http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1759316,00.htmlUndercover PC exposes sex bias
Secret filming reveals officers dismissing rape cases, watching pornography and ignoring calls
David Smith
Sunday April 23, 2006
The Observer
Police officers have been caught by a secret camera gloating at pornography, making sexist comments to female colleagues and refusing to believe allegations of rape.
A four-month undercover investigation by Nina Hobson, then a serving constable in the Leicestershire force, exposed a male chauvinist culture in which a policeman was told by his senior officer to take a claim of rape 'with a big pinch of salt'.
In her TV footage Hobson records a male officer who had received a complaint of rape from a prostitute and consulted a senior officer before leaving the scene. Later he recalls the advice his inspector gave him: 'Yeah, just tell her if she wants to report it she reports it to us next week when she's ready ... take this with a big pinch of salt ... in my experience they'll come forward and help each other out.'
Hobson commented later: 'The officer who raises that comment was the first officer at the scene of a prostitute rape, and when he was relaying the details to his senior officer, it was then, "Take it as a pinch of salt", meaning it's a prostitute, they do this all the time, it might not be genuine. If a young officer is getting that sort of instruction from a senior officer, what hope have we ever we got of changing the attitude of particularly men in the police force to how they deal with a rape - be it a prostitute rape, a domestic rape or a stranger rape? They're all rapes.'...
In a separate piece of footage, two male officers visit Hobson's home when they should allegedly be on duty patrolling the M1. They encourage her to watch 'disgusting' pornography on a mobile phone, apparently featuring a woman and a horse. One of the male officers makes an attempt at humour: 'The woman in that died three days later.' Hobbs also finds pornographic posters displayed at a police station.
During a busy Friday night, as the police attempt to control crowds, Hobson is sent on an errand by her sergeant, who tells her: 'You want all the testosterone you can get. And you haven't got any.' She explained later: 'He says, "I'm sorry Nina that I gave you that job, but at the end of the day, you were the woman, it's kicking out time, and I want blokes out on the streets for any fights that might happen.'
The film also shows police on patrol playing 'hide and seek' in their cars or fetching Chinese takeaways while pretending to be busy. Officers play poker and cricket in the custody suite while Hobson is waiting to bring in a prisoner. Two officers coming to the end of their shift ignore reports of a woman being roughed up by a man. A senior officer tells Hobson and her colleagues that the antidote to an incapacitating spray, Captor, should be reserved for officers not prisoners, and admits: 'I think if that went out in the public domain there might be trouble.'
Its pretty fucked up that the state uses the absolute scum of society to police the rest of it...although it makes sense because you'd think that the only people who would want the job of enforcing capitalist 'justice' would be a bunch of chauvinist, macho power-mad sadists.
