Met Police (Operation Grange) - Bollocks or not bollocks?

Guardian tonight:

 
Majority of Met police officers lack confidence in force's leadership
 
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Sunday 7 June 2015 17.46 BST Last modified on Sunday 7 June 2015 21.22 BST
 
Internal survey from 2014 shows 30% are confident public receive good service and 48% disagree
 
Most police officers and staff in Britain’s biggest force do not have confidence in the leadership of Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and his senior team, according to the force’s internal survey.
The poll of the Metropolitan police’s 47,000 officers and civilian staff also shows a majority doubt that the force provides a good service to the public but want it to do so.
Just one in five officers and staff agreed they had “confidence in the leadership provided by the senior leaders in the Met”, while three in five disagreed.
When asked to consider the statement “If I contacted the Met as a member of the public, I would be confident of receiving a good service”, 30% of respondents said they agreed and 48% disagreed.
The survey results pose challenges for Hogan-Howe, commissioner of the Met, and also for the home secretary, Theresa May, who has said police face further budget cuts. It also raises questions about the effectiveness of Boris Johnson’s Conservative administration in London, as the mayor has responsibility for policing in the capital.
Hogan-Howe has being trying to reform the Met, some would say radically, against a backdrop of cuts to police funding and reforms to the pay and conditions of officers.
The Guardian has learned the results of the survey dated April 2014, which provides further evidence about the effect of cuts on the public sector and on policing. The Met is one of the largest employers in London and the south-east and, unlike the NHS, is not protected from austerity measures.
The survey shows a workforce saying they want to provide the public with a top-class service but deeply fed up. Officers and civilian employees rate their own immediate team fairly well, but show little confidence in their senior leadership.
 
In positive survey findings, eight out of 10 say they and their team “take pride in delivering a quality service”, and 54% support the need for change in the Met.
Seven out of 10 say they are “treated with fairness and respect” within their team, and six out of 10 are clear about their team’s priorities. Half are satisfied with their current job, but a third are not.
Four out of 10 of the force feel motivated at work, while the same proportion do not. But nearly half disagree that there is a positive atmosphere among their colleagues, and just 20% believe the Met treats “all its people fairly”, and 63% believe it does not.
Officers feel gloomy about their prospects, with just 18% believing career development is fair, and 24% believe there are chances to develop their career within Britain’s biggest force.
The survey captures views from all levels of the Met, according to the report’s authors, with a response rate of 28%.
In an explanatory note introducing the survey, it says: “Against the backdrop of change, MPS staff remain committed to the values of ‘integrity, professionalism, courage and compassion’.”
It notes that most results are roughly the same as in a previous survey of the Met’s officers, two years earlier. Then, 21% said they had confidence in their senior leadership. That survey came months after Sir Paul Stephenson resigned as commissioner amid the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal.
John Tully, chair of the Met branch of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said: “The force is at crisis point. There is a lack of confidence in the very senior management … and that is very serious. Morale is through the floor.”
Tully said Hogan-Howe had pushed through changes and “dragged people kicking and screaming, and not taken people with him”. He said staff “feel denigrated by the government, especially the home secretary, and they do not feel supported by the very senior management, from Sir Bernard downwards.”
The Met police federation itself has been criticised for being reluctant to change.
Crime in London overall has fallen since Hogan-Howe became commissioner in 2011. As well as budget cuts he was faced with a force that performed less well in fighting crime compared with others in England and Wales.
The force has already made cuts worth more than £800m and is selling its Scotland Yard headquarters, as well as other buildings, to mitigate the need to shed jobs.
Last week Hogan-Howe said the Met faced 15% cuts to its budget by 2020, on top of 15% cuts since 2010.
The Met and Hogan-Howe feature in a BBC prime-time documentary starting on Monday which the force hopes will boost its image.
Hogan-Howe has the support of the Conservative administration that runs London and of the government, both of which have the final say about his future.
The previous two commissioners of the Met, Lord Blair and Stephenson, resigned mid-term. Hogan-Howe’s term expires in 2016.
The Met did not comment after being approached about the results of the survey, called “Build a better Met”.
 
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............................................

So there you have it:

Just one in five officers and staff agreed they had “confidence in the leadership provided - only 1 in 5!

just 18% believing career development is fair, - follow the party line & keep your a*** clean or else!

The Met and Hogan-Howe feature in a BBC prime-time documentary starting on Monday which the force hopes will boost its image. - really? Some hope!

