Cops arrest cop in alleged corrupt cop-bung probe

A 52-year-old female police officer was the first cop to be arrested yesterday morning in connection with allegations of receiving illegal payments from journalists. The unnamed suspect was questioned at an Essex police station before being bailed until a return date in April next year pending further inquiries, Scotland Yard …

[dephormation.org.uk]

A member of the force's specialist operations branch..

according to the Independent.

Has there been a statement from AC Cressida Dick (who leads that branch of the MPS)?

[Graham Marsden]

@dephormation.org.uk

Yes, it reads "It's nothing to do with me, can I have another promotion, please..."

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Serious consequences

If found guilty the officer could face as much as two weeks suspension on full pay

[dephormation.org.uk]

DCC Gordon Fraser

... of Leicester police has been suspended on full pay now for 12 months.

[laird cummings]

Truly it must suck

To get a years-long paid vacation.

[Frank 2]

Farce

Apparently this is the first police officer arrested under the investigation, all the other arrests have been journalists. I guess they must all have been getting their information from this one woman, either that or the investigating team has a massive conflict of interest.

I hope the courts make an example of her in the same way as they did the rioters.

[Anonymous Coward]

She's a police oficer, I bet nothing will happen to her..

If a brute of a police sergeant can violently assault a 57 yr old woman on CCTV and not only get off but get his job back. I wouldn't be surprised if this woman will be on full paid jollies for a year or so, be found innocent, get a promotion soon after her return and a year or so later she'll be awarded a few hundred grand in "compo".

[Anonymous Coward]

> I hope the courts make an example of her in the same way as they did the rioters.

I hope the courts will give her a fair trial and, if found guilty, give her a fair punishment.

[Anonymous Coward]

We can all hope.

Unfortunately there's a Newtonian balance to our legal system.

For every unjust conviction there is always an equal and opposite unjust aquittal.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope not

"I hope the courts will give her a fair trial and, if found guilty, give her a fair punishment."

So why should she get treated differently to all the "little people" in this festering realm?

[Andy The Hat]

Come on ...?

Operation Elvedon, Operation Weeting, Operation Tuleta? What's next, Operation Spot the Corrupt Cop ... or is that too obvious and wouldn't require a consultant's fee to come up with the name? (and may require a picture from which lots of coppers have been removed, a black pen and the player's (sorry, investigator's) best judgement to mark a small 'X' where the corruption occured ... the winner gets a knighthood and promoted to the head of the Met.)

[Cazzo Enorme]

The British police, in common with the Briitish army, name their long running operations so they don't describe their purpose. Obviously, in these well publicised cases we know what they're investigating, but in less high profile cases it can obscure the purpose from the intended target even if officers mention an operation by name.

Compare this to the US policy of naming military operations with bombastic names that don't take much intelligence to work out what they're aimed at.

[Lord Lien]

@ Cazzo Enorme

Too right, Operation Get Behind Darkies for Battalion 14 was a complete success!

[graeme leggett]

naming style

Elveden being a place in the country (East Anglia) made me think of operation Countryman, the late 70s investigation into bent London coppers.

Coincidence surely, as Weeting is also an East Anglia village but is the name of the investigation into phone hacking.

[SiempreTuna]

Get away with it?

I know of 2 cops who were dismissed because they found a bottle of lemonade and drank it instead of handing it into lost property - with no press being involved. You really think a WPC, caught up in a national scandal, is going to get away with it if she's guilty?

There is no way on earth her CC is going to stand up in front of the national press to defend letting her off with a slapped wrist. She's going to be thrown to the wolves. Of course, if she's guilty, no more than she deserves.

[Mako]

Not commenting on their punishment, but apropos of the misdemeanour those two officers committed, who on earth drinks something that they have *found*?

Even if it was apparently sealed it would still feel like Russian Roulette to me.

[Rakkor]

Probably nothing to do with getting away wit it

The Old Bill probably wanted rid of one, or both of these coppers and the easiest way is on a technical breach of rules - It's a damned sight easier than trying to sack them because of incompetence – If they’d been Masons they’d have walked away from it with a promotion

[Roger Kynaston]

has anyone advised

her to change the pin number on her mobile phone yet?

[AndrueC]

Her Personal Identification Number Number?

[ArmanX]

Bah, grammar nazis!

I bet you make fun of people who talk about their automatic ATM machines, too! AND their central CPU processors! Probably even those who mention their self contained SCUBA apparatus, or the National NFL League!

That's just FUBAR beyond all recognition.

[AndrueC]

Not to mention E.T the extra testical :D

[Cameron Colley]

Has nobody mentioned liquid crystal display displays?

[Ted Treen]

No.

Only you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet you she quits and all internal charges get dropped.

Interesting that she was not named, maybe the press have something to hide. Has she been some hospital worker or lanlord then before being found innocent we would of known everyting about them as if they were guilty.

Still least , I wonder who told the press that she was arrested. Maybe she did :).

[Mad Mike]

Random

The problem with then police is that investigations into police officers misdeeds almost always leads to an entirely random result, at least from what we see. Police officers who commit relatively small offences, sometimes quite innocently, get hauled over the coals and their lives ruined. Others who commit really serious offences (such as beating people in the cells on camera) get clean away with it. The investigation, punishment and justice in these cases (whether for the police officer or victim) seems really quite random. And I don't believe it is necessarily press pressure in these cases. There are plenty of examples of this.

In Hastings, a naked man is shot dead in his bedroom after a botched raid. What happens to the police........absolutely nothing. How? He was classified as dangerous requiring an armed raid. But, how does a policeman justify shooting someone when they are stark naked and clearly not carrying a weapon. If the police couldn't see properly, that's their fault. They chose to do it at night.

Someone above has said two police officers were dismissed for drinking a bottle of lemonade they found rather than handing it into lost property. Well, if that's true, it seems the opposite; far too draconian. The punishment (or lack of it) never seems to fit the crime.

[Will Godfrey]

OK, so they've made their token arrest. Now we can expect them to get on with the important business of harassing everyone else.

[Graham Marsden]

Congratulations, WPC Smith...

... you win the "Scapegoat of the Year" award!

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Good job it was only one rouge police officer then and not general widespread corruption

[John Smith 19]

She'll be the "One bad apple" as per usual.

Like the one bad apple that framed the Birmingham 6

The OBA that framed the Guidlford 4

The OBA that fitted up the Cardiff 3

But never fear. "Lessons will be learned"

Funny though that you'd have thought the folk on the NoTW would have met someone closer to their home offices around Wapping.

[Shocked Jock]

Nobody else has said it:

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Why should the police investigate the police? Even if everything is above board, no-one will believe it.

Perhaps it's time to introduce a proper prosecution service in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and bring them into line with, well, virtually everywhere else - certainly the rest of Europe.

[Anonymous Coward]

Independent forces

well nominally anyway.

The Met investigating the Met would be very dodgy, getting some (hopefully straight-as-a-die) officers in from a radically different area makes some sense. Perhaps it works as "Set a thief..." and all that.

[DanceMan]

Police investigating police

has been a issue here in Canada. We're only beginning to get a solution here in BC. We've had cops from other jurisdictions investigating and the results have been dismal -- nothing wrong here, move along now.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the UK was smart....

They would yank CNN off the air forever. How can you even use the word "journalist" when talking about payments to cops. That isn't journalism, it's crony fascism.