staffordshire police detectives.
Merseyside police carried out the inquiry, but because there is no realistic prospect of any conviction from evidence gathered during the murder investigations of newspaper boy Carl Bridgewater, they decided not to press charges.
The fourth man convicted of killing Carl, Pat Molloy, died in prison in 1981.
The allegations focused on claims that an interview with Vincent Hickey was fabricated to induce Pat Molloy to sign a confession and that officers falsified evidence about a conversation during a car journey with Mr Molloy. Admissions by Michael Hickey were alleged to have been made up.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, said he appreciated the decision could be ‘difficult to understand’. The CPS could only act if there was enough evidence to be put before a court to make a conviction realistic.
Michael Hickey’s mother, Ann Whelan, described the decision as ‘horrendous, outrageous and deplorable’. Guardian Unlimited article Helen Carter 24th December 1998, ‘Police in miscarriage of justice will not be prosecuted’
On May 31 1978 Tony Castro, a security guard, was shot dead at point-blank range. His killers stole the £200,000 weekly pay-roll from the Daily Mirror … They had bought their freedom by paying detectives £80,000. World in Action: Operation Countryman Police Corruption, ITV 1982
Operation Countryman, the fourth and largest investigation. ibid.