Police fit up Mitchell?

(122 Posts)
CogitOCrapNotMoreSprouts Wed 19-Dec-12 08:33:31

Seems like someone at the Met lost sight of the truth in their anxiety to smear the former chief whip. Amongst other things, a little matter of 'several members of the public were present' shown to be a lie. Article. Appalling.

tiggytape Sat 22-Dec-12 09:49:54

gingeroots - you are correct. Swearing isn't an offence as such but a public order offence is defined as behaving in such a way as to cause 'alarm or distress.' So if you swear with no witnesses to care about it, it doesn't matter in the same way as if you go into an expletive filled rant and upset or shock a lot of people. If you do that, you can be arrested.
Any suggestion of fabricated crowds of 'shocked' witnesses therefore is very serious because it turns an ill-advised, sweary moan into a potential criminal act.

gingeroots Sat 22-Dec-12 10:05:31

Thanks Tiggy ,that's it ,that's what I was clumsily trying to say !

Pantomimedam Sat 22-Dec-12 11:09:32

The coppers involved seem to have been a bit dim, or arrogant, thinking no-one would check the CCTV, or that it didn't matter if they did.

There has been a recent case on swearing at the police where the judge basically said get over yourselves to the coppers - I forget where I saw it but it suggested it will be harder for police to pretend to be maiden aunts who are shocked and horrified if someone says 'blimey' in their prescence.

MrsJREwing Sat 22-Dec-12 12:52:12

The behaviour of the three officers makes me feel their entire careers and integrity should be called upon as suspicious.

If I had any dealings be it victim or criminal with those three, I would want the case reviewed, those police can't be trusted to do their job.

I hope the book is thrown at them, they are the lowest of the low trusted to the highest order.

Pantomimedam Sat 22-Dec-12 13:16:30

Interesting that the cabinet secretary seems to have known about the CCTV footage all along... seems Mitchell has made a lot of enemies in his time.

Xenia Sat 22-Dec-12 19:49:07

Mitchell should have been allowd to see the CCTV ages ago and when did Cameron see it?

Isityouorme Sat 22-Dec-12 21:02:17

MPs are screwing the police with pay and conditions. Mps need to practice what they preach. Two Pcs were killed the day before so emotions were high. At the end of the day had Mitchell not sworn and shouted, as he admits doing, there wouldn't be an issue.

tiggytape Sat 22-Dec-12 21:43:17

So if the police fit someone up for a crime they didn't commit just because they've done something criminal in the past - that's O.K then is it? Because afterall they wouldn't be in the frame at all if they hadn't once done soemthing wrong?
Or if you get done for doing 36MPH in a 30 zone but the police say you were doing 80MPH - that's O.K then is it - because afterall if you hadn't been speeding, they wouldn't have been able to fit you up and made it look much worse?

It may be a cliche but two wrongs don't make a right. Yes Mitchell was rude to the police but that doesn't mean they can (if it is true) make up lies about him that will make him so disliked and untrusted that he cannot keep his job.

Pantomimedam Sun 23-Dec-12 10:58:49

Isit has a point, public opinion was influenced by the death of two officers the day before. Mitchell's timing was appalling. And that matters in politics.

As for the police fitting people up, yeah right. Ordinary people actually suffer from police malpractice - look at Hillsborough. What was the impact on Mitchell? He didn't even lose his job, he was merely demoted to a backbench MP.

I met him a while before all this happened. He seemed perfectly pleasant, but wasn't actually under any pressure (was at a reception for the Gates foundation).

CogitOCrapNotMoreSprouts Sun 23-Dec-12 11:39:48

"What was the impact on Mitchell? "

Severe. Not simple the loss of a high-profile job but, in his article in the Times today, he tells how he received a thousand hate-filled e-mails and suffered depressive symptoms as a result. It's not that long since a nurse killed herself after being subjected to public humiliation. Trashing someone's reputation and making them a hate figure is no joke.

What concerns me is that the police seem to have casually lied about a relatively trivial matter, unlike in the past when they've been trying to cover up very serious negligence or malpractice. This wasn't a shooting gone wrong, a national disaster or a dead newspaper seller.... this was a bad-tempered exchange that wouldn't have rated so much as a raised eyebrow if they'd been policing chucking out time on a Saturday night, and they chose to exaggerate and lie about it seemingly to get their own back.

mumzy Sun 23-Dec-12 15:33:50

It's interesting that the police officer , Keith Wallis, who pretended to be an witness to the event has links with the Hong Kong Police force - his dad was in the military police there - and his accomplice Clarence Ng is also from HK. Having spent some time in HK per 1997, police corruption was a way of life there and several of my business acquaintances had to pay regular back handers to the police in order to stay open. I remember at one point it got so out of hand there were TV adverts warning public servants including the police against corruption sad

niceguy2 Sun 23-Dec-12 16:20:59


That is without a doubt one of the most stupid sentences I've read this year on MN and that's saying something.

