Unjustified attack on Met senior officer by tabloid paper.

Former police officer hits back at Daily Mail front page slamming Met Officer.

Chris Hobbs a former Met Police officer today writes in the Havering Daily on the recent attack by a tabloid paper on Met Police Senior Officer Matt Jukes.

With all the momentous, horrific events taking place throughout the world, the Daily Mail decided to devote its front page to the actions of one Met police senior officer. The donning of the ‘menopause jacket’ would have taken a tiny sliver of his time and hardly merits the controversy it has caused.

Unlike many of his senior officer colleagues, Matt Jukes is highly regarded by front line officers of his former South Wales force and by those of the Met. The ill-informed comment that he should go out of the streets at night to understand what it’s like ‘to be a real policeman,’ ignores the fact that he actually does ‘get his hands dirty’ on the streets; one of the reasons he is so highly regarded.

The Mail, amongst others, also slams police operations against Just Stop Oil protesters. Officers have, in fact,made more than 700 arrests; what happens after arrest is largely then an issue for the Crown Prosecution Service, themselves hit my cuts, and a criminal justice system in crisis with prison places at a premium and huge backlogs of court cases.

As for the ‘lack of robust policing, it’s worth noting that the Daily Mail were hugely critical of ‘heavy handed’ policing at the Sara Everard vigil, even though Met officers were largely exonerated, not just by the Police Inspectorate, but by a leftist documentary maker who assiduously filmed a timeline of events.

Finally, as was pointed out by the former head of the police inspectorate, front-line officers including those of the Met, spend around 80% of their time dealing with non-crime calls including those concerning individuals suffering from mental health crises, frequently saving lives in the process. 

Despite the time spent on these ‘non-crime’ issues,many more lives are saved by ‘racist, woke’ (a contradiction here I think) Met officers who take hundreds of knives and other lethal weapons from the streets and frequently arrive at the scene of stabbings and shootings before paramedics before rendering life-saving first aid. 

But let’s not let the facts above get in the way of yet another ‘police bashing’ headline at a time when assaults on and injuries to, police officers are running atrecord levels.