Monday 8 October 2012

Want To ‘Win Back Public Trust’? Just Stop Lying!

Shop owner Ian Donald was stunned when an officer turned up at his store in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and accused him of selling pornography next to buckets and spades.
Ho hum, here we go....
The cheeky postcards, featuring women on the beach displaying their bottoms or breasts, had outraged Ashley Steinschauer, an assistant minister at the local church, but the complaint has left some bemused.
And some fuming at the waste of time.
The police officer saw the funny side of it though when I showed him the postcards.’
Good for him! That's the way to get some good PR for the police force. The only better way would be to go and arrest the idiot who decided to call the police for wasting their ti...

Oh. Hang on:
The complaint made to the council was passed on to Trading Standards who told police that obscene images were on sale on the pier.
And perhaps then they should be arrested? After all, if anyone should know when not to call in the police, it should be them?
A Sussex Police spokesman said they could not find any record of a complaint being made to them about ‘saucy postcards’.
Wait... What?!

OK, there goes any sympathy straight out the window. Why look, at worst a liar, at best utterly incompetent about where your officers are and what they are doing?

The police - forever snatching PR disaster from the jaws of victory...

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Incompetent police?

I have nothing but praise for police who are serving a community so well, that even the lawnmower thefts have been resolved to make way for unofficial encounters of the moral kind.

Ivor The Engine said...

Never mind MTG. You can afford another one. Once again a stupid story is used to tar ALL police officers. The officer assigned clearly realised it was shite but he has a job to do ... cue comparisons with the Gestapo - only obeying orders etc...from Noggin the Fuckwit.

Anonymous said...

'Anything you say will be taken down'

Tatty said...

Trading Standards told police about "obscene images"...and police have no record of complaint about "saucy postcards". Spot The Difference.

Whoever asked them for a quote for the newspaper clearly didn't ask the "right" question.

It's all a bit "I Robot", innit.

Farenheit211 said...

Anon at 13:36

Ooo, er missus

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX ‘The police officer saw the funny side of it though when I showed him the postcards.’


A Sussex Police spokesman said they could not find any record of a complaint being made to them about ‘saucy postcards’. XX

Well aye! Copper gets in touch with control and tells them to treat the complainant as an idiot. "Job no crimed", or "No charges to answer" or whatever.

THAT is what you were after in the FIRST place, wasn't it?

ONE day you will make up your mind whether you want this kind of thing recording, and all the time and waste of money that goes with it, or you want the copper to tell the dip shit that reported it to simply "fuck off!"

jaded said...

Dear oh dear Julia,cut and pasting from the Daily Mail!
I expect the normal suspects will be on here later.I fully expect the following to be mentioned; Hillsborough/Tomlinson/De Menzes/radiators.If all in one post then they should get a prize.
PS Melvin,get your grass cut old chap the neighbours are complaining,it's up to your windowsill.

Anonymous said...

What comes within a whisker of imitating intelligence, when all six neurons are plodding along sequentially?

blueknight said...

If Trading Standards had phoned the Police Control room, there would be a message.
If they had phoned the local Police Station,the call taker may not have made a message until the PC came back and reported that it was a genuine job. It wasn't so no message.

JuliaM said...

"Once again a stupid story is used to tar ALL police officers. The officer assigned clearly realised it was shite but he has a job to do..."

Yes indeed. It's not his actions I'm criticising.

"Whoever asked them for a quote for the newspaper clearly didn't ask the "right" question."

Heh! Maybe...

"ONE day you will make up your mind whether you want this kind of thing recording, and all the time and waste of money that goes with it, or you want the copper to tell the dip shit that reported it to simply "fuck off!""

I merely want them to be consistent - if a cop calls and takes no action, I want them to admit that. Not lie about whether anyone attended.

It's never the actual event that hangs you, it's what you do and say about it afterwards!

JuliaM said...

"It wasn't so no message."

That's splitting hairs so finely, an electron microscope is needed.

And it allows the police to be painted as at worst incompetent and at best shifty and lying.

PR Lesson One!

MTG said...


"And it allows the police to be painted as at worst incompetent and at best shifty and lying."

It is your prerogative to suggest the reputation of UK police is maliciously smeared by others....and that it is done so using a paint technique perfected by police themselves.

Yet this resistant image of incompetent and corrupt UK police was established through repetitious tampering with their own documentation; in biographies and impasto styled self-portraits.

jaded said...

Anyone understand MTG? Less thesaurus Melvin,more grass-cutting.

BTW Julia,if you ring my control room don't expect them to know exactly what I am doing every minute of every day.We are not being shifty or incompetent,it's just not practical.You missed the target on this one.I'm sure the Mail will have a few stories today you can use though.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX
I merely want them to be consistent - if a cop calls and takes no action, I want them to admit that. Not lie about whether anyone attended. XX

It does not SAY that "no one attended. It sais;

XX A Sussex Police spokesman said they could not find any record of a complaint being made to them about ‘saucy postcards’ XX

If the local community beat copper was asked to attend to check out "a bullshit complaint", by the desk sergeant, or whatever, and he sees that it really IS a bullshit complaint, then he simply tells the Seargeant that, and it is in the "round file B-I-N." It MAY not have even gone through the switch board, we are not told HOW the complaint was recieved.

Ivor The Engine said...

MTG says 'wibble bibble bobble boo, blip pip bongy boo eek pleek pibble and bling, inky winky dinky doo'

Honestly, that's what I hear in my head whenever I read one of his ridiculous comments.

JuliaM said...

"BTW Julia,if you ring my control room don't expect them to know exactly what I am doing every minute of every day."

Then the statement to the media should be 'I am not certain, but I'll check and get back to you.'

Not a blanket denial, no, not even a shading of the truth as FT suggests.

"It MAY not have even gone through the switch board, we are not told HOW the complaint was recieved."

I refer you to the advice above - the police get enough bad publicity, they don't need to help the media out!