Nasty and incompetent British police

A police force that sacked a woman officer for cowardice and incompetence would dump complicated cases in a tray marked 'too difficult', it was claimed yesterday. Former detective Bernard Cambi also alleged there was a culture of bullying and victimisation at Epsom and Esher stations, part of Surrey Police.

Mr Cambi, 63, who served with the Met for 35 years, was giving evidence at an employment tribunal in Croydon, South London, on behalf of 39-year-old Alison Wheeler, a former opera singer, who was dismissed by Surrey Police after allegedly failing to help a colleague when he was attacked by yobs. She claims she was bullied because she was 'too posh' to be in the police and is seeking £350,000 compensation.

Mr Cambi said that while he was working as a civilian investigator in Surrey he found case papers 'gathering dust' for up to a year because staff deemed them too complicated to deal with.

He said: 'I discovered cases not investigated by CID officers at Epsom and Esher police stations who had obviously found them too difficult to deal with and who plainly could not be bothered to do anything but left the papers lying in a draw gathering dust.' He spoke about two cases in particular and explained that he found them 'lying in a tray marked "too difficult" at Epsom police station'.

Mr Cambi claims that senior officers at Epsom and Esher stations were not capable of running their teams and bullied staff members into 'submission'. 'There have been incidences of bullying of staff at Epsom, made worse by the expectation that colleagues would inform on each other, which caused a very uneasy and fearful atmosphere in the offices,' he said.

In support of Miss Wheeler, he gave two examples where he claims her colleagues bullied her. On one occasion Mr Cambi said she was reprimanded by DC Rebecca Humber after going against orders on an arrest.

On the case in question he claimed they were sent to arrest a man whose wife had told police he had firearms and ammunition without a licence. Mr Cambi said they were given no back-up or issued with any protective clothing and were put at 'unnecessary risk'.

In another incident he claims Detective Inspector Jackie Elkins deliberately blocked his attempts to file a good arrest report for Miss Wheeler. Miss Wheeler claims her dismissal was sexist and ageist. She was sacked a month before her two-year probation period was up.

Surrey Police say the former public schoolgirl stood by as colleague PC Rory Channon was punched and kicked outside Walton police station in 2007, a claim she denies. [In British parlance, a public school is what others would call a private school! Social class bias at work, in other words. Britain is full of that]

Original report here



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