Swearing at the police

[1964FOX]

Most cops will let you swear at them, in fact there is case law suggesting officers should have a "thicker skin" than the general public in what they have to put up with. It's when people are asked to calm down and become more civil but continue to be aggressive that public order offences kick in and basically they end up getting nicked for being a brainless tosser who doesn't realise a little bit of restraint would sort the situation out.

Cops are only human, if confronted by an unreasonable aggressive idiot they will us their power of arrest if the person concerned continue to act like an idiot.

[skinnydipper]

This is as much about Cameron's weakness and lack of judgement now.

His Chief Whip, whose prime function is to enforce discipline within the parliamentary party, demonstrates an alarming lack of control and judgement at a sensitive time, a few days after two officers are murdered on duty.

Solution - get rid, make a new appointment, let it all blow over and Mitchell perhaps resurfaces a couple of reshuffles down the line.

Mitchell has shown further ill judgement in not resigning to protect the party and Cameron has shown staggering weakness and/or hypocrisy in not taking action himself.

If Cameron wants to show that he is serious about sorting out the problems of Chav culture and anti-social behaviour he should make a start with the yob on the bike.

[The Don]

Gordon brown calls a woman a bigot, John Prescott punches someone, both didn't get sacked!

[Guest]

A sacking is too much. It would shw how weak the Tory leadership are.

A telling off

A public apology

A decent job.

Well 2 out of 3

[Rincewind]

When I went for the job as a steward at LCFC I was asked if I could keep calm when confronted by rowdy football fans. I replied I see no reason to become aggressive myself and staying calm gives the other person no reason to carry on as they are. They want a response and when they do not get it it shocks them.

I also said that I would come off worse if I hit back. I said I was known for my non-confrontation style and keeping calm.

Hope that was a good enough answer but was not offered the position and suggested I'd be better on car park duty. Not heard about that yet.

I suppose you can still come up against some unreasonable people on the car parking side. If you are polite, call the person 'sir' people genually calm down. I expect the policeman did this but if the MP or any member of the public carries on being argumentive or abusive they have to take action for the public's safety his own and the person involved.

[Rincewind]

Suggesting that the policeman has a harder job than the MP is just wrong. As for fraction of the wage, I'd snap your fvcking hand off for a 20k+ starting salary in my occupation.

I think you missed my point. The policeman was doing a job, following instructions as laid down in regulations. I doubt that he lost his temper and swore at the MP but was trying to explain why he could not take his bike through the gates. It does not matter if he agreed with the rule or not, if he allowed one rule for one person and another for a Tory he would be in trouble with his superiors. He did not ask to have a confrontation but had to deal with it in a manner that he has been trained to do.

[Babylon]

This is as much about Cameron's weakness and lack of judgement now.

His Chief Whip, whose prime function is to enforce discipline within the parliamentary party, demonstrates an alarming lack of control and judgement at a sensitive time, a few days after two officers are murdered on duty.

Solution - get rid, make a new appointment, let it all blow over and Mitchell perhaps resurfaces a couple of reshuffles down the line.

Mitchell has shown further ill judgement in not resigning to protect the party and Cameron has shown staggering weakness and/or hypocrisy in not taking action himself.

If Cameron wants to show that he is serious about sorting out the problems of Chav culture and anti-social behaviour he should make a start with the yob on the bike.

A sensitive time? Were they friends or family of those who got shot then. I really don't understand why suddenly coppers need to be treated with kid gloves because someone doing the same job got shot hundreds of miles away. That shouldn't even come into anyones thinking, the only thing that should is that he was a rude git. We really don't need the press dragging out relatives of dead police to somehow make out he's somehow insulted the every dead or living policeman.

If he was in the wrong, the police had and have the power to do something about it. So, if it was so bad just go and do it. Nobody needs sacking, publicly flogging or hanging through the media.

[Guest]

A sensitive time? Were they friends or family of those who got shot then. I really don't understand why suddenly coppers need to be treated with kid gloves because someone doing the same job got shot hundreds of miles away. That shouldn't even come into anyones thinking, the only thing that should is that he was a rude git. We really don't need the press dragging out relatives of dead police to somehow make out he's somehow insulted the every dead or living policeman.

If he was in the wrong, the police had and have the power to do something about it. So, if it was so bad just go and do it. Nobody needs sacking, publicly flogging or hanging through the media.

I agree with you Babylon, but then there's wrong and there's not right.

Here the MP acted poorly and should be reprimanded by superiors and apologise.

The media circus is what it always is. And I can understand anyone , including politicians swearing at the media.

[Webbo]

I agree with you Babylon, but then there's wrong and there's not right.

Here the MP acted poorly and should be reprimanded by superiors and apologise.

The media circus is what it always is. And I can understand anyone , including politicians swearing at the media.

He has.

[Captain...]

What I'm still not sure about is, was the copper correct to tell him to dismount and use the pedestrian entrance, or should have opened the gate?

