Last updated on June 6th, 2023 at 07:23 pm
Reading Time: 3 minutesA sad day for James Patrick, his family and friends. A sad day for democracy and fairness. A SAD DAY FOR THE TRUTH.
James, you a good, brave man and I publicly salute you. The Met is losing a true champion.
So James wrote some blogs. So what? He amalgamated those blogs into a book that he published at his own expense. So what? He went on to sell a few copies of the book and gave the proceeds to a Police Charity. So what? He told the world about Crime Stats being fudged. So what?
A document disclosed as a result of an FOI request reveals that the Met didn’t even have a policy to deal with serving officers who wrote blogs and books. So how the hell can they deem that to be Gross Misconduct? An interesting concept what?
In my opinion (and that of many others) James didn’t write anything in his blogs that wasn’t the truth. I didn’t always agree with the way he worded some things, but that doesn’t matter. He’s perfectly entitled to word things how he wants. Did he fib? No, I don’t believe he did.
He told the world about Crime Stats. Did he fib? Again, no I don’t believe he did. I can only speak for the Met but it’s been going on for decades. Way back in the 90s the Met conducted monthly (I think it was once per month) Ethical Audits of CRIS, the computerised Crime-Recording system. Why would they do that if they believed that all was hunky dory? Even Bernard Hogan-Who agreed that there was a truth that needed to be heard.
The Met is in turmoil. It needs people like James to help them get out of this self-induced mire that are sinking into. James may ‘only’ be a Constable (no disrespect intended James) but ethics and an analytical brain like his are what the Job needs not some Direct Entry Superintendent from Aldi or Lidl telling everyone how they should be Policing.
We are currently just past the middle of March. How many times have the Met shot themselves in the foot this year already?
We have heard about a mass shredding of information in 2003 that has only just surfaced.
We have heard about the 6 TSG officers and how they were treated by the Met DPS
We are hearing about the Lawrence murder investigation, the Daniel Morgan murder investigation and how corrupt cops might have influenced those enquiries.
Undercover cops, a necessary part of policing, but did they act unethically? Whether they did or didn’t the Met is reeling from it.
All of these horror stories and what do the Met do? They persecute the one person displaying ethical qualities, that’s what they do. An easy target, this corruption business is way too difficult, put it back into the Too Difficult Box.
The saga of James Patrick is told admirably in his latest blog (how apt).
I tried to find out how much this sorry saga had cost the public but the Met tried to tell me that they didn’t know because they don’t record that information. I don’t believe them, they know I don’t believe them and I have passed my concerns on to the Information Commissioner to investigate, and meanwhile submitted two more requests about this sorry tale.
So, to sum up, it’s Monday morning, the Met has apparently bullied its greatest champion for years into submission. The Disciplinary Investigation continues because James is too honourable to resign before it concludes. Some time ago, someone pointed the finger at James, and his like, implying that they may be Organisational Terrorists, a brutal term in any occupation, and not one that should EVER be laid at the feet of a Whistleblower. Who are the Organisational Terrorists now?
James, you are indeed an honourable man, you certainly don’t deserve to have been treated the way you have, and if there is anything at all that I can do to help you in the final weeks and months of your career I certainly will, you know how to get hold of me.
There is also a swell of support for you and your plight within a certain Facebook group, whose name we may not mention.
Good luck, good health, I salute you. A sad day for the Met and policing in general. The lunatics are most definitely running the asylum now.
http://spamfordpolice.blogspot.fr/2014/03/justice-for-all.html
Don’t give up it’s only people like you that offer any hope at all.
Thank you, very kind of you
Very well said.
It’s an utter disgrace.
And utterly disgusting that the Home Office, in ultimate control of the MPS and supposedly representing public rather than only institutional interests, hasn’t stepped in long ago to stem the hemorrhaging of scarce police resources on this puerile suppression & silencing of an archetypal honest PC, one even recognised as such by the real Serpico himself.
If such an abuse of justice is still so clearly discernable despite his geographical distance from London and the Met, the complete absence of supervision or intervention by the Home Office is surely absolute proof that they’re far too closely enmeshed amongst the old wood to see any trees, so easily visible to others beyond Westminster.
I haven’t given up. The fact that James has taken the route he has has just made me even more determined that the Met should be held accountable for the disastrous sequence of events