The Bad, The Good And Most Importantly, Maintaining Perspective After Panorama.

By Chris Hobbs – Retired Metropolitan Police Officer and now police commentator

It was a programme that had received considerable advanced publicity over weeks and, as the day dawned, officers across the Met and indeed the country viewed the upcoming revelations with apprehension. Whatever the content, the result was inevitable; that all Met officers would be collectively smeared with morale, already on the floor, now suffering another blow.

The undercover reporter spent seven months accumulating evidence against eleven officers and was ideally placed in the Met’s custody suite tat Charing Cross police station to gain the confidence of those rogue officers whose behaviour and attitudes were, quite simply, appalling; albeit, in two cases, encouraged by copious quantities of alcohol.

This wasn’t the first time that Charing Cross police station had been in the headlines; Operation Hotton focused on the station’s ‘Impact Unit’ whose remit was to deal with specific criminality that blighted the West End of London. The unit, rather like naughty boys in a school forming a gang, attracted some whose behaviour was also reprehensible; the end result was that two officers were dismissed for gross misconduct and two resigned. Others were sanctioned but kept their jobs.

Recruitment and vetting.

The appointment of an undercover reporter as a designated detention officer (DDO) will pose some embarrassing questions for the Met in terms of recruitment and vetting. Similar questions are also being asked in respect of the appointment of officers who have subsequently fallen foul of the Met’s disciplinary procedures and have been dismissed or resigned. The general view is that nationally, cutbacks impacted on recruitment and vetting and that this was exacerbated in the Met by the virtual closure of their world-renowned training centre at Hendon.

The challenges of London’s West End.

The policing area covered by Charing Cross is an extremely challenging one as it includes much of the West End of London which attracts tourists from at home and abroad; this in turn invites criminality. The nightlife and world- famous department stores add to the challenging mix faced by officers as does the presence of a large homeless population who present their own challenges in terms of alcohol and substance abuse together with mental health issues.

Whilst the Met’s Press Bureau refused to provide me, in advance of the programme, with police officer numbers in respect of Charing Cross, the general view is that at least 600 officers are stationed there. As stated above, eleven would appear to have transgressed and there may be others. However, there was an attempt by the programme makers to provide some sort of balance as a counter to the vile behaviour that was beamed across the nation.

An attempt at balance?

A friendly chat in Parliament Square below.

There was the briefest of brief clips showing police compassionately attempting to calm down a male who was clearly suffering a mental health crisis. This was accompanied by the reporter stating that he saw, presumably during his seven months, ‘many police officers doing their jobs professionally and with empathy.’

He later went on to say that he saw; ‘many police officers doing their job to the best of their ability; hats off to them.’ He further stated that officers often dealt with individuals who had ‘complex mental health needs in addition to violent confrontational people.’

These comments were but a flickering shadow across a programme that was primarily one of condemnation and whilst this praise was welcome, it would have done little to allay the stigma that will now be attached to all Charing Cross officers both now and in their future careers.

It’s perhaps worth noting at this point that during any 24-hour period, an examination of the CAD system (the computer system that deals with calls to police) which covers Westminster will invariably show acts of bravery, kindness and compassion by Charing Cross police officers.

Not just the police.

Of course, it’s not just the police, whose behaviour and attitudes should be beyond reproach. Dame Laura Cox, was damning when she published her report into the behaviour of male MP’s; 56, according to her report, had been the subject of allegations relating to sexual misconduct.

The NHS too has suffered from allegations of bullying, sexual misconduct and racism which can be found across the service. In 2023, the BMA stated that the ‘corrosive culture of bullying remains in part of the NHS.’

In 2024, Sky News reported that almost a third of female surgeons who responded to a survey the previous year, said they had been sexually assaulted by a colleague while two thirds claimed to have been the target of sexual harassment.

Racism too, within the NHS as opposed to being subject to racist abuse and assault by patients and relatives, remains a problem according to a 2024 survey and report by Middlesex University.

Then we also have the failures at several maternity hospitals which resulted in the needless deaths of mothers and babies.

Yet, these failures do not, rightly, result in the denigration or, and I unapologetically use the phrase again, collective smearing of all NHS staff. However, when policing fails, every officer feels the impact. At present, UK policing is being subjected to an onslaught from social media posts emanating primarily from the far-right. These are often presented in the form of ‘fake’ or distorted news. 

Crass behaviour and communication.

A lost child soon reunited

None of the above, of course, somehow excuses the crass behaviour of the officers exposed during the programme. It does, however, illustrate a lack of balance in terms of the coverage of policing issues. This is, in part, due to the abysmal ‘comms’ departments of most forces who have failed to keep pace with issues created by the advance of social media.

Fake or misleading news can be set in tablets of stone within minutes and subsequent, belated police comms rebuttals have little effect. There are, however very noticeable green shoots of improvement especially from the Met who have been quick to place in the public domain, examples of good police work. They were also quick to correct misleading posts in relation to the recent Unite the Kingdom’ protest and counter protest.

Sir Mark’s comments would have done little to maintain the diminishing morale of his officers. Placing the occasional ‘one liner’ as to the majority of his ‘good’ officers garners no traction amongst the media or, indeed, those very officers. Many of those ‘good’ officers have left or are planning to leave the Met.

As reprehensible and indeed as vile as the actions of those eleven Charing Cross officers were, the fact is that, on a daily basis, the positive actions of those on the Met’s front line massively outweigh the negatives.

Finally, I’ll conclude with this post which was placed on Twitter in the immediate aftermath of the Baroness Casey review.  Dr. Sharpe is one the UK’s leading trauma surgeons.

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