In my blog on the 23rd July I wrote about the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protest. I concluded that all is not well with our police force. I came to the same conclusion with the news this week of CCTV footage of Mark Aspinall's arrest in Wigan. The initial claim was that he assaulted the police officers but due to CCTV a special constable was found guilty of assault.
My concern was raised by the comment that the other officers, who were holding Mr Aspinall down while he was being thumped, were cleared of all charges. What were these charges? If they were about punching a member of the public then they should be totally exonerated - at least as far as this CCTV footage goes. If the charge was about doing the right thing then I would question the result. Maybe our police officers have been taught not to question another officer beating up a member of the public and they were simply following instructions.
I am not particularly interested in the court case of one special constable. I am concerned about police tactics and it would be nice to see this making the headlines. One metaphor could be a rugby match and a fight breaks out. A player is sent off but really it was caused by a message from a coach. The headlines are all about this player but sometimes they are made by the coaches who organise the violence.
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The scenes on TV disturbed me. Were they all special constables? Or were the other two full time police? If they were full time, why did they allow it to happen, and why have they been exonerated?
ReplyDeleteAlthough there was only one actually assaulting the member of the public, the other two were clearly restraining him.
Were they frightened of the PCSO? He was quite a size. I'm afraid for me the conclusion has thrown up many more questions.
Thanks Sea. I don't think the victim was completely innocent but that is another matter and nothing compared to the other questions.
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