Even the grunts have had enough of the establishment BS.

Dear oh Dear, not a happy bunch then,Sir Bernhard Hogan Howe's dossier investigation,"Threats to McCann family" failed to find anyone to prosecute for criminal behaviour and could not identify Martin Brunts source,"Well her Identity is no longer a secret any more" eh Martin.
Who handed the information to him, which led to the public hounding of an innocent Woman, public interest Martin,Quid pro Quo!?. 
Rest in Peace Mrs Brenda Leyland, you certainly did not need to face the persecution by Sky,MSM, Loyalty to their friends?

I hope people can watch the latest "Team briefing Operation Grange" from jeanmonroe's post,Wet &Windy.

So there would be (at least) seven disgruntled OG officers gruntling along, doing, yes, doing what precisely?

Small wonder the Mecs hold on so tenaciously to their Fighting Fund Limited, just in case OG folds; who could blame them?

Apparently, I'm not 'ONLY' a 'sick troll' alongside serving MET Police officers, I'm 'ALSO', according to McCann 'private fund raiser', Met Police Commissioner, BHH, an 'instiutional RACIST'!

BHH, 'taking' a phone call.

"There's a right blithering, balloonatic selling (£1-a-go kiddies), foul mouthed, idiot on the end of this phone line'

"Which END, sir?"

The Met: Policing London, 9.00 pm BBC1 tonight.

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[quote="jeanmonroe"]Apparently, I'm not 'ONLY' a 'sick troll' alongside serving MET Police officers, I'm 'ALSO', according to McCann 'private fund raiser', Met Police Commissioner, BHH, an 'instiutional RACIST'!

BHH, 'taking' a phone call.

"There's a right blithering, balloonatic selling (£1-a-go kiddies), foul mouthed, idiot on the end of this phone line'

"Which END, sir?"[/quote]

BHH let the cameras in for a year (if I've read things correctly in the Press today).

Why doesn't he get on with his bleeding job, the one he's paid to do instead of turning the Met into some sort of reality show.

He could always get Nicola Wall to do another Vogue interview to attract candidates. Some mad brain in the Met thought that was a good idea at some point.

Ladyinred wrote:The Met: Policing London, 9.00 pm BBC1 tonight.

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I've seen in the newspapers this week from BHH something along the lines that the Met is institutionally racist.

He couldn't be more right.

Look up Ali Dizaei.

Then you'll see what a bunch of lily livered people run the Met.

I began watching this BHH production last night until I nodded off. I'll continue to watch it this evening as I've recorded it.

To see BHH in his white shirt, (surrounded by cameras and a host of coppers) excusing himself from the reporter to get into a taxi with the taxi driver in pursuit of someone who hadn't paid their fare, subsequently make the arrest himself (in his crisp white shirt with a host of coppers and a camera crew around him) and then say he hadn't made an arrest in 8 (it could've been 7) years but he'd made an arrest at every rank he'd achieved made me want to throw cushions at the telly.

I'm the ex-wife of a police officer. I don't need to imagine what he's being called by ordinary coppers - and none of it will be nice.

It would be far better to give police officers decent training, decent uniforms, decent equipment, decent staffing levels and decent back-up from the leading ranks than to show a ridiculous broadcast of the bloke in charge who has nothing to boast of that I can see in terms of leadership.


Just my opinion.

I'm getting to know and like you Aquila

HelenMeg wrote:I'm getting to know and like you Aquila

+1 HM

Aquila:
 
‘I'll continue to watch it this evening as I've recorded it.’
 
Quite honestly I wouldn’t bother. If that was supposed to improve public perception of the Met. it failed miserably and they need a new script writer.
 
When BHH jumped into the car in ‘hot pursuit’(?), filmed from the outside by the camera crew that had been following him, all of a sudden there was a camera filming him from the back seat.
 
The raid on a flat was a bit like comedy capers, when what seemed like dozens of booted, suited and helmeted officers went into a flat. I think they must have been climbing out of the window to come round again. If you do watch it, have a count of the blue helmets going in!

The discussion on how to respond to the Tottenham shooting case was similarly dire.

I think you did the best thing by falling asleep. I wish I had.

If it was really a BHH production, I think he should be called before the committee on a charge of 'bringing the police force into disrepute' or something similar.

The whole thing was absolutely shocking.

