When the Stalinist horrors of Putin’s attempt to wipe out Ukraine fill our TV news every night, it is … well, if not a comfort exactly ….. at least wearily familiar to see some things never changing.

The Met has got into trouble again – and, yes, over women and girls. (Did you really need to ask?) First, the High Court ruled that the Met’s decisions (all 6 of them) before the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard were unlawful. They showed a continued misunderstanding of the law, a disregard for the rights to free expression and assembly under the ECHR and had a “chilling effect” on womens’ rights to protest, even under the Covid Regulations in force at the time. The Met got their legal advice from the College of Policing, who managed to get the law wrong in the recent Miller case as well and, as the High Court tartly observed, also ignored another Supreme Court ruling on the right to protest. Lovely as it is of the College of Policing to provide employment to inept lawyers and to rather more expert lawyers to put them right, is there really any point to its existence? We have plenty of other public bodies available if we need examples of serial incompetence & ignoring the law. The Cabinet, for instance.

Priti will no doubt hope that her new Police Bill will put a stop to all this free expression nonsense. Alas, for her: the ECHR still exists and she will likely face similar legal action. Of course, the government could withdraw from the Convention. But that would mean expulsion from the Council of Europe, something even Putin’s Russia has managed to avoid (albeit by flouncing just before it was expelled). Dare one hope that, despite this government’s fondness for autocrats and their money, even it would baulk at joining Russia and Belarus in the club of nations abandoning human rights? Perhaps a journalist might ask this of the PM during his jaunt to Saudi Arabia which executed 81 men the other day while the world was otherwise distracted.

Never mind: the oligarchs can still rely on the Met to protect their large uninhabited properties. When one such Belgrave Square mansion was taken over by squatters, van loads of policemen turned up with the whole street cordoned off to investigate what the Met described as a possible burglary. Londoners were later trolled by the Met issuing a statement saying “This led to an immediate response and would do so anywhere in London.” In another world those last 3 words might possibly be true. Alas, for now we live in the imperfect one we have, not the Met’s imaginary one. The hunt is now on for any non-oligarch Londoner who has reported a burglary and got dozens of policemen turning up within minutes. Perhaps the PR person who wrote the self-justifying tweet was bored of always writing apologies, as well they might be.

Take the Met’s treatment of Child Q – a teenage black girl was taken out of an exam and intimately strip searched while menstruating without an appropriate adult present and without her mother even being informed. No drugs were found (this being the ostensible reason for the search). The distress caused led to a case review report. It found a lack of regard for good safeguarding practice by the school and racism to have been a factor in the police’s behaviour. The inevitable apology followed.

Not to be outdone another of those rotten apples turned up to be sentenced for stalking his ex-mistress, using the digital skills acquired and enhanced by his job as an IT director for the Met. Where do they get these people?

We have been given a clue by Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, the new national lead for violence against women and girls. In an interview given to mark International Women’s Day (at least we were spared the sight of officers waving pretendy flags on gaily painted crossings) she said (and I hope you’re sitting down for this amazing revelation): “There will be some attracted into working in policing, because of the powers that it offers them, the powers to exert and coerce other people, particularly vulnerable individuals. I think we shouldn’t be naive to that.” Well, quite. Male sexual predators will abuse every opportunity created. Best not give them those opportunities might be one lesson to be learnt. That’s what safeguarding should mean. And not just in schools.

Still she made two unassailable points: (1) these were not isolated cases and there would be more coming to light. And (2) policing alone could not change the way society treats women and girls. More men needed to speak out about everyday sexism. For the hard of understanding, that means bad behaviour against people because of their sex. If only there were politicians who could speak with such clarity. As Maggie Blyth put it: “we need to really grasp this moment to make those changes, not let anyone off the hook, and not to move on to the next thing. Women’s lives mean more than that.“

It would be nice to think that. Now back to reality

……

Cyclefree