Fiona Pilkington case: police face misconduct proceedings | UK news | guardian.co.uk.


I am not arguing with the findings of the IPCC. I don't know enough to do so. Nor am I belittling these tragic deaths. These women were as entitled as you or me to a life untroubled by hooligans. I have a sneaking sympathy however for the police officers concerned.

I am sure, before ever the IPCC ruled, they were already feeling guilty and wondering if they could have done more. Yet how easy was it for them, I wonder, to differentiate Fiona Pilkington's genuine pleas for help from the thousands of false allegations routinely made to them? Inspector Gadget, at his most excellent blog, has often explained how members of the underclass use the police as weapons in their quarrels. They are able to do so because of the stupid rules about treating all complaints equally that were imposed by the last government (and have remained untouched, so far, by the present one). Vulnerable people like Fiona and her daughter are condemned to live alongside an underclass created by the policies of a metropolitan elite that denies - from a place of safety - that such a class really exists. It's not just their car insurance premiums that are adversely affected by their unsavoury post codes. It is also, sadly, their credibility when they cry for help.

A policeman's lot, more than ever in modern Britain, is not a happy one. Like only the most unenlightened of employers, the government expects to replace its workers' intelligence with its own; laying down so many and such detailed guidlelines that they end up using a policeman's arm but not his wits. If our police could (as they used to do) dismiss stupid complaints with contempt, while charging those who make malicious complaints with wasting police time, perhaps they would be more available to those in genuine need. As an additional benefit, the parasitical underclasses would be educated in the need to solve their own problems.

Perhaps the officers in question could have done better. I am sure they wish they had. However, this is another example of the point I made recently about our lives being governed by or, at least, for the worst of us. There is a real sense in which the criminals, chavs and simpletons who waste so much police time are to blame for this tragedy. As most of all, of course, are the scumbag "youths" who tormented poor Fiona beyond her endurance.

As the police officers in this case face disciplinary proceedings for failing to prevent those people from causing this tragedy, I wonder what are the prospects of bringing the real villains to justice?