Doug D wrote:Aquila:
 
‘I'll continue to watch it this evening as I've recorded it.’
 
Quite honestly I wouldn’t bother. If that was supposed to improve public perception of the Met. it failed miserably and they need a new script writer.
 
When BHH jumped into the car in ‘hot pursuit’(?), filmed from the outside by the camera crew that had been following him, all of a sudden there was a camera filming him from the back seat.
 
The raid on a flat was a bit like comedy capers, when what seemed like dozens of booted, suited and helmeted officers went into a flat. I think they must have been climbing out of the window to come round again. If you do watch it, have a count of the blue helmets going in!

The discussion on how to respond to the Tottenham shooting case was similarly dire.

I think you did the best thing by falling asleep. I wish I had.

If it was really a BHH production, I think he should be called before the committee on a charge of 'bringing the police force into disrepute' or something similar.

The whole thing was absolutely shocking.

Shocking, pointless, deceptive and deceitful. This is Scotland Yard who are in charge of Operation Grange with their helicopters and big digs in Portugal, their year long documentary for Crime Watch to show a revelation moment and their year long BBC documentary to show the bloke in charge of Scotland Yard do a mad dash in a taxi with a camera crew to arrest someone who hadn't paid their fare.

Disgusting.

Doug D wrote:When BHH jumped into the car in ‘hot pursuit’(?), filmed from the outside by the camera crew that had been following him, all of a sudden there was a camera filming him from the back seat.
 

Really?

How stupid do they think we are?

How stupid are they?

I must try and see this.

And they then can't understand why things like this get posted up:
 


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Nicola [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] How's your fast track conviction rate these days? Not good hey, might this help a tad? [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
 
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They really don't help themselves.

[quote="aquila"]I began watching this BHH production last night until I nodded off. I'll continue to watch it this evening as I've recorded it.

To see BHH in his white shirt, (surrounded by cameras and a host of coppers) excusing himself from the reporter to get into a taxi with the taxi driver in pursuit of someone who hadn't paid their fare, subsequently make the arrest himself (in his crisp white shirt with a host of coppers and a camera crew around him) and then say he hadn't made an arrest in 8 (it could've been 7) years but he'd made an arrest at every rank he'd achieved made me want to throw cushions at the telly.

I'm the ex-wife of a police officer. I don't need to imagine what he's being called by ordinary coppers - and none of it will be nice.

It would be far better to give police officers decent training, decent uniforms, decent equipment, decent staffing levels and decent back-up from the leading ranks than to show a ridiculous broadcast of the bloke in charge who has nothing to boast of that I can see in terms of leadership.


Just my opinion.[/quote]


Tsk tsk: isn't he from York or something?

Can anyone post a clip of the taxi nonsense?

It sounds glorious.

Having watched The Met last night, this statement was made by the boss man BHH….."We don't take sides, we do try and resolve things in a reasonable way, I think that's a great joy of policing?" Maybe he should try applying some of the same said philosophy to OG. 

Portia wrote:

aquila wrote:I began watching this BHH production last night until I nodded off. I'll continue to watch it this evening as I've recorded it.

To see BHH in his white shirt, (surrounded by cameras and a host of coppers) excusing himself from the reporter to get into a taxi with the taxi driver in pursuit of someone who hadn't paid their fare, subsequently make the arrest himself (in his crisp white shirt with a host of coppers and a camera crew around him) and then say he hadn't made an arrest in 8 (it could've been 7) years but he'd made an arrest at every rank he'd achieved made me want to throw cushions at the telly.

I'm the ex-wife of a police officer. I don't need to imagine what he's being called by ordinary coppers - and none of it will be nice.

It would be far better to give police officers decent training, decent uniforms, decent equipment, decent staffing levels and decent back-up from the leading ranks than to show a ridiculous broadcast of the bloke in charge who has nothing to boast of that I can see in terms of leadership.


Just my opinion.

Tsk tsk: isn't he from York or something?

Portia, BHH is from Sheffield.  The rough end, apparently.  I've got this week's 'Radio Times', where Sir B talks "frankly" about what made him our top cop.

