At last . . . a policeman who isn’t just a political pawn
IT’S not often that I have a good word to say about police chiefs. Greater Manchester Police bosses forced me out of a job I loved and top brass everywhere are usually too busy doing the bidding of politicians.
But there are still a few who aren’t political pawns. One is Mike Veale, the inspirational Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police.
Mr Veale has given a textbook demonstration of how the police should be free from political interference and able to
investigate crimes without fear or favour.
He has been subjected to fierce Establishment criticism for investigating sex abuse claims against former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath.
Lesser police chiefs would have dropped the investigation by now, but not Mr Veale. He’s doing exactly what police chiefs should be doing – investigating serious complaints and not being deterred by the fact his force could arrive at a very inconvenient truth.
All too often, the threat of uncovering something politicians don’t want the public to know stops investigations in their tracks.
I know because it happened to me. As a detective for Greater Manchester Police, I spent years working on murders, rapes and child protection issues, helping eventually bring the Rochdale grooming gang to justice.
In 2004, I went to bosses and warned them that large numbers of Asian men were violently abusing white girls.
Even though I had strong evidence that would lead to convictions, the investigation was closed down. The police did not want to go there.
They were worried about damaging ‘community cohesion’. And the more I pushed for justice, the more I came under attack from bosses.
My chief constable said I was ‘too emotionally involved’. I was bullied, isolated and I eventually collapsed at work in a sergeant’s office due to severe stress.
I had no choice but to resign in order to speak out publicly and expose the truth. As a chief constable, Mr Veale is harder to silence and he is right to stand his ground.
Tim Fortescue, a Whip in Heath’s Government in the 1970s, boasted he could cover up a ‘scandal involving small boys’.
So there are very reasonable grounds to investigate allegations from this time.
I wish there were more like Mr Veale. When we return to a culture where police can follow the evidence without being petrified of the political consequences, we’ll all be better off for it.