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Sarah Everard Murder - Consequences

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DynamicSpirit

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(Surprised there isn't already a thread about this - so this thread is to discuss all issues resulting from the murder).

I don't think it needs anyone to repeat how utterly awful the actions of Wayne Couzens were. Although by itself it was an unusual crime to the extent of how serious it was, it seems that large numbers of women are pointing out that it's an extreme example of what are very frequent incidents of harassment and lower level violence. And there are the questions about how someone with Wayne Couzen's record got to hold such a responsible position in the police, and how we can ensure this doesn't happen again. What changes need to be made, both to the police, and to our culture so that women can go about their lives safely?
 
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Bayum

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Well, Boris has made a song and dance about how despicable it is that the police haven’t done more to make women feel safer and more valued as an industry; why’s he complaining? He’s had years to make it a priority and done sweet fa.
 

Gostav

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"lives safely" is a question in itself, no place is absolutely safe.
 

johncrossley

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Should there be more of an outcry regarding murders of young black males in London? That demographic is by far the most at risk, yet there is virtually no press attention.
 

DarloRich

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I think policing by consent is now at risk in the UK.

Should there be more of an outcry regarding murders of young black males in London? That demographic is by far the most at risk, yet there is virtually no press attention.
Most of them aren't "arrested" by a service police officer ( using his "badge" to do so), raped, murdered, set on fire and dumped in a fridge.
 

johncrossley

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Most of them aren't "arrested" by a service police officer ( using his "badge" to do so), raped, murdered, set on fire and dumped in a fridge.

Hardly anyone suffers that fate. On the other hand, black youths are murdered on a regular basis.
 

Bertie the bus

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Rape and murder are not extreme examples of harassment. Harassment might be unpleasant but to even have them in the same sentence is ludicrous. There is literally nothing anybody can do to prevent stranger rape except women themselves. This was a unique case in that a serving policeman “arrested” his victim but if a man wants to hide in a secluded spot waiting for a lone woman to pass and attack her then that is what he will do and nobody can do anything about it short of electronic surveillance of every man or to confine us all to our homes.
 

brad465

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I think policing by consent is now at risk in the UK.
With shortages, living cost concerns this winter and now distrust in the police on top of that, one further misjudgement by the police and/or another authority and this winter we'll be keeping warm from burning cars and buildings, not central heating.

Cressida Dick must have some brilliant persuasive ability to stay put and/or her general incompetence must be an advantage to the Government for her not have resigned, both now and a long time ago. When I think about and get internally enraged her incompetence, I get personal best performances on relevant cycle rides ;)
 

the sniper

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I think policing by consent is now at risk in the UK.

Yet something like Germanwings Flight 9525 didn't seem to put people off flying.

Most of them aren't "arrested" by a service police officer ( using his "badge" to do so), raped, murdered, set on fire and dumped in a fridge.

I'm rather bemused by how concerned people seemingly now are about being raped and killed by a serving police officer, people saying they wouldn't go to the Police now... Given the staggering improbability of the same thing happening again or even anything similar, but the comparatively high likelihood of being a victim of some non-Police associated crime, I can only wish them the best of luck.

If nothing else, if people seemingly weren't already, it can't hurt for everyone to have their wits about them in the unlikely event they're stopped by a lone, ununiformed person, appearing from a random car, carrying only relatively easily obtainable things like handcuffs and something that looks like a warrant card (how many people actually know what a legit warrant card looks like? They not that special, regardless). Nothing to do with the Police, it's far easier to imagine it'll be somebody impersonating a Police officer, trying to rob or car jack you. Whether you're male or female, everyone should practice a reasonable degree of wariness. It's good that that some procedures have been set out to help people in these circumstances, in the highly unusual event they might legitimately occur. Given that two thirds of homicide victims are male and about 1.3% of women were victims of violent crime in the year ending March 2020, compared with 2% of men, maybe the blokes need to be more worried...

At the end of the day though, tragically, in cases such as this, if someone is out to murder, there may well be nothing you can reasonably do about it.
 
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AlterEgo

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Hardly anyone suffers that fate. On the other hand, black youths are murdered on a regular basis.
The majority (but not all!) of black youth murders occur in a gang setting of some sort. Most of the victims are in some way part of that sub-world and most have ended up being pseudo-combatants in turf wars or the like.

There are very few racist murders where a random black youth has been jumped on the basis that they are, well, black. Black people generally don’t walk around London continuously worried that they’ll become another Stephen Lawrence. It’s not dangerous simply to be black in London; it is dangerous to be in a gang though.