It doesn't excuse a foul mouthed tirade, but it makes it more understandable, in the same way we can all understand why Prescott punched that guy, doesn't make it right, but it makes it less wrong.

[Guest]

He has.

I know.

Move on.

[skinnydipper]

A sensitive time? Were they friends or family of those who got shot then. I really don't understand why suddenly coppers need to be treated with kid gloves because someone doing the same job got shot hundreds of miles away. That shouldn't even come into anyones thinking, the only thing that should is that he was a rude git. We really don't need the press dragging out relatives of dead police to somehow make out he's somehow insulted the every dead or living policeman.

If he was in the wrong, the police had and have the power to do something about it. So, if it was so bad just go and do it. Nobody needs sacking, publicly flogging or hanging through the media.

Whether you agree or disagree,the establishment give the police special treatment. The murder of a police officer typically results in a longer tarrif on sentence, the politicians and particularly the Tories fall over themselves to be seen as the party of law and order and tough on anti-social behaviour.

The establishment are responsible for elevating the position of the police so when one of them falls below the stsndards that are expected of everyone else they have to take the consequences

[hairy]

What happens if you or I swear at the police

One summer evening, back in August 2005, Andrew Michael Southard was arrested because he swore at a police officer.

Southard and his brother were out cycling when two officers stopped them one evening in central Portsmouth. As the officers searched his brother, Andrew took pictures of the incident on his mobile phone saying, “Don’t ****ing touch me, you can’t touch him.†This and telling the officer to “**** off†led to his immediate arrest.

Southard was charged, and later convicted in the magistrates court, of using “threatening, insulting and abusive behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby, contrary to section 5(1) and (6) of the Public Order Act 1986â€.

Southard’s case is not unusual. Swearing at a police officer is the common cause for many young people (as young as 12 in the case of a pint-sized offender arrested and convicted under the Public Order Act because he called an officer "a willy puller"), ending up embroiled in the criminal justice system.

For many of the young people continuously stopped and searched by police where I live in East London there is a thin line between a routine stop and a hearing at the mags with a criminal record looming over your future. Irritated because this is the second time you have been stopped today? Stopped at a tube station, angry because everyone is staring and thinking you're a criminal? Swear in frustration and they have you, a perfectly legitimate arrest under the Public Order Act.

The Sun newspaper reported today that Andrew Mitchell said to a police officer last week: “Best you learn your f***ing place. You don’t run this f***ing government. You’re f***ing plebs.†A kid in Hackney saying half as much to an officer last Wednesday would be in the magistrates court this morning fighting for bail.

So it is galling that Andrew Mitchell has not been arrested, charged, and made to put his defence to the courts, the way countless young people are obliged to every day.

And it is galling that the media and other politicians are chiding him only for being “discourteous†and “rudeâ€. Even worse, that left-leaning commentators and politicians are only aghast at the use of the word “plebâ€. Those class warriors wringing their hands over Tory snobbery are just as out of touch. Whether or not he said “plebs†is irrelevant if he is allowed to evade the rule of law applicable to the ordinary people.

It is precisely such rampant hypocrisy that fuels the sense of disenfranchisement that contributed to the rioting last year. Then commentators compared looters to MPs fiddling expenses, an odd comparison as the situations are very different. But here, in a rare instance where the experience of a politician mirrors life lived by ordinary people, there is a real analogy to be made. Here we have a politician breaking the law in the same way teenagers do every day, swearing in frustration at a public official. Yet he is not being hauled to court to defend or explain his actions; instead it is trial by Twitter and Radio 4, at worst he may have to resign. Where is the justice in that.

[TrentFox]

Unlike a Tory to think of people as "plebs".

[Steven]

http://www.fosters-solicitors.co.uk/news/crime/is-it-ok-to-swear-at-the-police/206

Is It OK To Swear At The Police?

Mon, 21st November 2011 by Chris Brown

Many of the national newspapers are today carrying the story of the case of Harvey v Director of Public Prosecutions. This case involved overturning the conviction of a young man who repeatedly used the F word in front of two police officers who were searching him.

The case has been widely interpreted as saying that it is acceptable to use foul language at the police and has been widely condemned as a further sign of the legal system being soft on anti social behaviour.

So is it now OK to swear at the police? What does the law say about the language that we hear more regularly on our streets?

In fact, all this case has done is clarify Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986. There is no specific offence of swearing at a police officer, and in fact it is not a specific crime of swearing in public, only of causing “harassment alarm or distress†under the Act mentioned above. This requires some evidence of an individual being, or being likely to be, offended by the language used.

In the Harvey case, the defendant was stopped in a group in the public area of a block of flats. The police wished to search him for drugs and he responded:

"F*** this, I haven't been smoking anything."

