Despite what you might hear in some sections of the mainstream media, the UK’s 122,000-or-so police officers were disgusted by the prospect that one of their own could be responsible for the death of Ms Everard.
As the court case is ongoing, I can say little more about the person currently sitting in a cell as the case against him is put together.
During my ten years of service in the Met Police on a 999 response team, I lost count of the number of calls that my team and I responded to in east London, which involved reports of violence against women.
As someone who has five sisters and a daughter, I genuinely worry about women’s welfare and safety as they go about their business. There are some truly evil individuals out there, far more than you might think. Just ask any police officer who has spent a few years responding to emergency calls or investigating serious crimes.
If an MSM journalist is reading this, I would urge you to research the number of individuals who have been convicted of assaulting, sexually or otherwise, a female who also has a previous conviction for violent or sexual offences.
I mention this because I think you would be shocked by the sheer number of repeat offenders out there who still offend regularly despite already being convicted of being violent towards both men and women.
Perhaps the answer is longer custodial sentences?
I know that many people do not think that custodial sentences work, but the best way to keep people safe from habitual and repeat offenders is to keep such individuals out of society.
Of course, some people make genuine mistakes and learn from them.
But, from my experience, more people who go through the courts will go on to re-offend. That is not merely an opinion; it is an observation based on my own experiences.
Over the last 24 hours, we have learned that the government will be sending ‘undercover’ police into clubs, bars and ‘popular nightspots’ to ‘relay intelligence about predatory or suspicious offenders to uniformed officers’.
Whilst this is a good idea in principle, the issue that many frontline police officers have with this plan relates to the number of uniformed officers who will actually be able to respond to the information that these undercover officers gather.
For example, in responding to this part of the government’s plans, one officer has pointed out that this coming Saturday, their team is parading just two officers in an area that has 300,000+ people in it.
One crime scene or hospital guard will mean that this number of 2 will quickly go down to 0.
Another officer responded to the news by saying: ‘Where are the ‘plain clothes police officers’ who will ‘patrol bars and nightclubs around the country’ coming from? We can’t put three cars out in my county town of 75,000! (everyone is 8-4 in offices doing ‘vulnerability’ or 24/7 sitting with 136’s [individuals who have been detained under the Mental Health Act])’.
We also need to think about the undercover officers’ safety who will be put in bars or nightclubs.
For example, imagine one such undercover officer spots a male in a packed nightclub armed with a knife. When a row erupts in a club or pub, knives are often pulled out as a ‘show of force’ by the individual(s) who are armed with them.
What are the undercover officers supposed to do when they spot someone waving a knife around?
Nobody in their right mind would pull out their warrant card in a packed nightclub, with little or no PPE, and approach a group of males who are with the knifeman and ask them all to ‘step outside’.
To put undercover officers in nightclubs, you need a whole team of officers who will be on standby specifically to help the undercover officer if he/she gets into trouble.
Such ‘standby’ officers would not be able to divert to other calls because the undercover officer(s) would be left in a very vulnerable situation, should they spot a serious crime happening or about to happen.
The undercover-officers-in-clubs idea might work in areas where there are loads of uniformed officers who are out on patrol at any one time.
But the sad truth is, that most uniformed response team officers do not end up being out on patrol for an extended period, because within a few hours of their shift starting, they are either sat on a hospital guard, crime scene or are spending eight hours dealing with the paperwork for an arrest they made on their previous shift.
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The ministers in the cabinet now serving were with Teresa May in cutting police numbers at a time when numbers should have been increased. They must have a policeman tree in Westminster to supply all these extra officers. Talk about mayhem they don’t have a clue. Mrs May’s ok she has ample armed officer I’m sure. When was the last time you saw an officer walking? There is no fear of being caught now!!