Bend it like Andy

You may remember the case of the Policeman who came over all shy? He was a former Chief Constable, a Deputy Commissioner of Scotland Yard responsible for discipline and anti-corruption and head of the anti – terrorist squad making life and death decisions (not necessarily a metaphor) when he suddenly become bashful, sensitive and upset. Yes, this sensitive soul was Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman of Scotland Yard who was responsible for the Metropolitan Police’s unit in charge of the fight against terror. In December 2007 he decided to retire immediately from his £180,000-a-year post, thereby avoiding a disciplinary inquiry or other action in relation to a number of matters. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) examined Mr Hayman's conduct after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station and later accused the Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner of misleading colleagues and the public. Mr Hayman, who has spearheaded the fight against Islamic extremism since 2005, has also been questioned over allegedly “inflated” expenses claims and trips abroad with Sergeant Heidi Tubby, his staff officer.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/12/policemans-lot.html

His decision to step down was another blow for Sir Ian Blair who recruited Mr Hayman after taking over as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in February 2005. Mr Hayman's former colleagues at the time rallied to his support, claiming he had been the victim of a 'dirty tricks campaign' at Scotland Yard. Ian Blair has since gone and Sir Paul Stephenson has taken over with a stated mission to regain squandered public trust and return Scotland Yard to the basics of policing. As such he is in the tradition of respected reforming commissioners such as Robert Mark and Paul Condon but it has to be asked if the stables need to be shovelled out with such frequency is the design wrong? Just how bad the stables still are can be garnered from this report in the Observer;

"Auditors who have examined the American Express accounts of 3,500 officers involved in countering terrorism and organised crime have reported almost one in 11 detectives to the Metropolitan Police's internal investigators. A senior officer appears to have spent £40,000 on his Amex card in one year, without authorisation. Items bought by others without permission include suits, women's clothing and fishing rods..."

"Sources have told the Observer that some detectives had fallen into the habit of withdrawing hundreds of pounds at a time from cashpoints. Other officers appear to have filled in blank receipts from restaurants to account for cash payments."



Hundreds of Metropolitan Police Officers have been investigated for fraud after widespread abuse of corporate credit cards was revealed. Indeed those who have cards withdrawn equates to 1 in 11 of all Scotland Yard’s plain clothes officers, so there is definitely something badly wrong with the Yardie’s culture of entitlement and basic honesty.

Now you would think Shy Andy would have stayed shy having failed to give an account of himself but no sireee, you would indeed be wrong. For in the greatest transformation since Ernest Saunders cast off incurable dementia Andy “I don’t want to give evidence” Hayman has triumphed over his shyness and then some! For one thing he has appeared in the columns of The Murdoch Times as a “security correspondent” giving his opinion on all and sundry to do with policing, Law and Order. Now those of us of Hibernian origin remember that throughout the Northern Ireland conflict the Sunday Times always had security correspondents who pedalled British Security Service disinformation and smears, all the time quoting unamed “Security Services”. Never mind most of their “splashes” were wrong, no retractions, apologies or corrections were ever forthcoming.


Community Policing

Well Shy Andy continues in this proud tradition of Murdoch Press Integrity, giving forth with his “expertise”. The Government crisis committee that deals with events from flu epidemics to terror attacks was condemned by him as a “nonsensical system.” He said the Cobra committee dragged people away from their real jobs when dealing with a crisis. Mr Hayman, who was head of counter terror operations during the 7/7 bombings in 2005, gave details of Cobra in his book The Terrorist Hunters. He was particularly critical of the shambolic operations of the committee, which he revealed meets in a fortified cellar beneath Whitehall. Senior officials who are dealing with the immediate aftermath of a major event are suddenly dragged into a meeting with politicians, he said. “There's a bomb attack and all hell breaks loose. Everyone scrambles — emergency services, police, intelligence agencies, Government departments — and rushes around trying to deal with it. But within an hour we're pulled off the job and summoned to Cobra.”



He says the meeting room is stuffy and often senior officials wander lost beneath Whitehall trying to find it. He adds: “Of course a meeting should be called to co-ordinate the response, and the role of senior people is to detach themselves from the detail and plan ahead. But in my experience, Cobra fails to do that. The first time I attended, I was in awe. There were more knights there than at King Arthur's round table.”

