Do they teach the 'Plod' how to lie at police academies?

I ask the question because these days one could be forgiven for thinking that lying is part of a copper's basic training.  In fact, it's worse than that because it looks as though the highest ranks in the police service are all 'born-again' lying liars.  We have all enjoyed the recent (but ongoing) contretemps between Andrew Mitchell MP and sundry 'Plods' who, after a joint meeting, came out to issue their version of events which bore a startling resemblance to Hans Anderson's fairy tales particularly when it was revealed that the meeting had been recorded.  There should have been red faces all round but they train them well at police school!

At the other end of the hierarchy, Guido reports that no less than the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, also appears to have a taste for 'porky pies' which, for the benefit of my foreign readers, is cockney rhyming-slang for 'lies'!  According to Guido, this worthy:

[T]old the Home Affairs select committee recently that the Met’s crime figures
had been classified “competent and reliable” by Her Majesty’s Inspector
of Constabulary.

However, yesterday,  Her Maj's Inspecter of Constabulary came up in front of the beak the committee and flatly contradicted him!

He’d said he’d looked at the Met’s figures and they showed “cause for
concern”. So perturbed was he that he has written to the Commissioner
asking him to explain.

Right, 'Ogan-'Owe, you're nicked, ya little scrote!  And what's that expression about a fish rotting from the head down?

 

Comments

[Antisthenes]

Plods are indeed liars and in my experience as crooked as any thief. We have been there before and checks and balances were introduced because of the widespread abuse of power by plods which they now seem to have found ways to circumvent. It now appears that the nations official crime figures are a sham and the unofficial anecdotal ones that point to crime being as high or higher than ever much more accurate. Then societies standards and values appear to have slipped so low now that everyone tells lies, are opportunist thieves, corrupt and inept(except you and me of course). How else can you account for the behaviour and failings of so many of the UK's institutions from the politicians down through banks, the media and public and civil servants. Deceit, obfuscation and self serving are the attributes needed these days to ensure a promising career.

[Andra]

Every single policeman I have ever known has turned out to be corrupt in one way or another.
It's very, very sad.
My son was considering a career in the police force and was accepted by them. However, he became a chef instead.
I can't tell you how happy I am about that decision.

[David Duff]

In the charmed life that I have been lucky enough to live one of my greatest strokes of fortune was that I decided against joining the Met in 1968 when I left the army. Corruption was rife then but only came to light much later on, although, to be fair, those were the days when most coppers were working-class oiks who took bribes from the sort of blokes they had gone to school with and who had turned to villainy. Occasionally, so I gather, to keep their stats up, they would nick one and them and then stitch him up with several more crimes he hadn't actually committed simply on the grounds that 'it was his turn'! The second-hand car trade had less of a smell about it so I joined that instead!

[Hank]

David

Suppose a bunch of idealistic young persons go to the police academy,, a few without much ideals except for looking for a main chance. You get one guess who the political chiefs are going to select for top police leadership.

I have known number of policemen who tell the same story. They grew up in a ghetto and the only role models were policemen and drug dealers. Some followed one example, some the other, and some both at the same time. Even the one honest ones had strings back to the old neighborhood that could pull them the wrong way.

[David Duff]

Exactly so, Hank, and so long as the 'cops 'n' robbers' confined their activities to each other the rest of us got on with our lives and hoped to avoid contact with either of them. The problem arose when our 'lawmakers' insisted on inflicting a whole raft of new laws that allowed the police to bump their figures - and their powers - by chasing after the middle classes.