Here is The Radio Times article on BHH


Meet the boss of the Met: Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe
Ahead of a new BBC1 documentary series about Britain's biggest police service, the man in charge talks frankly about his extraordinary mother, absent dad - and what made him Britain's top cop

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By Janice Turner
Monday 8 June 2015 at 06:00PM


Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has never forgotten his first arrest: 30-odd-years ago, a 3am window-smashing drunk. Nor his most satisfying: a serial rapist in Doncaster "who every victim picked out in the ID parade". But new BBC1 series The Met captures his most public.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner is midway through an interview in the street when a minicab driver asks for help: his passenger has run off without paying and stolen £20. Hogan-Howe jumps into the man’s car, tracks down the suspect and as he nicks him, his flinty face looks boyishly chuffed.

Does he miss the hands-on side of the job?
“Yes,” he says, emphatically. “I joined as a policeman, I didn’t intend to be commissioner. It’s not exciting to chair meetings. There are some exciting outcomes... but it’s never quite as joyful as finding somebody who has raped or done a burglary.”

Britain’s top cop is eager to prove he is not a desk-softened bureaucrat. He talks of “total policing” to crack down on gun and knife crime; he has a reputation as uncompromising, even authoritarian.

He persuaded London mayor Boris Johnson to buy water cannons, supports exemplary sentences for rioters and strict classification for marijuana, and he pressed for the extension to the security services’ surveillance powers recently outlined in the Queen’s Speech. Theresa May described him as a “tough, single-minded crime fighter”.

And he cultivates an image of physical toughness. Tall and wiry, at 57 he carries not a spare ounce. He jokes that he is “gutted” the BBC cut a sequence where he plays football with mates at the UK Border Agency. “I couldn’t get a bloody kick! They were showing off for the TV. But I scored. And they aren’t even going to use it.” He boasts he just passed the annual police fitness test “very well with no preparation”.

I remark that a young friend, who recently joined the Met, found the physical – a "bleep test" shuttle run that increases in pace – ridiculously easy. And, as the BBC cameras reveal, there are a fair few porky PCs. "It's taken too long to get the annual test, but it will start to have an increasing impact," says Hogan-Howe. "For me, the standard is too low: I think it should be higher. It's relatively easy to pass."

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Police who fail will be given time to lose weight and get fitter, he says. “If they don’t, then we haven’t got a job for them. I think you’ve got a duty to your colleagues. If they shout for help, they want fit people to come. They don’t want somebody waddling down the road who’s never going to arrive, and when they get there they’re out of breath.”

He talks admiringly of 60-something officers who are still on the front line, “fighting 18-year-olds, strong, athletic people – that takes guts”.

It is hard not to ascribe Hogan-Howe’s hardness, his ambition and drive to his upbringing. He was born the child of his mother’s affair with a married steel worker, and raised in the rough end of Sheffield in the 1960s. How can that not mould a man’s character? Yet since he has never spoken of this before I raise it with trepidation.

Is a tough childhood good police training? “I’d probably challenge ‘tough’,” he says. “I think I had a good childhood. We weren’t financially well off... we didn’t get holidays and things like that, but I don’t regard that as tough. But I think you understand the problems people have who are in those circumstances.”

There was a stigma, he admits, in being born out of wedlock. Did he feel it? “For a while. There were terms like ‘illegitimate’.”

Or “bastard”? “Yes.” Did you get called that? “I didn’t at school actually, no.” It wasn’t the kids but their parents who noted he had no father, he says. “It wasn’t something you shouted about. I’m proud of it now, and I’m proud of what my mother achieved. But it would be right to say at the time that it was regarded as a bit at immoral, a bit off, a bit unusual. It wasn't routine."
His mother, Cecilia Hogan, didn't know he lover Bernard Howe was married until she fell pregnant. "I think part of the plan had been that at my birth he would be divorced, and clearly that didn’t happen.” Cecilia gave the baby his father’s name but he never left his wife and, although he had no other children and remained in the same city, played little part in his son’s life: “I think I saw him about five times.”

Did he support his child financially? “I remember a fiver coming through the letterbox irregularly.” What about Christmas? “Once,” he says. One present, your whole childhood? That’s harsh. “No, because if you’ve never had it, you don’t miss it,” he says, suddenly looking very sad. “It was nice though, the once it happened.”

What did he get? “A crane, a lorry. I’d have been about eight,” he says. “I got scalded once, and I think it came the Christmas after. So I think that was the connection. He turned up because I think I’d asked for it. But beyond that there was no relationship.” Did lacking a father make him determined to prove himself? “Honestly, if anything it was my mum’s push and encouragement.”
Bernard Howe Sr moved up from the factory floor to manage a steel works. Perhaps his son inherited his father’s brains? He baulks at this. “No, my mum’s.” After scant formal education Cecilia was trained in the army and after the war supervised some of the first factory computers.

