David Craig, on November 2nd, 2018(Friday blog)
Introducing top cop – Sara Thornton
If you’ve been keeping up with the news this week, you’ll probably have heard about a speech given by Ms Sara Thornton, chairwoman (chairman? chairperson?) of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC). Thornton, one of the country’s most senior officers, said that police should focus on tackling burglaries and violent crime rather than worthy issues such as misogyny and historical allegations against dead people. And Thornton called for a refocus on “core policing” in response to increasing violence and record-low conviction rates for crimes such as burglary.
She said that investigating gender-based hate incidents and allegations against those who had died were not “bad things to do” but added: “They just cannot be priorities for a service that is overstretched.”
Here’s Sara celebrating getting yet another gong for something or other:
Hooray for Sara Thornton! Hooray for a cop who seems to understand what cops are for! Hooray for real policing!
Following her speech, there have been outpourings of support for Thornton praising her ‘commonsense approach’ to policing and her dismissal of excessive political correctness.
But before we all get carried away by Thornton’s calls for a return to real policing dealing with real crime, we have to remember that, sadly, the venerable Ms Thornton hasn’t always been quite so keen on catching the baddies.
In 2007, Thornton became Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police. But there were a couple of problems during Sara ‘Crook-Catcher’ Thornton’s reign at Thames Valley Police
Problem 1: Not solving crimes
Following an inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in 2010, Thornton accepted that the number of crimes being solved by the force had fallen too low and needed to increase from 14%, which was then the lowest in the country. Ooops. So much for Sara Thornton’s supposedly aggressive approach to dealing with and solving real crimes
Problem 2: ‘Allowing’ Asian grooming gangs
In 2013, seven ‘Asian’ men (nudge nudge wink wink know who I mean?) were convicted for abusing six girls in Oxford between 2004 and 2012. Following this, Thornton apologised to victims and their families saying “We are ashamed of the shortcomings identified …………. and we are determined to do all we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
Here’s our Sara looking a bit miserable at the time of these small problems:
Promoted out of trouble?
However, these two small problems – lowest crime detection rates in the country and possibly turning a blind eye to Asian grooming gangs don’t seem to have harmed Sara Thornton’s police career. On 1 December 2014, it was announced that Thornton would leave Thames Valley Police to become the Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, (NPCC) effectively taking over from Sir Hugh Orde.
As far as I can see, Sara Thornton was an abject failure in her only senior role and has been moved on to a nice comfy desk job where she can opine about policing without actual having to do anything.
#metoo bleats Cressida
Yesterday, once she saw all the positive newspaper headlines her colleague Sara got, up piped the head of the Met Police – Cressida ‘Dick-dodger’ Dick. “I absolutely agree with Sara” Dickless proudly announced. Speaking at the London Assembly, Ms Dick said: “There’s never been a fag paper between us on this…I’m with Sara”. And immediately, Dickless too was receiving glowing newspaper headlines such as “Met police chief Cressida Dick backs senior officer Sara Thornton on tackling burglars and violence – not hate crimes”.
But hold on a minute. This is the very same utterly useless Cressida Dickhead who has seemingly done nothing while London’s crime rates have spiraled out of control and who was so pleased with herself when she could announce that her Met Police had taken “900+” experienced police officers away from front-line duties and dedicated them to the investigation of supposed ‘hate crimes’ while only having 120 police to deal with violent gangs:
Ooops! And double oooops!
Can we trust these two ladies?
I’m sure that most of the public would be more than delighted if these two top cops really have had a Damascene conversion. I’m sure that most of us would be pleased that, after years of climbing the greasy career pole to senior police positions despite failure and due to displaying political correctness above and beyond the call of duty, these two top cops have suddenly realised what the police are actually for.
But can we really trust them? After all, neither seems to have shown much appetite for dealing with real crime and real criminals in the past. Moreover, their claims that we need “traditional policing” are contradicted by the fact that just this week (31 October) the Government launched its new major drive against supposed ‘hate crime’ and ‘thought crime’ which the Government wants to become a major police priority.
If you have a strong stomach, you can read about the Government’s great new ‘hate crime’ campaign on the Government’s own website here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-new-national-hate-crime-awareness-campaign
Read this and weep for our once great country!
As for trusting Sara and Cressida – you can make up your own minds, I know what I think.
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I might just credit Sara Thornton with some integrity, speaking out as she has done against the Home Secretary’s apparent policy of prioritising a few unkind words spoken in haste over stabbings, burglary, vehicle crime and muggings. The despicable opportunist Dickless however, merits nothing but contempt for her swift leap onto the bandwagon as soon as she suspected that not only public opinion, but members of her own profession too, might just be turning against her.
Kojak and Columbo were top cops, George and Regan were top cops. They were top cops cos they caught baddies, locked em up and were pro active in policing to keep the people safe. To use the term top cops for these desk jockey tin foil pc brigade chocolate teapots ins an insult to real coppers who want to police crime not twitter. I believe there are still about 37 out there throughout the uk
Ever wondered why those very expensive(you paid for them) useless aircraft carriers(Hypersonic missiles have made them obsolete) we had built in Germany(how lucky for them, or was it luck?)Dont have any aircraft , you know the Useless and very expensive F-35 (costs are estimated at $406 Billion ,gulp and thats an estimate remember and we are chucking money down the drain on this with them) they are still trying to get it to fly without crashing.
A former Vietnam pilot explains among much else.
http://www.streetwisereports.com/pub/na/18887
These ladies are using the well rehearsed tactic of throwing a few crumbs to the people to half convince them that things are going to change.Don’t believe a word of it the PC bandwagon rolls on.In fact I would not be surprised if it were not a diversionary tactic to mask some other event.They are not softening us up for a General Election by any chance where the Tories can claim to be fighting back against PC.If people have not realised by now that the Con party are not conservative they really are dumb and deserve all they have got and will get.
I think this is a disgusting bluff to convince the public that we need to focus on physical crimes of today, rather than drag up all those historical crimes committed by politicians and former prime ministers. The farce of current child abuse ICSA inquiry seems to be working hard to cover up these Westminster crimes, so I cynically believe this announcement is connected.