Why I despair for policing, writes former police chief

Why I despair for policing today: We need an urgent reset to restore order in the face of anarchy, writes former Chief Superintendent PHILIP FLOWER

Like everyone else in the country, I was shocked to hear about the appalling shooting of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Liverpool on Monday night.

For a child to be killed by a gun-wielding hitman chasing his prey into a family home is a damning indictment of the state of society and modern policing.

Indeed, when I see the lawlessness rampant on Britain’s streets, I fear we are descending into anarchy.

Only 24 hours before Olivia’s murder, council worker Ashley Dale, 28, was shot dead in the garden of her home less than two miles away. Meanwhile, we are in the grip of a nationwide knife-crime epidemic, and the Met is investigating 67 murders in London so far this year.

Across the country, senior officers appear to have completely lost sight of their basic role: to catch and deter criminals. Their junior colleagues, the products of a woke education system, often have totally unrealistic notions of what their job entails. They are deployed without appropriate training — and often behave in ways that shame the force.

Increasingly, policing resembles a political activity. Some officers appear to regard painting their faces and dancing at Pride festivals, or taking the knee in solidarity with the hard-Left’s Black Lives Matter movement, as their duty — instead of keeping the peace.

Olivia Pratt-Korbel (pictured) was senselessly murdered in her home in Liverpool at bedtime on Monday

The scene of a knife attack in Leeds where a group of males were caught on camera fighting with 4ft long machetes

Dozens of youths caught on camera rampaging through a McDonald’s leaping over the counter stealing drinks and food as terrified staff watched on

Lincolnshire Police officers are filmed dancing the Macarena at Pride festival amid unsolved crimes across the UK

A multi-millionaire was driving his £3million Bugatti Chiron when he was attacked by armed thieves attempting to steal his Rolex in west London

A horrific video captured the moment two men attacked and allegedly held a woman at knife point in London on Monday

With the exception of murder investigations and pointless arrests over ‘offensive’ comments on social media, every aspect of policing has broken down.

Drug-dealing, burglaries, car theft, dangerous driving, mass shoplifting raids and all kinds of other crime seems to go increasingly unchecked.

It’s a shocking situation, and I’m afraid it’s getting worse. Videos posted online in recent days reveal that all kinds of crime are becoming ever more brazen.

On Tuesday night, masked men fought each other with machetes in Leeds.

On Sunday, a screaming mob of about 50 young people stormed and looted a McDonald’s restaurant in Nottingham, abusing and threatening staff, robbing the premises and filming themselves while they did so. An ‘investigation’ is supposedly under way, although no arrests have been reported.

Another film doing the rounds yesterday showed two muggers setting on a couple in broad daylight in London’s Mayfair before leaping into a car and driving off. They didn’t care that neighbours were yelling at them, filming them and threatening to call 999.

The possibility that any police officers were within shouting distance, or would do anything about the crime if they could, was virtually zero — and the robbers knew it. Nearby at Hyde Park Corner on Sunday, two thieves on mopeds attempted to mug a man in a Bugatti supercar — and were again filmed while doing so. They were probably trying to snatch his wristwatch: 67 watch thefts were reported in the capital last month, more than two a day.

The litany continues. In Oxford Street, a gang of youths jumped and stomped over a Ferrari, simply because they could, while others rampaged into a sweets superstore and grabbed everything they wanted.

Gang attacks like these are now commonplace across the country, and videos uploaded to Twitter and YouTube show the teenage thieves rarely bother to cover their faces.

Why would they? The chances of arrest and prosecution are vanishingly small. Crimes that would have ended with a spell in borstal 40 years ago are now routinely ignored.

Shamefully, recorded crime in England and Wales is now at a 20-year high, according to figures released last month by the Office for National Statistics. Some 6.3 million crimes were reported to police in the year to March 2022, with rape and other sexual offences, violence against the person and stalking and harassment all at record highs.

Forensic experts continue to examine the scene of the shooting in Kingsheath Avenue, Liverpool on Wednesday

Amid this tsunami of human misery, just 5.6 per cent of offences reported to police led to a suspect being charged or summonsed — a new low.

As recently as 2014-2015, some 16 per cent of reported offences led to a suspect being charged. That figure has collapsed.

Without the police taking dangerous criminals off the streets, the fabric of society begins to fray.

And that is what we are beginning to witness.

Like my former colleagues in the force, and like many serving officers today, I feel anger and despair at this terrible situation. And the increasingly woke mindset of some police is scarcely helping matters.

Which leads me to the farcical spectacle seen at Lincoln’s annual Pride festival last Saturday. Four officers in shirtsleeves danced the Macarena, waving their arms and jumping on the spot in a synchronised display that had evidently taken some rehearsal.

‘All fun down at Lincoln Pride,’ crowed the force’s Twitter account. Even when the video was denounced as embarrassing, Lincoln’s Chief Constable Chris Haward couldn’t see anything wrong with it.

‘Pride is one of the many wonderful community events we are there to police,’ he said, ‘but also to allow people to look behind the uniform and see who we are.’

Toe-curling nonsense. The uniform is exactly what the public should see. It ought to inspire respect and represent probity.

Yet, as I see it, growing numbers of police are disgracing their uniforms by behaving in utterly inappropriate ways while wearing them.

A number of forces have plastered their cars in the rainbow livery of the Pride movement, while at least one officer has been pictured with his policeman’s helmet painted in rainbow hues. In a sense, this tiresome virtue-signalling would not matter if the police were doing their essential work keeping the streets safe for minorities. But they are failing to do so.

According to figures obtained by the Vice news website, in the past five years alone reports of homophobic hate crimes almost tripled from just over 10,000 in 2016-17 to almost 27,000 in 2021-22.

Several horrifying ‘gay-bashings’ have taken place, with innocent gay men hospitalised.

A young girl lays a tribute in Kingsheath Avenue, Knotty Ash today following the shooting of a nine-year-old girl

If the police truly wanted to ‘reach out’ to the gay community, that is what they would be tackling, instead of parading empty gestures with a rainbow flag.

Britain’s economy is in freefall. With fuel prices spiralling out of control and inflation predicted to soar above 18 per cent, protests this winter are a safe bet.

A few lawless, aggressive people could easily escalate these peaceful protests into looting and violence, just as they did in 2011, when thousands rioted across England and five people died.

When the police are no longer seen as a genuine deterrent, some people will feel emboldened to act beyond the law. And Britain’s policing deterrent has worsened severely since those riots over a decade ago.

So I fear for the safety of our streets this winter. Radical action is needed. My proposal is for a royal commission to examine every aspect of the police and redefine its purpose, with a shake-up at every level including how to keep politics out of policing.

Britain cannot continue to be a country where dealers are free to sell drugs in every park and street corner, where break-ins are routinely ignored, and where police officers disgrace their uniform by dancing at political marches.

I was deeply proud to be a copper. Now I am ashamed of what the police have become.

• Philip Flower has donated his fee for this article to the Metropolitan & City Police Orphans Fund.

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