Hogan-Howe – he added his mother’s name by deed poll when he was 18 – was bright. But this was the first era of comprehensive education in South Yorkshire so he didn’t take the 11-plus. “I remember being bitterly disappointed that I didn’t have that chance – and my mum was – because I thought I could have done quite well. And in that era, grammar school was your passport to great things. That was our belief.”
Instead he went to Hinde House School.

“It wasn’t Eton, put it that way,” he says drily.
“We only had two riots. They weren’t too bad. And one football game when all the coach windows got put in.” What was your role in the riots? He laughs: “I was one of four kids who stayed inside the school.” Always so well behaved, I say. His mother’s values, he replies: “She had a very clear sense of right and wrong.”

He wanted to be a doctor and was offered a place to study medicine at Sheffield University. But he failed to get the grades – “a great disappointment” – and took a job in an NHS histopathology laboratory where he pored over tissue samples for four years. The routine bored him “and the only patients we saw, sadly, were dead”.

Policing had always been at the back of his mind: “Probably on the grounds that tall, thin men become policemen, as I’m told, and small, fat people become butchers.” Then he adds that he’d always “hated bullies getting away with things” and loved meeting new people.

And the police is perhaps the only socially mobile profession left. Hogan-Howe is effusively grateful for how the force spotted his potential, gave him a career. He excelled at the national sergeant’s exam and was allowed to apply for an accelerated promotion course where other candidates were graduates. Since he didn’t have a degree, he was sent to Merton College, Oxford to read law then criminology at Cambridge.

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Are careers too degree-obsessed now? “The police don’t demand a degree. In fact, we don’t really demand a certain level of educational attainment,” he says. “But it’s nice to have a degree. Until I eventually graduated at 31, I was probably guilty of being a bit pushy, trying to prove I had a brain.” University taught him to order his thinking: the accelerated promotion course prepared him to lead, enabling him to overcome his dread of public speaking. Indeed his mind is so systematic he seems to talk in bullet points.

In their year following the Met, the BBC crew witnessed the full complexity of modern policing. After the fatal stabbing of Chris Foster outside a Borough Market pub in south London in 2013, detectives trawled through thousands of hours of CCTV, tracing back the attackers’ footsteps via cashpoints and cinemas.

CCTV is the main reason why 95 per cent of London murders are solved. And Hogan-Howe believes all businesses should point cameras down towards the street to pick up faces.
Does he not acknowledge fears Britain is turning into a surveillance culture, with police seeking even greater powers? He argues the force is forbidden from using technology enjoyed by, say, Uber cabs.

“They will know where your phone is and where the taxi is and then put you together. But when people ring the police, we haven’t got a clue where that phone is. You may have been stabbed and expect us to come and help.” You can’t use location data? “Not in real time. We have to make an emergency application, there’s a process to go through."

Throughout the 90s, Hogan-Howe rose through the South Yorkshire force. He moved to Merseyside in 1997 and was appointed Chief Constable there in 2004, before becoming the Metropolitan Commissioner in September 2011.

His late mother, I say, must have been proud. Did his father follow his career? “I don’t know. The last time I saw him I was around 18. I remember seeing him walking through a subway in Sheffield.” You didn’t try to speak to him? “No. I had nothing to say.” What would you say to him now if he was still alive? “As you get older, you want to hear a little more about someone’s reasoning. I’d probably want to hear his side.”


Hogan-Howe gets into the office just after 7am, stays until 6pm, then there’s always a meeting. Tonight “with the Home Sec and the new justice minister”, then a Crimestoppers dinner. But he tries to keep weekends free or takes a day off in lieu, or “I get really ratty”. His wife Marion never complains about his 15-hour days. But then she has always known what his career entailed.
They met 13 years ago when he was sent to the Royal Mews to have his routine horsemanship test: Marion was assistant to the Crown equerry in charge of the Queen’s horses. (Hogan-Howe learnt to ride in Merseyside, spending Saturday mornings with the mounted division, riding and mucking out to overcome his fear of horses. He became so proficient that as Chief Constable he led the Grand National parade.) Now he and Marion like to ride together at weekends and have their own horses stabled outside London.