Women on the other hand have had the messy end of the stick since forever. There’s no end of examples of women being randomly assaulted, raped and killed *because they are women*. Misogyny is the open sewer of prejudice which runs widest in this country and which is the most socially acceptable.

There is a good reason that I, and most other men, would ask female friends to message once they’re safely on the bus/train/at home but we wouldn’t ask the same of our black, gay, or Asian male friends.

All of this said, I think @the sniper is right in that the specific paranoia about lone plain clothes police officers is likely to be pretty fleeting. Couzens’ crime was one of unique severity given he abused his position as a policeman, and it’s why everyone is so absolutely revulsed at his crime.

Rape and murder are not extreme examples of harassment. Harassment might be unpleasant but to even have them in the same sentence is ludicrous. There is literally nothing anybody can do to prevent stranger rape except women themselves. This was a unique case in that a serving policeman “arrested” his victim but if a man wants to hide in a secluded spot waiting for a lone woman to pass and attack her then that is what he will do and nobody can do anything about it short of electronic surveillance of every man or to confine us all to our homes.
It might be worth thinking about why the rates of murders of women vary quite a lot worldwide.

Invariably threads like these end up with posters suggesting the endgame is “surveillance of men!!” But the reality is, many nutcases hide in plain sight. Couzens was a known bad egg for over five years prior to his crimes, who committed gateway offences like flashing, was part of a prejudiced WhatsApp group with other coppers, and who had a reputation for making women very uncomfortable. Do you not think that the culture in which Couzens existed might have encouraged or at least failed to put the brakes on his crimes?

Peter Hitchens in his Mail on Sunday column, as ever, has some wise words on this matter.

Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog (mailonsunday.co.uk)
Hitchens has a 50/50 hit/miss rate but he is mostly right here.
 

Senex

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Cressida Dick must have some brilliant persuasive ability to stay put and/or her general incompetence must be an advantage to the Government for her not have resigned, both now and a long time ago. When I think about and get internally enraged her incompetence, I get personal best performances on relevant cycle rides ;)
She seems to be just another example—if a rather high-profile one—of the modern doctrine that no-one takes ultimate responsibility for serious failings and bad decisions by resigning. They couldn't have known, they're needed to be in charge to put things right, .... the excuses offered for remaining are endless, but it seems much more likely that most of today's "leaders" are far more interested in hanging on to their high salaries, huge pension rights, etc than in taking any responsibility for what has gone wrong in the ranks below them.
Do these people have an argument in their favour, in that they might be the best ones to put things right? Or, if "The buck stops here", does they have to be the ones to go, even when they did not know / could not have known (either by commission or omission) what was going on?
 

LSWR Cavalier

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I think the police should be required to have 51% female officers.

This crime has not destroyed my confidence and trust in the police. I had already realised they are not to be trusted.
 

GB

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I think the police should be required to have 51% female officers.

This crime has not destroyed my confidence and trust in the police. I had already realised they are not to be trusted.

…and what is to stop 1 or 2 of the other 49% being rotten to the core?
 

Reliablebeam

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The horrors of this case just get worse and worse. It seems every day this week some new unsavoury revelation comes out. And for me, the realisation that he was prowling for a victim in areas of London that friends and collaborators of similar age to Sarah walk through, late, every day. Particularly as at that time lots of people, rightly or wrongly, did not want to use public transport.

I am getting angry that both the government and the opposition are putting out 'nothing to see here, move on' messaging. I can only assume this is part of not wanting to go up against the police and push through reform when they are both pushing a 'law n order' agenda, combined with Cressida Dick being, unusually for a copper, very much part of the establishement - Oxford, public school etc.

The cretin couzens was hidden in plain sight and seemingly tolerated and protected by fellow officers. He felt able to brazenly abuse his police powers - he has probably pulled dress rehearsals in the past. It's also a good example of how lower level misconducts can build up as people realise what they can get away with.

In my field of work, not exactly known for being a great place for women to work, this guy would have been out on his ear a long time ago. Clearly this is an isolated 'case' but the context of this incident is a police force with a very blotted copy book.

The revelations around his abuse of covid laws to 'arrest' Sarah make the beatings of those girls at the vigil (and by that stage senior officers seemingly had a good idea what had happened) all the more gut wrenching.
 
