Dear Mr. Field,
I have been following the activities of the police for a while now and have today seen the footage released by the Guardian of, what seems to me, totally unacceptable use of police power on two activists.
This and other incidents say to me that the police are no longer accountable to the public and have become a law unto themselves – no political restraint on their activities being taken so far as I can see.
My questions:
When is action going to be taken on the manslaughter of Mr Tomlinson? Any civilian crime would have long ago been acted upon – and the video evidence seems pretty clear. Who will be charged and when?
What basic principles do the police work by? What is the basic relationship between police, public and politicians? Sir Robert Peel produced the 9 Peelian Principles of Policing (see http://peelianprinciples.wordpress.com/the-principles/ ). They seem to me sound and would certainly stop the kinds of behaviour that we have recently seen.
Why has there been no political action to restrain the obviously anti-public nature of police behaviour at demonstrations? I visited the rather nice, gentle and very English Climate Camp in Bishopsgate during the day – and was stunned to learn that it had been cleared violently in the evening – including the use of police dogs. These quiet people were suggesting that we take more action to look after the planet we live on – surely in all of our interests in the long-term. We don’t set police dogs on the people who are despoiling the planet.
What political action will be taken to resolve the obvious police disrespect for their own integrity? If they wanted to have integrity and be respected by the public, they would take care to remove any bad apples from their own ranks. Their failure to do so speaks more loudly than they realise.
Yours sincerely,
Mike Bennett
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