I mention a moment in the series, when, during the Notting Hill carnival amid deafening sound systems, he remarks, “Maybe it’s my age, but this is awful.”

The police PR sitting in tries to say the Commissioner was responding to something in his earpiece. But Hogan-Howe says, “Even if I did say it, I would stand by it because it’s not my music.” What is? “Opera.


Does he watch cop shows? “I always enjoyed Prime Suspect: that’s quite gritty,” he says. “I liked the thoroughness of it. The people are passionate but they know it’s complex, and they don’t let go. People sometimes think detectives are big extroverts with loud ties. But the best detectives listen carefully, speak less, pay attention to detail and are patient.”

Yet he doesn’t think movies glamorise crime. He believes cops and writers share a mutual nosiness. “I’m interested in people’s backgrounds, their motivations: when something happens, who said what to whom.” And, he adds, policing is exciting: “From time to time it is blue lights, going quickly, that chase. That great event, the arrest... That’s why we joined.”


The Met: Policing London starts Monday June 8th at 9pm on BBC1 (10.35pm in Scotland)
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Hogan-Howe – he added his mother’s name by deed poll when he was 18 – was bright. But this was the first era of comprehensive education in South Yorkshire so he didn’t take the 11-plus. “I remember being bitterly disappointed that I didn’t have that chance – and my mum was – because I thought I could have done quite well. And in that era, grammar school was your passport to great things. That was our belief.”

Instead he went to Hinde House School.

“It wasn’t Eton, put it that way,” he says drily.
“We only had two riots. They weren’t too bad. And one football game when all the coach windows got put in.” What was your role in the riots? He laughs: “I was one of four kids who stayed inside the school.” Always so well behaved, I say. His mother’s values, he replies: “She had a very clear sense of right and wrong.”

He wanted to be a doctor and was offered a place to study medicine at Sheffield University. But he failed to get the grades – “a great disappointment” – and took a job in an NHS histopathology laboratory where he pored over tissue samples for four years. The routine bored him “and the only patients we saw, sadly, were dead”.


Policing had always been at the back of his mind: “Probably on the grounds that tall, thin men become policemen, as I’m told, and small, fat people become butchers.” Then he adds that he’d always “hated bullies getting away with things” and loved meeting new people.
And the police is perhaps the only socially mobile profession left. Hogan-Howe is effusively grateful for how the force spotted his potential, gave him a career. He excelled at the national sergeant’s exam and was allowed to apply for an accelerated promotion course where other candidates were graduates. Since he didn’t have a degree, he was sent to Merton College, Oxford to read law then criminology at Cambridge.

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Are careers too degree-obsessed now? “The police don’t demand a degree. In fact, we don’t really demand a certain level of educational attainment,” he says. “But it’s nice to have a degree. Until I eventually graduated at 31, I was probably guilty of being a bit pushy, trying to prove I had a brain.” University taught him to order his thinking: the accelerated promotion course prepared him to lead, enabling him to overcome his dread of public speaking. Indeed his mind is so systematic he seems to talk in bullet points.

In their year following the Met, the BBC crew witnessed the full complexity of modern policing. After the fatal stabbing of Chris Foster outside a Borough Market pub in south London in 2013, detectives trawled through thousands of hours of CCTV, tracing back the attackers’ footsteps via cashpoints and cinemas.

CCTV is the main reason why 95 per cent of London murders are solved. And Hogan-Howe believes all businesses should point cameras down towards the street to pick up faces.
Does he not acknowledge fears Britain is turning into a surveillance culture, with police seeking even greater powers? He argues the force is forbidden from using technology enjoyed by, say, Uber cabs.

“They will know where your phone is and where the taxi is and then put you together. But when people ring the police, we haven’t got a clue where that phone is. You may have been stabbed and expect us to come and help.” You can’t use location data? “Not in real time. We have to make an emergency application, there’s a process to go through."

Throughout the 90s, Hogan-Howe rose through the South Yorkshire force. He moved to Merseyside in 1997 and was appointed Chief Constable there in 2004, before becoming the Metropolitan Commissioner in September 2011.

His late mother, I say, must have been proud. Did his father follow his career? “I don’t know. The last time I saw him I was around 18. I remember seeing him walking through a subway in Sheffield.” You didn’t try to speak to him? “No. I had nothing to say.” What would you say to him now if he was still alive? “As you get older, you want to hear a little more about someone’s reasoning. I’d probably want to hear his side.”

