Crooked British police cover up evidence to hide their social class bigotry

An opera singer who became a policewoman was sacked for cowardice after allegedly failing to help a colleague when he was attacked by yobs. Alison Wheeler, 39, was accused of standing by instead of using her CS spray as PC Rory Channon was punched and kicked to the ground outside a police station.

Former public schoolgirl Miss Wheeler, however, has launched an employment tribunal fight against her dismissal, claiming £350,000 in compensation, and saying her sacking was sexist and ageist, and that she had been bullied throughout her time in the force.

She claims CCTV footage of the incident which showed her intervening in the fight was kept secret from her. And her friends have claimed many officers wanted to force her out, believing that because she had been an opera singer and owned a grand piano she was 'too posh' to be in the police. Miss Wheeler gained a diploma from London's Trinity College of Music and worked as a mezzo soprano for ten years - appearing in operas including the Magic Flute and Eugene Onegin - before joining Surrey Police in January 2006.

A tribunal in Croydon, South London, yesterday heard that a month before her two-year probationary period was up she was told she was being sacked for cowardice, dishonesty and incompetence. Central to the allegations - all of which she denies - was a fight outside the police station in Walton, Surrey, in the early hours of a Sunday in October 2007.

According to PC Channon, who was off duty at the time, he found up to five young men fighting outside the doors of the station, and attempted to arrest one of them. He was then attacked, and tried to make his way into the station while being punched and kicked.

He said he saw Miss Wheeler, in uniform, standing nearby and sought her help. He went on: 'She was shaking her CS gas but was not moving. When she did come, she kept to the other side of the barrier where I was struggling with the male and made no attempt to keep the other males away. She did not use the CS spray and did not use her radio to contact anyone.'

Miss Wheeler's superiors went on to claim that she had shown a 'lack of courage, and failed to take appropriate action to support a colleague'. When she disputed this version of events, she was accused of dishonesty.

But Miss Wheeler, of West Molesey, Surrey, told the tribunal that when she asked for CCTV footage of the fight to help her case, she was told she could not be seen on screen. Months later, however, she saw a copy of the film and it clearly showed her in the middle of the melee, attempting to physically restrain one of the men involved. She said she did not use her gas on one yob because he put his hands up in surrender.

An internal report, completed six months after she was sacked, found the allegation she showed a 'lack of courage' to be unfair. A friend of Miss Wheeler told the Daily Mail: 'Because Alison didn't drop her aitches and once took a day off to have a grand piano fitted, some people thought she was too posh to be a police officer. 'She made the mistake of going to private school too. She is fighting this case to show she was not a coward, or dishonest.'

Original report here



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