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tbtc

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I don't know the Police that well so can't comment on the culture - I know from other jobs where people work with the Great British Public on the front line there's a tendency to assume the worst of people, I'm sure a lot of people who've been in the police for a decade or more would be unrecognisable to their younger selves, because of the way that the job changes them (or that they've let the job change them)

I know that WhatsApp groups can encourage/fuel the kind of laddish bravado that people say thinks that they wouldn't think/say alone but get swept up in a tide of rising comments - just like a lot of people involved in football hooliganism did regular 9-5 jobs but on a Saturday got swept up in a tide of competition for who could be the most alpha-male. A lot of male culture is pretty toxic, guys want to out-do the others, they don't want to appear "weak" so they act like the "alpha" - things escalate.

I don't think I know any rapists, but I know guys who'll joke about the subject and for whom it's all a big laugh (e.g. living in Sheffield when former United striker Ched Evans was in court on a rape charge - first convicted, later acquitted - the subject was "banter" in the eyes of a lot of guys I knew - whilst I don't think that they'd cross the line into doing anything, I'm very uncomfortable with it even being something for humour) - I guess that there are a lot of sexual abusers out there, in plain sight, one lad in the group - toxic.

But I do know that, after the news of her abduction, a lot of female friends posted online about the precautions that they'd been taking for years - things that I'd never realised/noticed them do - people who appeared perfectly confident and assertive were too scared to walk round the block for a pint of milk after dusk, or the habit of messaging your other female friends to say that you'd got home safely from a night out - the kind of thing that I was oblivious to (as a 6ft+ bloke who'd never encountered any bother). It was very sobering, and made me question the times when I'd been innocently heading to the shops for a pint of milk late at night and my footsteps could have seemed threatening to someone who didn't know me/ my intentions. I've been lucky to have a relatively carefree life in that respect, but I think that a lot of men are oblivious to the way that women in our lives are constantly walking on egg shells, always vigilant, always afraid - that must be a horrible way to live your life and it's shaming that we don't seem to be doing much to help them.

And, when I say that we don't seem to be doing much, notice the way that the initial suggestions are along the lines of "Women - don't walk alone in the dark" or "Women - don't wear headphones or have long hair or hoods" - there's no restrictions/sacrifices expected of men

In the way that we might mock Americans for the way that the handle mass shootings in schools with "thoughts and prayers", rather than tackling the toxic culture that causes people to bring guns into classrooms, our own response as men looks pretty feeble - we just expect people like Couzens to happen, we don't seem to be offering any ways to lessen the threat of more guys like him, we just expect women to make further sacrifices/ precautions/ restrictions to deal with what men are like

Look at the mass killing in Plymouth a few weeks ago - after the lurid headlines, we went back to normal, nothing changed, nothing to stop another guy like this (whereas, after Dunblane, we brought in new laws on guns, we tried to stop it ever happening again)

We might question whether a suicide bomber was "radicalised", we might look at the root causes of this but nobody seems to be questioning how guys like Couzens become like they are - is this a problem related to substance abuse/ the availability of violent pornography/ the fetishisation of some things? We can say that he was just "one bad apple" but nobody seems interested in stopping other apples from going bad like this in the future (instead we just expect women to accept that some apples are bad and deal with the consequences, spending their whole lives tiptoeing around because we've shrugged our shoulders and accepted that there will always be violent extremist men who want to do violent extremist things.

We are a forum of people who like public transport, but I can see why a lot of women are scared to use public transport alone (even some I know who'd not use it in daylight hours, if they are by themselves) - whilst I'd have once sneered at the idea of "ladies nights" in pubs/clubs, I can see why those kind of things are needed - there's a lot of "low level" stuff under the surface, things that most men don't even realise, stuff that women would't "raise", partly because men will laugh it off as nothing serious - it adds up though. I'm grateful that social media allows insights into how things feel from other perspectives - I just wish we didn't live in a world where we seem to dump all of the problems of toxic masculinity onto women whilst men don't have to give anything up

Obviously there will be some people who shrug their shoulders and say that there's nothing you do do to stop attacks/ murders like this, there's always been bad apples, there's no way that you can have a society that's 100% safe - but we seem to live in a country where the toxic masculinity that allowed someone like Couzens to behave like he did (the prostitutes, the flashing, the "banter", the obvious warning signs) will continue because nobody seems to be trying to stop the next guy like this

After every rail accident we expect a full set of RAIB findings, we expect to see action taken to stop things going wrong again, we demand change - but when it comes to women being killed by men we shrug our shoulders and just "accept" that there have always been bad apples and will always continue to be bad apples, and don't do anything to stop it happening in future