Hogan-Howe gets into the office just after 7am, stays until 6pm, then there’s always a meeting. Tonight “with the Home Sec and the new justice minister”, then a Crimestoppers dinner. But he tries to keep weekends free or takes a day off in lieu, or “I get really ratty”. His wife Marion never complains about his 15-hour days. But then she has always known what his career entailed.
They met 13 years ago when he was sent to the Royal Mews to have his routine horsemanship test: Marion was assistant to the Crown equerry in charge of the Queen’s horses. (Hogan-Howe learnt to ride in Merseyside, spending Saturday mornings with the mounted division, riding and mucking out to overcome his fear of horses. He became so proficient that as Chief Constable he led the Grand National parade.) Now he and Marion like to ride together at weekends and have their own horses stabled outside London.

I mention a moment in the series, when, during the Notting Hill carnival amid deafening sound systems, he remarks, “Maybe it’s my age, but this is awful.”
The police PR sitting in tries to say the Commissioner was responding to something in his earpiece. But Hogan-Howe says, “Even if I did say it, I would stand by it because it’s not my music.” What is? “Opera.”


Does he watch cop shows? “I always enjoyed Prime Suspect: that’s quite gritty,” he says. “I liked the thoroughness of it. The people are passionate but they know it’s complex, and they don’t let go. People sometimes think detectives are big extroverts with loud ties. But the best detectives listen carefully, speak less, pay attention to detail and are patient.”
Yet he doesn’t think movies glamorise crime. He believes cops and writers share a mutual nosiness. “I’m interested in people’s backgrounds, their motivations: when something happens, who said what to whom.” And, he adds, policing is exciting: “From time to time it is blue lights, going quickly, that chase. That great event, the arrest... That’s why we joined.”
The Met: Policing London starts Monday June 8th at 9pm on BBC1 (10.35pm in Scotland)
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This picture is just silly.

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"Right... now look grim and determined..."

But when I hear his name, I think of this

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He didn't know the name of what must be the costliest and most high-profile missing person case ever

He introduces the word murder

And Hobbs, what do you think of this , please?

quote ''Errm... we're trying our best to keep the family informed and I think in the middle of all this, quite often their torment gets lost. Have they lost a child or, errr... by being murdered or... sadly... or have they lost a child by someone else stealing them.'' unquote

BHH: ".......OR.......... have they lost a child by someone else stealing them.''
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Is THAT a 'question'?
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"by someone else stealing them" BHH.
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"THEM"?

'Her, She, Madeleine'................surely?
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".....LOST a child by SOMEONE ELSE stealing them" BHH.
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As OPPOSED, to 'who'? (stealing 'her'?)

"Them"? (their 'friends' or 'people they 'know'?)

Someone 'else' BUT 'not them'?

I'll go out 'on a limb' here, I believe, BHH, T May and DC 'know' EXACTLY what 'happened' to Madeleine.

Be it sadly, 'death', or a 'scam' (living in luxury 'lair' in UK, waiting to be miraculously 'found' or 'revealed' years 'later')

As the McCann's, 'say' at EVERY 'opportunity'!

They've 'made' their 'money' from 'her'.

This 'case' might only be 'solved' WHEN 'the cash cow' is NO longer 'viable'.

Their private Madeleine's 'fund' is 'running at a loss', apparently.

Who 'runs' a 'loss making' fund?

I'd like to 'see' the McCann's 'speil' to Dragon's Den, for THAT 'idea'!

jeanmonroe wrote:

Nicky Cambell first comment.. "The Portuguese Police really messed up..."

He's a disgrace just like Eammon Holmes.

You can tell they've been briefed.

How do they sleep?

I'm not sure they've 'been briefed'- I tend to think it's a combination of laziness and er, ......laziness

I have just been reading [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] regarding an assessment on DCI Wall's visit to Portugal earlier this year. I tend to agree with this assessment or at least it sounds reasonable and logical.  It also does not sound to fit in with any whitewash theory IMO- if the UK public perception needed to be shaped towards a whitewash solution then I think we would still be experiencing leaks from OG into MSM.  Instead we have silence - which for me is more indicative of action behind scenes. Leaks from OG e.g. charade of last year with photos of digging etc tends to signify 'all for show'    

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« Reply #68 on: March 16, 2015, 03:01:15 PM »
I discussed the new info with another person.  We have both taken over major projects, so it was a case of what would we do in this situation and does it fit.