He said politicians are often plunged into meetings on issues they know little about. Speaking about the 7/7 attack he says: “Take Alistair Darling, who was then Transport Secretary. He was on my case all the time, telling me the Underground needed to be reopened. And I kept asking: Do you want me to secure the crime scenes and get the evidence to prosecute the terrorists, or do you want me to get the traffic moving?'”


7/7 attack on The Tube

Speaking in the Times (where else!) to publicise his book he said: “Sometimes the meetings worked but more often they didn't. People would jockey for position in front of influential ministers, squabbling over places at the table. At times Cobra appeared to be little more than a stage for those looking to impress.” Mr Hayman calls for Cobra to be replaced with a committee made up solely of operational officials.

Well now the publication of the book The Terrorist Hunters by Andy Hayman has been blocked by the Attorney General. Baroness Scotland stepped in at the last minute to obtain an injunction preventing The Terrorist Hunters from hitting the shelves today. The book focused on the struggle against Islamic terrorism in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 attacks on the London Underground which killed 52 people.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/walktalk.html

It also looked at the murder of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko and gave a behind-the-scenes glimpse of top-level political and intelligence work. An advisory notice highlighting the injunction, granted by an unnamed High Court judge, was circulated to news-paper editors at 11.45 last night. Further details of the reasons behind the injunction cannot be published for legal reasons linked to continuing criminal proceedings.

Thousands of copies of the 372-page book were delivered to bookshops nationwide ahead of its publication today. Large sections of the book, co-written by former BBC home affairs correspondent Margaret Gilmore, were also serialised in The Times. Sources close to the publication said it was vetted by officials at the Cabinet Office, MI5 and MI6 but no copy was passed to Scotland Yard.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has complained that he was not given a preview of its contents. He told a meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority last week that he was reluctant to give the book more publicity. But Sir Paul said members of the force's watchdog might like to consider whether senior officers should be allowed to publish such books. He said: “I find it surprising as commissioner that I have no right on this occasion to have access to the book before it is published. It is troublesome and it does not help good conduct.”

One senior police insider said: “There is quite a lot of anger in the Met about the book's contents. No one else's memories of some of the events he describes are the same."

Anyway I leave the final word on Shy Andy to one of his former colleagues in the Blue Brotherhood who left this comment on an Evening Standard article;

“Oh Please! I am no supporter of the current status quo, but we really don't need any advice for Andy Hayman as part of his campaign to publicise his book. This light-weight individual was, by common agreement, one of the most ineffectual heads of counter-terrorism we have had in recent years. He left the post hurriedly with an enormous cloud over his head, so his comments should be taken with a shed full of salt.”

Oh Dear!

"Righteous Kill" poster at Stockwell

Jurors in the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest on the 23rd September 2008 stood in silence at the spot where the 27-year-old Brazilian was shot dead by police marksmen. The six-woman, five-man panel was retracing Mr de Menezes's final steps and went to Stockwell Tube station where the shooting took place. And, Oh dear, here was the poster on the wall behind them!

Here is what the Advertising Standards Authority said, as reported by the BBC;

"A film poster sited at Stockwell Tube station during the Jean Charles de Menezes inquest could have caused serious offence, a regulator has ruled. The poster for Righteous Kill was displayed at the station where Mr de Menezes, 27, was shot dead after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Its tagline read: "There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."

The Advertising Standards Authority said it breached guidelines on decency. "We understood the siting of the poster at the station was unintentional, but nevertheless considered that the text had the potential to cause serious offence in that location," the ASA said in its adjudication. It added that the poster, which also featured stars Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, breached rules on social responsibility."

See also;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-in-london.html

Longford Lecture 2008 - We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis

Once again on a cold London night we proceeded across the yard of Church House, Westminster, to the Hall for this year’s “Longford Lecture” organised by the Longford Trust and sponsored by the excellent Independent Newspaper which is owned by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media. I mention this as the Celtic Sage has read the Independent and admired its non-aligned journalism (Its original strapline was “A Newspaper, not a Views Paper” – although some, including Tony Blair, would dispute this now) even before it was Irish owned. Tony O’Reilly has long been associated with the Ireland Fund and the support for the lecture is admirable.


Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham)

Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham) was from the Anglo-Irish tradition and remained sentimentally attached to Ireland even though he probably broke every tradition of his Anglo-Irish ascendancy family. He was born into a military, Protestant, Conservative and Unionist clan, and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. As an adult, he embraced the Roman Catholic Church and Irish nationalism. His failure to follow his soldier father, who was killed at Gallipoli when Longford was nine, remained an open wound. Longford's memory will live on, if not for the scale of his achievements then certainly because of his courage, tenacity and nobility in trying. He was a man of great intelligence and moral strength and the speakers and themes of the “Longford Lectures” reflect his life’s work. Last year’s lecture was on the theme of “Changing History” by the President of Ireland, Professor Mary McAleese, (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/longford-lecture-2007-changing-history.html ).

This year, as a one-off, the trustees decided to stage a debate, chaired by Jon Snow on the theme “We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis” The four principal speakers were Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Jason Warr, former Longford Scholar, now a Cambridge criminologist, and Phil Wheatley, director of NOMS, the National Offender Management Service.

This is the latest in the annual series of lectures organised by the Longford Trust on questions of social and penal reform. Past speakers have included President Mary McAleese of Ireland, Clive Stafford Smith, Brenda Hale QC, Cherie Booth QC, Archbishop John Sentamu and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Trust also awards an annual Longford Prize to an outstanding individual or organisation working in the field of prison and social reform. It funds Longford Scholarships for ex-prisoners who want to rebuild their lives through education. And it offers financial support to Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners.

Offenders sentenced to community punishments should be forced into uniform to restore flagging trust in the criminal justice system, Sir Ian Blair declared last night. In his first public appearance since his resignation a month ago, the outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner argued such sentences had to be shown to be effective to win public approval. Sir Ian also called for early intervention with youngsters to deter them from carrying knives and cast doubt on the drive to build more prisons.

Speaking at the annual Longford lecture he said: "One of the things we are going to have to do is move towards is the very unpalatable situation where community punishments are visible.”They are in uniform, on the streets, doing jobs and people can see people are being sentenced to community projects that do not seem very pleasant." He explained that the public needed to see that community punishments were not a soft option. He added: "If they don't understand it's happening they will want people locked up."


Sir Ian Blair

The Commissioner asked: "Why do so many people think prison is the only answer? An element of the media and political community argues that the only good thing is to lock them up and everything else is namby pamby." Sir Ian, who leaves his post on 1st December, refused to discuss the background to his departure or shed light on his plans. Turning to the spate of knife murders in London, he said: "We can't arrest our way out of this. The only way we can stop this is to stop young people believing they have to carry a knife for their protection."

The Government has drawn up plans to open another 10,000 prison places, with up to 7,500 in three "Titan" jails. But Sir Ian suggested prison should be reserved for violent and persistent criminals. The public had to be confident fines were paid and bail bandits were punished by prison, Sir Ian argued. They should also be informed about the outcome of local court cases.


Church House, Westminster

The Labour peer Baroness Kennedy, a leading human rights lawyer, attacked "Titan" jails plans, saying that large prisons were less effective than smaller jails at rehabilitating offenders and tackling suicide and self-harming among inmates. She condemned the booming prison population as a "shame" on the nation, stating that Britain had more prisoners per head than Libya. Lady Kennedy said: "There is no way we can build our way out of a prisons crisis. It is a shame on society that we have as many people in prison as we do. Since 1992 we have doubled the number of people in prison. We are the prison capital of Western Europe. We have seen a Dutch auction between the political parties about who is tougher."

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

Phil Wheatley, director general of the National Offender Management Service, said he had no direct influence over the number of people behind bars. He argued that the size of prison estate was the result of politicians' and judges' decisions. But he acknowledged that the public tended to take a hard-line view on dealing with offenders and politicians had to take that into account. Before the lecture, Grendon Prison, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, received the annual Longford Prize in recognition of its work in rehabilitating violent offenders through intensive group therapy.


Frank Longford said often during his life that he would like his epitaph to be ‘the outcasts' outcast’. It summed up a long career as a politician, writer and campaigner on social and prison policy which was all about standing up for the unpopular, the unloved, the underdog and those on the margins of society. He was first a minister in Clement Attlee’s post Second World War Labour government, where as Deputy Foreign Secretary he played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of West Germany. From 1964 to 1968, he was a member of Harold Wilson’s Cabinet.

