Mersey Blues
Memories of a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
A repeat programme broadcast
on BBC2 TV; Sunday evenings during August 2000.
Episode 1. We see officers go around
smashing down the doors to two houses. They get lucky at the first. Having broken
in they answer the telephone and trick a caller into coming to the house. Finding
the man has a large sum of money on him they naturally want to know why. He answers
that it belongs to his business. They raid his business premises and find a sawn
off shotgun and a large quantity of drugs. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) later
say that there is not enough evidence to prosecute anyone!
The next house they raid
though is the one that sticks in the memory. Here they destroy the front door with
a sledge hammer and burst in. We see a small child, absolutely terrified, screaming
and running to find his mother. She comforts him and no doubt tells him these are
only nice kind policemen. All they find is a small quantity of recreational drugs
in a kitchen cupboard. I am left wondering whether the CPS believe that there is
enough evidence here for a prosecution?
Episode 2. We see officers eating fish and
chips and moaning about the Force being short of money to pay for overtime. A man
is arrested on suspicion of murder. Another man with a criminal record had been found
shot and was dead.
Episode 3. The man’s wife and father gave the accused an alibi.
We later learn that the man who had been shot and killed owned the weapon. He had
got into a car with the man charged with his murder and that man’s brother-in-law.
The man with the gun had put the weapon to the head of the accused who had brushed
it aside, his brother-in-law had grappled with the gunman and the owner of the gun
had been shot and killed. His body had been pushed out of the car and dumped in the
street.
In order to save his wife and father from being prosecuted for perjury the
charged man agrees to plead guilty at his trial to manslaughter and gets a ten year
sentence (later reduced on appeal to six). His brother-in-law had at some time during
this period told his solicitor the truth. The solicitor said that under the rules
he could not now represent him and found him another solicitor. The TV production
team showed via flash-backs that the police had worked out the true story but were
content with the wrong outcome. A policeman was seen to comment that the whole family
deserve to go to prison because they had not told them the truth in the first place.
I wondered whether that included their children? This seemed a case of self-defence
to me and the wrong man being imprisoned.
Episode 4. The last episode was about the
downfall of one of the officers we had been watching in action. Well respected by
colleagues he had 32 years of service in the police force. He had risen to be deputy
head of the drug squad. A friendship with a showbiz person, who had schoolboy links
with a man who had become a drugs baron, led to this policeman being approached for
information to clear a member of a gang charged with a serious crime. The officer
refused but did not report what had happened to his superiors.
After being refused
promotion he was again asked. This time embittered, he obliged, not knowing that
he himself was under surveillance and his home had been bugged. This revealed what
he had done. Disgrace and a five year prison sentence followed and yet the information
he gave was on the whole the truth. Another officer had lied about the matter involving
the gang member and was in trouble himself. Some kind of stitch-up was in progress?
Conclusion.
It would seem that if a policeman is bent for the job that is OK but bent for himself
and he gets treated the same as the rest of us. C’est la vie!
(Mind you, he did ask
for ten grand for the information!).
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org