Report highlights corruption and misogyny but please do not label every officer as such.

Ad nauseam police in the headlines and again for all the wrong reasons. The HMICFS inspection on vetting, misconduct and misogyny makes gruesome reading, especially the part that says recommendations were made and ignored.

Too many female officers suffer under the hands of misogynists and even worse the fact that the perpetrators not only go unpunished but often get promoted. It takes a lot to sum up enough courage to speak up against misogyny and to have it not only shot down but clearly laughed at, makes a person feel about as low and humiliated as possible and I sadly speak of experience here, although not in the police force.

The report needs to be taken very seriously and the new recommendations made again by HMICFS must surely, (we hope) be taken onboard. The vetting process for a police force must be unquestionably strong. Policing requires officers who uphold the law to be themselves law abiders, other wise as has happened here, it makes the whole system a mockery and destroys all public trust. So what has gone so seriously wrong that the public who always had so much respect for their ‘bobby on the beat’, now are reading headlines about corrupt officers in the force, not just one but apparently thousands?

This headline has put all decent hardworking officers doing an incredible job everyday across our country in an awful position. Everyday these officers are labelled something different, yesterday they were all corrupt, the day before they were all misogynists, they day before that they were all woke. I bet as they get ready to go to work today, they are wondering what their latest label will be?

Vetting in the police was once a very serious matter. The process was long and arduous and took a lengthy period of time. Also, as officers moved to more selective and specialised areas where classified items were viewed, the vetting process became harder still and very in depth. Home visits were made, financial records looked at, family checks, the list goes on. So now what has gone so wrong? Could it have something to do with the culling of police forces through brutal cuts, huge financial restraints and forces going for quantity rather than quality?

It is important to remember that our police force is a vital part of our community and that it is an organisation that needs to be stable and strong in our society. Yet, due to these cuts, police forces have suffered under financial constraints, they have been axed here there and everywhere. So many officers have left, officers that had years of experience and were able to guide new recruits. Instead now we have many officers on our streets doing the best they can, but with very little experience and with very little support. All this making our police force extremely unstable.

The poor vetting system, lack of proper checks and lack of interviews has meant as highlighted in the report, that we have officers in service that clearly should not be there. There is no room for corruption in our police services, there is no room for misogynists in the police service and they should definitely not be promoted as a reward for misogyny.

The key here is that the police force needs to be well funded, corners cannot and should never be cut as these are the clear results. It is also worth noting that for every one corrupt officer that needs to be rapidly removed, there are many hardworking, dedicating and outstanding officers who really do an incredible job in our community and have a terrible working environment, being labelled everyday.

Thank you to those who joined to really make a difference and do that every day despite the many, many challenges they face, we work with you daily and see the amazing job you do in our communities.