Those of us who have been calling for the forced removal of Sir Stephen House as chief of Police Scotland won’t be taking any delight at the announcement he is to step away from his post before the end of this year. Instead, we will be waiting with some trepidation to learn the identity of House’s successor.
Presumably, the SNP will find out the identities of those who advised Kenny MacAskill to appoint House and ensure they are kept well away from Michael Matheson, the rookie justice minister who is already showing early signs that he, like his hapless predecessor, is falling under the sway of House. MacAskill, a well-liked justice minister and as honest as they come, paid with his career for allowing House to dictate, and to be seen to be dictating, the government’s agenda on law and order.
The news that Scotland’s police chief is to leave his post almost a year earlier than planned is an opportunity for the Scottish government to hold a public inquiry into the customs and practices of Police Scotland. They will resist this though, for the SNP, despite the party’s loud commitment to being the edgiest and most enlightened party on the planet, is actually about as radical as the social committee of an over-60s glee club.
This Holyrood administration has shown that, like every UK government since the dawn of what passes in this country for democracy, when it comes to law and order the police can do no wrong and will always be above suspicion. It’s a sort of cultural sleeping sickness that leads inevitably to catastrophes such as the false imprisonment of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four; systematic police thuggery during the miners’ strike and the cover-up of police incompetence and neglect at the Hillsborough tragedy.
I suppose there is a grim and perverse sense to the UK establishment choosing to look the other way when the police are found to have acted violently, incompetently and in a corrupt manner. In return, they will expect the police similarly to overlook the establishment’s peccadilloes and perversions. It might explain why there was never an investigation into police violence on the picket lines during the 1984 miners’ strike and why the police seem to have refused to investigate claims of the existence of a paedophile ring numbering members of the Westminster and judicial elite among its ranks.
In a civilised society, only one rule should underpin the way it controls and deploys the police force: keep them on a very short lead and remember always that, ultimately, they are a necessary evil. To keep our streets free of crime and to protect our citizens, we reluctantly grant the police extraordinary powers. These include the ability to deprive each of us of our liberty on only the merest suspicion of wrongdoing in the knowledge that a conservative judiciary, swivel-eyed in its reactionary instincts, will always find in favour of the plods.
As such, while there is a majority of good and well-intentioned recruits, the police force is also a magnet for an assortment of dysfunctional and resentful psychotics who will exploit the powers given to them to make life as uncomfortable as possible for the rest of us. As the well-known former Glasgow detective Gerry Gallagher revealed in his recent book, membership of the masonic brotherhood keeps everything tight and regular.
Nicola Sturgeon ought to be reminded of the consequences of failing adequately to police the police: her party lost a decent justice minister because of it. Trust and confidence in our police force on the streets have never been at lower levels. One policing failure after another throughout the reign of House has left his successor with a massive task in restoring some approximation of public confidence.
The Scottish police have been found guilty of a catalogue of misdemeanours and are facing questioning on several other serious issues. On House’s watch, it has been deemed acceptable for police to carry weapons in public places for no apparent reason and, in record numbers, stopping and question members of the public going about their lawful business. Crime-solving figures with no bearing on reality are circulated by a gullible coterie of trusted journalists to convey the impression that Scotland is a safer place. A bizarre summit on sectarianism was convened by House and then used to criminalise hundreds of young, working-class men for singing disagreeable songs.
The police in Scotland still have serious questions to answer about the violent death in police custody last month of Sheku Bayoh in Kirkcaldy. The family of this 31-year-old man, who had no previous history of crime, have acted throughout their ordeal with dignity. This is in contrast to the manner in which some journalists have been drip-fed a constant stream of poison by shadowy sources designed to denigrate the character of Mr Bayoh.
The incoherent and cruel response by the police to the deaths of John Yuill and Lamara Bell last month is also quite astonishing. It took police three days to respond to an initial report of the crash that killed this young couple and, predictably, House and the gullible Matheson attempted to pin the blame on the shoulders of a lone police telephone operative. Only now is news beginning to emerge of absenteeism, staff shortages and low staff morale at the control centre where the fateful call was first received.
Predictably, all the bodies representing the interests of the police in Scotland (to name them all would take up half of this column) lined up to praise House. If they were sincere in their sentiments about the incompetent former chief constable, then truly, this country has a problem. But it should be remembered that the platitudes came from men scrambling for an MBE or some other such low-lying fruit on the establishment tree.
Only a full inquiry into the conduct of Police Scotland, its leadership, its values and its rotten little secrets and rituals, will begin to address lost public trust in the police. Sadly, this conservative and acquiescent SNP administration will do what governments on these islands always do and shuffle by silently on the other side.