He was warned as to his behaviour and threatened with an arrest. Following the search which was negative he said “I told you wouldn't find f*** all.â€

He was further warned, and in response to a question to give his full name he replied:

"I have already f****** told youâ€

He was then arrested and the Magistrates Court found him Guilty of causing harassment alarm or distress. It was this conviction that has been overturned, but sadly for the media, not because the Judge thinks it is OK to abuse the police. This case turned on the fact that the Prosecution failed to provide any evidence that the police were offended by a word that, whether we like it or not, is commonplace. They were not used as specific insults to the officers, just as the words themselves. Because of this the Court could not infer that as “robust†police officers, probably used to that sort of language, that any “harassment, alarm or distress†was caused.If the police had stated they were particularly offended by that word in the context it was used, or if there had been any evidence that other members of the public were present (other than the defendants’ friends, who gave every indication they were not offended) then the case might have been decided differently.

Cases like this make good headlines, and suit the agenda of some of our newspapers who as we know, are perfectly entitled to sit in judgment on public morality given their own recent conduct(!)

But perhaps all that has happened here is that the court have recognised that this is a word now part of everyday language for some, not illegal to use, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, has refused to accept simply using it should be a crime.

Those same courts are often criticized for not moving with the times and not living in the real world, so perhaps we should not be so quick to criticise them when they do. There is an interesting and separate debate to be had about whether words themselves should be illegal, but that debate is for the politicians who draft our laws, not the courts that interpret them

[MooseBreath]

I don't see any reason why swearing at police should be any more of an arrestable offence than swearing at any other citizen. As far as i'm aware the police exist to protect and serve on our behalf. They're not our superiors or our masters. They're not the commanding officers of the troop of citizens. They deserve no more or less respect than the bin man or the office worker or the chimney sweep. Maybe if police officers got off their high horses a bit and actually engaged with communities in a meaningful way they might earn some respect, instead of just expecting people to respect due to fear of being arrested for no reason at all.

[FoxesAreBlue]

I don't see any reason why swearing at police should be any more of an arrestable offence than swearing at any other citizen. As far as i'm aware the police exist to protect and serve on our behalf. They're not our superiors or our masters. They're not the commanding officers of the troop of citizens. They deserve no more or less respect than the bin man or the office worker or the chimney sweep. Maybe if police officers got off their high horses a bit and actually engaged with communities in a meaningful way they might earn some respect, instead of just expecting people to respect due to fear of being arrested for no reason at all.

Agreed

Edit to say that yes, it's not all of the Police that are arrogant arseholes, but a noticeable and significant proportion that I have had to deal with in the past have been, yet I have never been in trouble or arrested I have still been made to feel like a criminal.

[Steven]

I don't see any reason why swearing at police should be any more of an arrestable offence than swearing at any other citizen. As far as i'm aware the police exist to protect and serve on our behalf. They're not our superiors or our masters. They're not the commanding officers of the troop of citizens. They deserve no more or less respect than the bin man or the office worker or the chimney sweep. Maybe if police officers got off their high horses a bit and actually engaged with communities in a meaningful way they might earn some respect, instead of just expecting people to respect due to fear of being arrested for no reason at all.

You can post sensibly if you try.

[1964FOX]

I don't see any reason why swearing at police should be any more of an arrestable offence than swearing at any other citizen. As far as i'm aware the police exist to protect and serve on our behalf. They're not our superiors or our masters. They're not the commanding officers of the troop of citizens. They deserve no more or less respect than the bin man or the office worker or the chimney sweep. Maybe if police officers got off their high horses a bit and actually engaged with communities in a meaningful way they might earn some respect, instead of just expecting people to respect due to fear of being arrested for no reason at all.

You are absolutely correct and most police officers are very nice people and fit the ideal you describe. Problem is there are a few arseholes and like any group of people we remember and judge from our interaction with these.

[Ilkeston_Fox]

You are absolutely correct and most police officers are very nice people and fit the ideal you describe. Problem is there are a few arseholes and like any group of people we remember and judge from our interaction with these.

So true.

[flowwolf]

"If people swear at the police then they must expect to be arrested"

"If people feel there are no comebacks...then I fear they will go on to commit worse crimes"

Why is that man mincing by his bike wearing a stingray over his nose ? and is he hiding Toto under that helmet ?

[Craig]

You are absolutely correct and most police officers are very nice people and fit the ideal you describe. Problem is there are a few arseholes and like any group of people we remember and judge from our interaction with these.

Yeah, I'd go with this. I meet with Police Officers on a daily basis and it's very rare that I come away thinking negatively of them.*

Edit - *As people.

[Houdini Logic]

Most Police officers I have met have been dickheads.

Then again most politicians are dickheads and to be truthful most of the people I meet in any walk of life are dickheads.

Good to see I can make my contribution to this discussion.

[Guest]

There are good and bad police officers but I've found the longer a cop is a cop the more dislikable they become.

They see things on a daily basis that makes them hard and sour and unable to believe the good in people so readily.

[breadandcheese]

http://www.guardian....nspiracy-claims

It's all a bit ridiculous really. Do the police officers here not realise that it only needs one officer to act dishonestly in order to give the entire police force a bad name?

The met's role in the Leveson enquiry was whitewashed. Here is another case of poor met behaviour.