1.  Nicola Wall took over on late Dec 2014, and travelled to Faro, possibly for introductions to a number of key Portuguese officials located in the Algarve.

2.  A review of the project so far would have occurred.  Andy Redwood had his lines of enquiries, his priorities and his team organisation.  Nicola Wall should have her lines of enquiries, her priorities and her organisation.  That assessment and change would take time.  Whether it took 3 months is unlikely.  Get the changes bedded in, then tackle the next stage.

3.  It is now time to get the 'outsiders' on board, and the list in the original Portuguese article is exactly who I would be informing.  These are the people at the top and the key players.

4.  I would definitely make it face-to-face.  It is a 'hearts and minds' pitch.  Why has the British investigation altered course?  This requires that some of the evidence for such a change is available to hand.  Here's why the team will be acting on these priorities.  There is also a need to evaluate feedback, on how well the pitch is going.

5.  There may be a further practical reason for face-to-face.  If I wanted to go in a different direction on this, I would value input from the Portuguese legal side as to the best way to do so i.e. what is necessary within their system.

6.  The British media report comes later than the Portuguese ones, and it seems to be no more than a regurgitation of the Portuguese reports.  It 'adds' that the meeting was in Lisbon.  Since the Portuguese source said it happened in the Attorney General's office, and the Attorney General's office is in Lisbon, it adds nothing.  That means any leaks were on the Portuguese side, while the Brit side simply monitored the Portuguese media.  Assuming this is correct,  Nicola Wall has scored an early victory.  Nothing leaking from London, but something leaking from Lisbon.

If this line of thought is correct, I would not expect to see a flurry of requests over the next 2-3 months, as SY chomps through the new priorities, develops the evidence, then decides how to act on it.

HelenMeg wrote:I have just been reading [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] regarding an assessment on DCI Wall's visit to Portugal earlier this year. I tend to agree with this assessment or at least it sounds reasonable and logical.  It also does not sound to fit in with any whitewash theory IMO- if the UK public perception needed to be shaped towards a whitewash solution then I think we would still be experiencing leaks from OG into MSM.  Instead we have silence - which for me is more indicative of action behind scenes. Leaks from OG e.g. charade of last year with photos of digging etc tends to signify 'all for show'    

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« Reply #68 on: March 16, 2015, 03:01:15 PM »
I discussed the new info with another person.  We have both taken over major projects, so it was a case of what would we do in this situation and does it fit.

1.  Nicola Wall took over on late Dec 2014, and travelled to Faro, possibly for introductions to a number of key Portuguese officials located in the Algarve.

2.  A review of the project so far would have occurred.  Andy Redwood had his lines of enquiries, his priorities and his team organisation.  Nicola Wall should have her lines of enquiries, her priorities and her organisation.  That assessment and change would take time.  Whether it took 3 months is unlikely.  Get the changes bedded in, then tackle the next stage.

3.  It is now time to get the 'outsiders' on board, and the list in the original Portuguese article is exactly who I would be informing.  These are the people at the top and the key players.

4.  I would definitely make it face-to-face.  It is a 'hearts and minds' pitch.  Why has the British investigation altered course?  This requires that some of the evidence for such a change is available to hand.  Here's why the team will be acting on these priorities.  There is also a need to evaluate feedback, on how well the pitch is going.

5.  There may be a further practical reason for face-to-face.  If I wanted to go in a different direction on this, I would value input from the Portuguese legal side as to the best way to do so i.e. what is necessary within their system.

6.  The British media report comes later than the Portuguese ones, and it seems to be no more than a regurgitation of the Portuguese reports.  It 'adds' that the meeting was in Lisbon.  Since the Portuguese source said it happened in the Attorney General's office, and the Attorney General's office is in Lisbon, it adds nothing.  That means any leaks were on the Portuguese side, while the Brit side simply monitored the Portuguese media.  Assuming this is correct,  Nicola Wall has scored an early victory.  Nothing leaking from London, but something leaking from Lisbon.

If this line of thought is correct, I would not expect to see a flurry of requests over the next 2-3 months, as SY chomps through the new priorities, develops the evidence, then decides how to act on it.

You'd be better orf lighting a candle on the optimistic altar, complete with balloons and banners to the Poulton Poodle than think OG is going to produce anything to find out what happened to Madeleine McCann.

Disagree - dont believe this woman would head a whitewash  - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]