Just who is training these poltroons?

Those CCTV figures are rubbish as I believe they were extrapolated from a high street in a town in the South East and then applied to the whole of the UK.

Ours is not a police state any more than we are riddled with violent crime or over run with immigrants. It is regrettable that certain aspects of our society get an unwarranted amount of attention thus creating a country I don't recognise.

At least in the UK it is not an offence to not have an official ID card on your person as it is in many European states.

Mike

That number was from Nov 2006, suspect a lot more now. Do not personally have a problem with that, if it keeps plod away from me, in any case I think they probably deter some of the extreme violent behavour that used to happen in our cities, often carried out by the Police

Davex.

My typing was too slow

I don't accept the CCTV figures as accurate but would be happy to be proved wrong.

Mike

How many of the cameras are actually privately owned, and how much of the footage is actually ever seen by anyone, even if it is at all legible?

I speak as someone who was a victim of crime recently - and the only CCTV camera in the vicinity – which was privately owned – wasn’t working!

I wasn't seeking to justify such behaviour, nor could I - I was replying to the original thread title. Those that have become de-motivated are the older hands and leaving a career with the amount of superannuation they have invested is simply not an option. If you're angry and alienated, imagine how I feel, seeing the continual decline!

RG

Just as an aside, the last person I heard use the word "poltroon" was Tony Hancock, who said it with delightfully lush extravagance, making it sound quite deliciously disgraceful.

It's one of those words where the intent is clear, but I've never checked the actual meaning in a dictionary.

I have now. It comes from French and is defined as "A dastard" (as in the use dastardly)

"Dastard" is defined as " a cowardly fellow: loosly, one who does a brutal act without giving his victim a chance."

Just thought I'd share that, it's not a comment on the thread.

John, how facinating, I actually didn't know there was a word "Dastard" to correspond with "dastardly" (which of course I know from the Wacky Races if nowhere else!).

Argee, thanks for a revealing insight into the training of our police. It certainly explains a thing or two. Good luck, I wouldn't have your job for all the tea in China!

I will tell you one thing I will never bring any of my camera's to GB.
In fact I think I will just stay on the Continent were I can photograph.

It's not a problem most places, so I wouldn't worry too much about coming over here. You probably won't find many issues outside London.

I used the term 'poltroon' because it popped into my head as an expression in common use on my RAF station many (many) years ago, where it was (mis)used to mean an fool, or idiot. Having said that, I don't think it's a step too far to use in the case of the idiots involved in this situation. Their actions in failing to arrest this woman properly, and then walking off without either apology or explanation, and failing to identify themselves certainly seems to fit the bill.

Why did you ask, then?

Ah, sorry, I didn't realise that you were there at the incident. As we know, every officer behaves exactly the same as every other officer. They're all cardboard cut-outs aren't they? These officers must be the ones to benchmark the entire service against, surely? No, wait a minute, that's called "stereotyping" isn't it?

Stick a fork in me - I'm done.

RG

As someone who has taken their K10d and a bigass Telephoto lens all around the landmarks of London, I've never had any problems with the police.

Isolated incidences of overzealous Police are regrettable, and more so, the constant lack of actual reprimand, despite many statements from official sources confirming the right to take photos, and that the legislation was not intended to be used in this way.

However, I'm not going to let my perceptions of the Police be coloured by a small minority.

I think that you're adopting the right attitude and I follow a similar line but I hope neither of us are guilty of burying our heads in the sand.

Mike

The CCTV numbers came from a BBC report of 2006, here is the link

Since when is it offence that you need to wear a propper ID?
They can only ask for it here when they are doing a preventive surveillance or when you being halted, so they need to have a raeson to ask for your ID.
Really it isn't bad it's just a card as big as a bank pas so I don't see a problem.

If it's 1 to 14 with the cameras then London must be hanging full with them
I believe that we aren't allowed to aim them to a public road for prvicy reasons but I can be wrong about that.

These officers behaved disgracefully. The force has not, apparently, disciplined them, they were not charged with common assault, they were not dismissed. It looks like their bosses were not altogether displeased with their actions. That suggests there may be more around. Perhaps you could point out where I damned every police officer in the country, or even the Met, as being like this crew.

The biggest problem with cases like this is not so much what happened, but the number of officers prepared to either strain reality to defend any action by any officer, no matter how stupid, or alternatively to praise them with faint damns.