The Andrew Mitchell Pleb Story Appealed To Anti-Posh Bigots: Police Don’t Only Lie About Poor Blacks
FACE of the DAY: Pc Keith Wallis, 53, arriving at the Old Bailey in central London.
PC Keith Wallis is a liar. The 53-year-old pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office. He lied when he said that he his nephew had heard the then Tory Party chief whip Mitchell call officers guarding Downing Street “plebs”.
He wrote up what he’d witnessed and sent it in an email to John Randall, the deputy chief whip. Randall then showed prime minister, David Cameron. Someone then leaked the story to the Sun.
Mitchell was accused of telling police on September 19, 2012: “Best you learn your f****** place… you’re f****** plebs.”
It remains on the record that officer Toby Rowland says Mitchell called him and his fellow coppers “f***ing plebs” and “morons”. Mitchell was upset that could not take his bicycle through that gate.
Wallis pretended to be a tourist who just happened to hear Mitchell “shouting obscenities at the police officers on the gates”. Mitchell admitted to having sworn. But he denied using those words. He claimed there was a police conspiracy against him. Was there?
The police are sticking to their guns, stating: “PC Wallis has admitted that he lied about witnessing the incident and provided a false account to his MP. Detectives have found no evidence to suggest that any officer involved in the incident at the gate was involved with PC Wallis or aware of the fact he had contacted his MP in this way.”
But Mr Mitchell, Tory MP for Sutton Coalfield, is upbeat, saying: “I am pleased that justice has been done in a criminal court today. It is very sad and worrying for all of us that a serving police officer should have behaved in this way… I am looking forward to seeing justice done in the up to 10 other related disciplinary cases involving police officers so that I can focus all my energy on delivering for my constituents and help David Cameron win a Conservative majority at the 2015 Election.”
So. What happened on September 19, 2012?
Well, the Sun loved it. Get a load of the toff bashing the working classes. How eager was the paper to believe ill of the posh folk? Very.
The Sun claimed that one of the police officers allegedly sworn at was a woman. Earlier in the week Dale Cregan had killed two police women in Manchester. Mitchell was looking bad.
John Prescott told Daily Mirror readers, “this incident is typical of this government’s out-of-touch and stuck-up attitude towards working people.”
In her article for the Guardian, Ellie Mae O’Hagan thundered: “Class-based bigotry is not OK. The fact that Andrew Mitchell’s outburst has been successfully spun into ‘rudeness’ reveals just how entrenched snobbery is…. Years after John Major’s “classless society” and Thatcher’s declaration that “there are only individuals”, the role of class has been airbrushed out of our interactions so successfully that a privileged man can sneer at two working people and avoid any real analysis of his actions.”
That’s bigots for you, always quick to believe what supports their view of the world.
Police used it. Those posho Tories had made them victims. This would get the public to back the brave boys in blue.
Chairman of Warwickshire Police Federation Simon Payne outside the constituency offices of MP Andrew Mitchell, for the launch of a poster campaign against police cuts, in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.
Picture date: Wednesday September 26, 2012.
West Midlands police officers outside the constituency cffices of MP Andrew Mitchell, for the launch of a poster campaign against police cuts, in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.
Picture date: Wednesday September 26, 2012.
PC Mick Callaghan outside the constituency offices of MP Andrew Mitchell, for the launch of a poster campaign against police cuts, in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands.
Picture date: Wednesday September 26, 2012
Pc Toby Rowland, the officer at the centre of the Plebgate row, is to sue former chief whip for libel, the Police Federation said today.
Wednesday December 4, 2013
In the Commons, Ed Miliband said Mitchell was “toast”. Mitchell resigned:
After a meeting between police and Mr Mitchell on October 12, 2013, Inspector Ken MacKaill, from West Mercia Police, said: “I think Mr Mitchell has no option but to resign. He is continuing to refuse to elaborate on what happened. I think his position is untenable.”
Unbeknownst to the police, Mitchell had recorded the meeting. Oh, the irony.
Independent Police Complaints Commission deputy chair Deborah Glass released a transcript of the meeting. We heard Mitchell stating: “I did not say and I give you my word, I give you my word, I did not call an officer an f’ing pleb I did not say you are an f’ing moron and I did not say you should know your f*****g place. I would never speak to anyone like that least of all a police officer and you have my word I never said those things.”
The IPCC wonders why on hearing that the Met did not to start misconduct proceedings.
Police were summoned to explain.
etective Sergeant Stuart Hinton appearing before a Home Affairs Select Committee hearing on the Andrew Mitchell row.
Picture date: Tuesday November 5, 2013. Police Federation representatives Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton and Sergeant Chris Jones will appear before the committee for the second time in as many weeks. Along with Inspector Ken MacKaill, the two officers were accused of attempting to discredit former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell after meeting him in October last year.
Inspector Ken MacKaill, Sergeant Chris Jones and Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton, the officers involved in the disputed meeting with Mitchell, said it was a case of their “poor judgement”. They said they did not “plan or intend to mislead anyone about what occurred”.
The three Federation officers insisted to the Home Affairs Select Committee that they did not owe Mr Mitchell an apology. They stood by their “accurate” account of the meeting. Later, Stuart Hinton apologised to the the home affairs committee for an “inadvertent error” in his earlier evidence.
TV came to Mitchell’s aid.
Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcasts footage from the Downing Street gate. The police version looks iffy. The police logged stated that Mitchell’s swearing had left members of the public “visibly shocked”. But on CCTV, no members of the public were visible.
Wednesday October 23, 2013. Police Federation representatives Inspector Ken MacKaill, Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton and Sergeant Chris Jones were accused of trying to discredit former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell after meeting with him in October last year. The officers, who were representing the forces of West Mercia, Warwickshire and West Midlands, were spared misconduct proceedings by an internal investigation.
As well as the pathetic Wallis, four other police officers face a misconduct hearing in relation to improper disclosure of information over the incident. Two further officers will be subject to local misconduct action relating to providing inaccurate statements or inappropriate comments. A further officer has been recommended for management action in relation to inappropriate comments.
The Times:
PC Toby Rowland issued a letter of claim for libel against Mr Mitchell relating to the issue in the wake of their differing accounts of the heated confrontation in Downing Street. Prosecutors have found there is insufficient evidence to charge PC Rowland with any criminal offence after the row, and Scotland Yard has said he will not face disciplinary action. Mr Mitchell previously said he hoped the officer would give evidence on oath as part of the libel proceedings against the Sun newspaper, however Mr Rowland said he stood by his account of what was said.
The full story has yet to come out.
The police, eh. It’s not only poor, blacks they lie about…
Posted: 10th, January 2014 | In: Reviews Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