There is literally nothing anybody can do to prevent stranger rape except women themselves

Maybe it's not meant to, but this sounds like victim blaming
 

brad465

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There does seem to have been plenty of information the Met have been releasing about what victims/the public should do in the event of similar situations to what Sarah Everard experienced happening, but very little about what the Met themselves will do. Also a lot of what the Met have said has been nothing short of stupid, such as trying to wave down a bus, which one cannot do if they're handcuffed, and of course no bus might be around to wave down in the short space of time an "arrest" needs.
 

adrock1976

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An article in the Evening Standard mentions that at least two dozen Met officers have committed sex crimes, and that that beast Couzens was also into hardcore porno too.

The article can be seen in its original form at https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/26-met-wayne-couzens-sex-crimes-b958524.html


My view is that Cressida Dick should resign and to be stripped of her gong too. There is precedent in recent times, as the former big chief of the Royal Bank of Scotland Fred Goodwin got stripped of his knighthood when the 2008 economic crisis happened with RBS having to be bailed out.

Twenty-six Met colleagues of Wayne Couzens have committed sex crimes in the past 5 years.​

By
Tammy Hughes
1 hour ago
At least 26 Met Police officers have committed sex crimes in the past five years, it has been revealed.
Two officers were jailed for their offences in April this year, according to figures obtained via the Freedom of Information Act.
The shocking data comes after serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens was handed a whole life order last week for the kidnap, murder and rape of marketing executive Sarah Everard.

According to the figures published in the Sunday Mirror, 26 officers from Scotland Yard have been convicted of sex crimes including rape, possessing indecent images of children, and voyeurism since 2016.

Five allegedly carried out sex offences while on duty since 2010, with one officer recruited last year despite having a conviction for indecent exposure.
Detective Constable Mark Collins, 58, was jailed for 26 months in April for sending “highly sexualised” messages to what he thought was a girl aged 13 - but who was in fact an undercover officer.

In the same month, Detective Constable Paul Allgood, 60, was jailed for 22 months for three counts of possessing indecent images of children and three of outraging public decency.
A further150 serving officers have convictions for other offences including assault.
Ex-detective and Rochdale child abuse whistleblower Maggie Oliver told the paper: “The police service is no longer fit for purpose. I don’t think it’s ever appropriate for a force to employ an officer with a criminal record. It’s just something that should not happen.”
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has asked the Met for an urgent meeting after it emerged that Couzens worked on the Parliamentary Estate in 2020.
The Met Police had previously said Couzens moved to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command in February 2020 where his primary role was to patrol diplomatic premises, mainly embassies.
On Saturday, a Met spokesman said: “Couzens was deployed to armed static protection duties on the Parliamentary Estate on five occasions from February to July 2020.”
The Parliamentary Estate includes the Palace of Westminster – the location of the House of Commons and House of Lords.

Sir Lindsay said: “Like everyone, I have been sickened by the depravity of Wayne Couzens – and heartbroken for the family of Sarah Everard.
“The news that Couzens was deployed as an armed officer on the Parliamentary Estate is extremely concerning and raises a number of questions about police vetting procedures.
“To that end, I have asked the Met Police to meet me urgently to discuss how this person could have been deemed suitable for deployment here.
“Further, I will be seeking reassurance that at no time was anyone on the Parliamentary Estate put at risk.
“The security of members and staff has always been my number one priority, so I want to know how this man could ever have crossed the parliamentary threshold.”
Couzens was said in court to have been “attracted to brutal sexual pornography” as far back as 2002.
The police watchdog previously said he was linked to a flashing incident in 2015 and two more incidents just days before he killed Ms Everard.
Parm Sandhu, an ex-chief superintendent at the Met, said urgent action is needed to restore public confidence in the police.
She told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday: “Everybody who works in policing now should be re-vetted. Those people who got through the vetting procedure 20 years ago, 30 years ago, all of them.
“Every single person needs to be reviewed and if anything comes up in their past – it doesn’t have to be a conviction, it just needs to be come to notice, because this man did come to notice.
“So, every person should be re-vetted and reassessed as to whether or not they are safe to be working with members of the community and members of the public.
“It needs to be done now as an urgent measure to reassure the public and rebuild the trust and confidence that policing has lost, but it needs to be done on a regular basis so that we don’t have anybody that even comes close to the actions of Wayne Couzens.”
 

alex397

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Rape and murder are not extreme examples of harassment. Harassment might be unpleasant but to even have them in the same sentence is ludicrous. There is literally nothing anybody can do to prevent stranger rape except women themselves. This was a unique case in that a serving policeman “arrested” his victim but if a man wants to hide in a secluded spot waiting for a lone woman to pass and attack her then that is what he will do and nobody can do anything about it short of electronic surveillance of every man or to confine us all to our homes.
This sounds a lot like victim blaming here. Women shouldn’t feel the need to change their behaviour to reduce the chances of them being harassed or raped.