The police cannot simply make stories up to suit the 'crime' so to speak. If he indeed committed any crime then the police could arrest him and charge him. What they cannot do is make shit up no matter what their personal opinions are of him.

I've been to many countries where police corruption is the norm. If anything cracks off you hope to get away before the police arrive. I'm so grateful that in this country if I need to call a police officer that they will almost certainly be impartial and honest. So the times we do find they are not, we should clamp down hard.

TheOriginalLadyFT Sun 23-Dec-12 18:57:49

It's an utter disgrace, police lying to bring down a cabinet minister for political motivated reasons. And as for the whole "well he's a twat" argument - seriously? If this had been a Labour minister being fitted up, there would be pages and pages of MNers screeching for blood

mumzy Sun 23-Dec-12 19:04:16

Agree with niceguy2. This case isn't about whether Mitchell sworn at the police or not its about the police making up a story about him which suits their purposes. If a minister can get fitted up by the police what's the hope for the rest of us and we should all be very worried indeed about these events. Politicisation of the police and army is how dictatorships in countries such as Zimbawe arise.

mumzy Sun 23-Dec-12 19:09:06

I also think the very generous pay rises and changes in terms and conditions for all public servants including the police and doctors, made by the last Labour government has politicised who the majority of these workers will support in future

Pantomimedam Sun 23-Dec-12 19:15:57

Mitchell refused to say exactly what words he had used, and I think he's still being evasive about that - apart from admitting he swore. Damaged his own case very badly there, because the only account of it was from the cops. He is partly responsible for his own downfall, it's not just the untrue police account. (He has also clearly made lots of enemies on his own side who were only too happy to pile in when he was under pressure.)

I think it was Have I Got News For You this week where the panellist read the supposed police log against the footage - the words clearly didn't fit, they went on way after he'd actually left the gate. So the police officers were extremely stupid. Not just the one who lied about being a witness (and claimed to be a member of the public) but it seems the officers at the gate as well.

It is interesting that the politicians are suffering from police malpractice - now perhaps they will have more sympathy for members of the public who are victims of police wrongdoing.

Brycie Sun 23-Dec-12 19:16:32

He resigned because the Police Fed insisted that if he stuck to his story that would mean the police log was wrong, and for a serving member of the government to insist that the police log was not a trustworthy document is not acceptable. It's more a union thing than a police thing. This is a labour union fitting up a conservative.

Brycie Sun 23-Dec-12 19:19:26

Tiggytabpe: yes, it was deemed swearing at police shouldn't be an arrestable offence because they had heard it all before therefore couldn't be offended.

Pantomimedam Sun 23-Dec-12 19:21:05

mumzy, there's a couple of theories about the amazingly generous GP contract the last government signed. First, that civil servants and ministers were far too arrogant - they underestimated what GPs already did routinely, so gave loads of incentive payments for doing stuff that was already happening. Second, that it was a machiavellian stunt to make GPs unpopular, so they could bring commercial interests into the NHS and no-one would listen to protests from GPs.

I think the first is more likely than the second, personally.

As for other public servants, I don't think any had massively generous pay rises. Nurses and other healthcare workers who earn far less than doctors were woefully underpaid by the Major government for the responsibility and workload that they carry, and had far less significant pay rises than doctors. Chief execs and directors of local authorities, NHS trusts, quangos and so on were paid far too much - largely because the Blair government wanted to bring in people from the private sector and claimed salaries had to go up to match - but ordinary public sector workers didn't enjoy a bonanza.

Xenia Sun 23-Dec-12 20:23:13

In the SUnday Times Mitchel discloses yet another police lie - the Police Federation apparently said at a meeting between Mitchell and their officials 3 weeks after the offence Mitchell did not tell them the words he had used. He said he had.

They were again saying he was a liar. Then he discovered a Conservative press officer had taped the whole meeting and it clearly proved that Mitchell had said what words he had used!

The police seem particularly incompetent in their corruption here, even less clever (those involved anyway) that we had thought they were.

Brycie Sun 23-Dec-12 21:50:33

Xenie - yes - it's a union thing, not a police thing. Union corruption and mendacity. Entirely possible the same thing goes on with teaching unions, health unions - deliberate efforts to sabotage.

torychicetc Mon 21-Jan-13 14:44:56

he Met had 30 officers on it so the report will soon be out.It is difficult to turn the clock back

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