He started visiting prisoners in 1930 and continued until his death. He was assistant to Sir William Beveridge on his landmark report of 1942 which laid the basis for the Welfare State. In 1956 he founded New Bridge, one of the first organisations in Britain seeking to create links between prisoners and the community, and in 1963 chaired the committee on crime whose recommendations led to the establishment of the parole system. On leaving the government, he launched New Horizon, a charity for young people in need.

The Pakenham Family have roots in both Ireland and England and have influenced both countries over the years. In Dublin they are commemorated in Longford and Aungier Streets and the former Pakenham Hall near Castlepollard in Co. Meath was renamed Tullynally (The Gaelic name) by Tom Pakenham (The current Lord Longford, although he does not use his titles) when he took it over in 1961. Tom Pakenham is himself an author and historian of note as are his sisters, Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Judith Kazantzis.


Tom Pakenham


Lady Antonia Fraser


Rachel Billington

The plight of the underdog motivated Frank Pakenham throughout his life and although he is associated in the public mind with his campaign to free the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley, many would argue she was an unworthy focus of his attention and obscured his wider message about penal reform, a concern which is even more pressing today when Britain, despite the evidence of failure, locks up proportionately more of its population than any other European Country.

In its bid to establish itself as the party of law or order, Tony Blair’s Labour government introduced a series of draconian measures, including a tougher sentencing policy for petty offenders. The fact remains that in the UK so many prisons are bad and most prisoners are not re-educated or rehabilitated but come out more corrupted and go onto re-offend. Of the current prison population of over 80,000 shamefully it is estimated that over one in eleven prisoners are ex-service personnel who have developed mental, alcohol or drug problems after leaving the forces and 8% are foreign prisoners. A high proportion of the convicts interviewed in the study had suffered some form of post-traumatic stress disorder after leaving the forces. Often their convictions were for drug- or alcohol-related violence. Ex-services charities said the findings highlighted the difficulty which many former soldiers face in making the transition to civilian life. The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO), which carried out the research, called on the Government to do more to tackle mental health problems suffered by people who have fought in war zones. It said that around 24,000 veterans are either in jail, on parole or serving community punishment orders after having been convicted of crimes. They make up around nine per cent of the prison population.

The relative number of women prisoners is rising even more sharply than that of the male inmates—more than doubling since the mid-1990s. Twice as many women are jailed for their first offence compared to men, while few female offenders pose any threat to the public. The frequent imprisoning of mothers has an enormously disruptive effect upon their children and family life. One third of women imprisoned in British jails have children under the age of five.

Prison Inspector reports in some prisons show eleven per cent of inmates claimed to have been assaulted by officers at the jail and one mentally-disturbed prisoner had been denied a wash or change of clothes for weeks because staff thought he was faking his illness. The Prison Officers Association has said that because of understaffing at many prisons “they have been unable to provide the basics, like showers, clean clothes and mail, on a regular basis." They said this had also led to high levels of sick leave among officers. Their General Secretary commented; "At the end of the day cash is king and while there are votes in health and education, there are no votes in prisons, which means they will continue to be under-resourced," he said.

So the cause that Lord Longford espoused and which his charity and the Longford Lecture seek to remind us of is even more relevant than ever and Britain as a society remains challenged by the disconnect between cause and effect in its Penal Policy. As for Frank Pakenham himself we should remember the quality of his humanity and commitment to the underdog best, and affectionately, summed up by his daughter Judith Kazantzis in her introduction to the Longford Prize;


Judith Kazantzis

“While he had his strength, he never failed to answer the prisoners, often despairing and lonely, who appealed to him for practical help or just friendship. When I think back over the years to countless phone calls from unknown men, ringing to ask for Frank, or for Lord Longford, maybe to report progress on their case, or just to confide, I see how he was an inspiration from my student days, in the deepest sense: in his belief in equality and justice, those two pillars of a truly free society.

No one is less free than the prisoner. How simply I heard my father put this: how irrefutably. He said that society cannot go on punishing and punishing the prisoner, who is already punished with the loss of his freedom, with the key thrown away. The prisoner must be treated with human dignity. He or she absolutely must be offered the chance of a new life after prison.

My father drew every day until he died from the teachings of Jesus Christ. The prodigal son was a story we read to him on his deathbed. He himself was prodigal in his prison visits, often in the worst of weathers, seeing complex, long incarcerated people at the end of exhausting journeys. He was prodigal just as much in his public speaking out for reform of our prison system. I believe he had it right: to work for the individual, to fight for the wider change, like one hand holding the other hand.”