Sure, horrific events like this will probably continue to happen as long as humans live. But we can improve education, especially in an era of social media and easy access to violent pornography. We can try and change cultures too - it has been done before with many other issues in society.

Couzens could have been stopped long ago. He had a bad reputation, and had allegedly committed crimes before. With the flashing incident he was involved in weeks previously, he should have been suspended pending further investigation.
He apparently had the nickname ‘The Rapist’ amongst colleagues. If I had a nickname like that in my job, I’d likely be investigated and sacked.

I can’t begin to imagine what the family and friends of Everard are going through and how Couzens actions will forever torment them. I couldn’t read all of her Mum’s victim statement, it was too difficult for me to take in.
It’s also going to be incredibly tough for Couzen’s young children - I can’t imagine they will have a normal life now.
 

Gostav

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Even as a man, l also got troble with my friend in David Lane Tram Stop, Nottingham. When we taken tram photos two rough men approached us said something threatening and harassing. We reported the case to the police but there was no more response.
 

the sniper

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This crime has not destroyed my confidence and trust in the police. I had already realised they are not to be trusted.

Who caught the murderer?

The cretin couzens was hidden in plain sight and seemingly tolerated and protected by fellow officers. He felt able to brazenly abuse his police powers - he has probably pulled dress rehearsals in the past. It's also a good example of how lower level misconducts can build up as people realise what they can get away with.

In my field of work, not exactly known for being a great place for women to work, this guy would have been out on his ear a long time ago. Clearly this is an isolated 'case' but the context of this incident is a police force with a very blotted copy book.

Which would have avoided what happened? If anything I wonder, following the incident that happened three days before, whether he knew he'd pushed his luck too far and this was his final act. Even if he'd been sacked, he could have easily replicated his final crime.

We're talking about someone who took his wife and kids for a walk around the forest where he'd raped and murdered his victim and destroyed her body. I'm not sure he was minded to see the error of his ways and reform... He did this with everything to lose. I can only consider someone with nothing left to lose far more dangerous. That's not to say he shouldn't have been sacked/imprisoned before, but I'm not sure how his final act could have been prevented.

If there's anything that should be particularly focused on with the Police, it's the mental health problems. And I don't mean that in the modern, people are a bit fed up, sense. Though with the working conditions, workload, regular exposure to the most awful situations/people and constant vilification of their work, you probably have to be mad to join the Police in the first place now. We will all suffer the consequences of that.

I know that WhatsApp groups can encourage/fuel the kind of laddish bravado that people say thinks that they wouldn't think/say alone but get swept up in a tide of rising comments - just like a lot of people involved in football hooliganism did regular 9-5 jobs but on a Saturday got swept up in a tide of competition for who could be the most alpha-male. A lot of male culture is pretty toxic, guys want to out-do the others, they don't want to appear "weak" so they act like the "alpha" - things escalate.

Too true. WhatsApp is a dangerous cesspit for that kind of stuff, if anything I'd say its toxic use is no more prevalent than in any other fields of employment. If anything, people in the Police are probably more aware of the risks involved in its use.
 
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LSWR Cavalier

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Perhaps the female share should be more than 51%. Maybe particularly large tall people could be recruited, apparently many of them have a placid temperament because they are used to people being wary of them.

Another possibility is to encourage people to learn martial arts for self-defence.
--
I was half-heartedly attacked by a drunk recently, afterwards I wondered if I should have fought back, but what if I had injured him? I called the Boys in Blue. They said they would seek him out and have words with him, nothing more. I received an envelope with a very detailed survey to gauge my opinion of my contact with the police!
 

the sniper

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Perhaps the female share should be more than 51%. Maybe particularly large tall people could be recruited, apparently many of them have a placid temperament because they are used to people being wary of them.

Another possibility is to encourage people to learn martial arts for self-defence.

Ah, I overlooked these solutions. Silly me. See it, say it, sorted.

Wasn't Couzens quite large and tall? Seemed quite placid when he was arrested. Ideal candidate!

