One golden autumn afternoon, in a quiet North London suburb, I stumbled across a portal to a possible English future. Hadley Wood sits on the fringes of the city, between Barnet and the M25, seemingly forgotten in its own little …
The Met’s firearms officers are political pawns
Say what you like about Suella Braverman and her mixed reception among the general population, but she continues to enjoy the support of a key political, if not electoral, demographic: the Metropolitan Police. Following the shooting of Chris Kaba on …
Don’t defund the police
Surely all good feminists should support defunding the police. It has been two years since a serving officer abducted, raped, and murdered 33-year-old Sarah Everard in South London, and it seems there aren’t just one or two “bad apples”. Multiple …
Why wasn’t PC David Carrick sacked?
Some men join the police for the wrong reasons. Senior officers know this perfectly well — and they should be on guard against predators in their ranks. So what did the Metropolitan Police do when PC David Carrick, now revealed …
The British police need guns
The public unsurprisingly jumped to conclusions when it was reported, earlier this month, that a Metropolitan Police officer had fatally shot an apparently unarmed black man. Voices from the black community and beyond have speculated that the shooting was either …
What women coppers conceal
If a woman wanted to become a police officer in the Seventies, she joined the Women’s Police Department. Run separately from the mainstream service, its main purpose was to deal with “women’s issues” such as sexual assault and domestic violence. …
Cressida Dick has failed women
It is quite some time since the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, attracted positive headlines. Exactly five years since her appointment was announced in February 2017, she presides over a force mired in scandal.
Dick promised to make tackling …