:rolleyes:
 

SteveM70

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Lindsay Hoyle’s reported comments are a little baffling/concerning. From what I’ve read, he wants a report into how Couzens was allowed to be put on duty occasionally within the Palace of Westminster, which whilst he probably sees it as him discharging his duty of care, to many may seem like he sees this as more of a concern than him being in the police in the first place. And politicians wonder why the public don’t hold them in high regard!
 

alex397

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Which would have avoided what happened? If anything I wonder, following the incident that happened three days before, whether he knew he'd pushed his luck too far and this was his final act. Even if he'd been sacked, he could have easily replicated his final crime.
We will never know if he would go on to commit these crimes if he was sacked/suspended earlier or not.

However, if he was suspended it may have given him a warning to maybe stop. He might not have had the confidence to go ahead with his crime. If he felt under suspicion, he may have felt it would be more likely he would be caught, and so would not have done it.

Are you suggesting the Met police haven’t failed here, and he should have still been fully employed with them despite allegations against him?
 

Welly

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I remember meeting a then serving Metropolitan police detective at an OU Summer school in the mid 1990s; he talked so casually of the harrasment the female officers received that I found it disturbing.
 

the sniper

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However, if he was suspended it may have given him a warning to maybe stop. He might not have had the confidence to go ahead with his crime. If he felt under suspicion, he may have felt it would be more likely he would be caught, and so would not have done it.

Who knows. If he was that rational he'd have realised it was highly likely he'd be caught regardless.

Are you suggesting the Met police haven’t failed here

I'm entirely open to that being the case. Time will tell who knew and did what. I don't think anyone would have predicted what happened in the end though.

and he should have still been fully employed with them despite allegations against him?

If he committed such an offence, then no he shouldn't be employed. And any allegations should have been properly investigated.
 
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AlterEgo

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There does seem to have been plenty of information the Met have been releasing about what victims/the public should do in the event of similar situations to what Sarah Everard experienced happening, but very little about what the Met themselves will do. Also a lot of what the Met have said has been nothing short of stupid, such as trying to wave down a bus, which one cannot do if they're handcuffed, and of course no bus might be around to wave down in the short space of time an "arrest" needs.
As if a bus would stop for a person being arrested, too! Nonsense.
 

DarloRich

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This crime has not destroyed my confidence and trust in the police. I had already realised they are not to be trusted.

Lots of people, especially middle class people, haven't ever seen the police close up - they think what they see on The Bill and Inspector Morse is reality.

I'm rather bemused by how concerned people seemingly now are about being raped and killed by a serving police officer, people saying they wouldn't go to the Police now... Given the staggering improbability of the same thing happening again or even anything similar, but the comparatively high likelihood of being a victim of some non-Police associated crime, I can only wish them the best of luck
That isn't really the issue as I am sure you must know.

We are supposed to be able to trust the police. They aren't supposed to abuse that trust or power. They aren't supposed to use that position to rape and murder someone. They did here. It is a big problem and has the potential to be utterly corrosive to relations with the police. This wasn't some copper fiddling his expenses or dipping into lost property or "taxing" druggies. This was a hideous murder committed by a serving policeman who used his police ID to instigate the crime and ensure the victim didn't fight or struggle.

Coupled with the often reported poor attitude towards crimes of sexual nature it is hardly surprising some people, especially women, are loosing faith in the police.
 
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the sniper

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That isn't really the issue as I am sure you must know.

We are supposed to be able to trust the police. They aren't supposed to abuse that trust or power. They aren't supposed to use that position to rape and murder someone. They did here. It is a big problem and has the potential to be utterly corrosive to relations with the police. This wasn't some copper fiddling his expenses or dipping into lost property or "taxing" druggies. This was a hideous murder committed by a serving policeman who used his police ID to instigate the crime and ensure the victim didn't fight or struggle.

Aren't you just stating the obvious? Nobody is excusing what he did, it was awful. But what's your point? We can't trust Pilots after Germanwings Flight 9525? We can't trust Doctors after Harold Shipman? We can't trust lorry drivers after Peter Sutcliffe?

"They did here", he did here.

Every time someone mealy mentions some misdemeanour by a football fan you're quick to point out that the vast majority can't be tarred with the same brush. Yet here we are, talking about an incomprehensibly extreme and unusual criminal act by an individual, while talking about it in terms of what 'they' and 'the police' did. I'd have thought you more capable of a rational approach.
 
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