‘Orders’ to enforce curbs left us stuck in the middle, say police
A FORMER police chief has hit back at Matt Hancock’s “marching orders” to crack down on the public during the Covid pandemic, saying officers were “stuck in the middle”.
Whatsapp messages in The Lockdown Files disclose how Mr Hancock and colleagues gave officers “orders” to enforce lockdown measures days before No 10 staff held a party in Downing Street.
Despite ministers claiming in public that the police were operationally independent of the Government, the leaked messages reveal that senior officers were hauled into No 10 to be told they should be stricter with the public.
In an exchange in August 2020, Simon Case, then a permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, asked Mr Hancock, the then health secretary: “Blimey! Who is actually delivering enforcement?” Mr Hancock replied: “I think we are going to have to get heavy with the police.”
The leaked messages show the pair again discussed their fears that police were not tackling alleged lockdown breaches. After a meeting on Jan 10, 2021, after another lockdown had begun, Mr Hancock wrote to Mr Case about meeting with senior police officers. The message finished by saying: “The plod got their marching orders.”
Reacting to the disclosures yesterday, Sir Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police between 2008 and 2015, said: “Lots of people in the police won’t be surprised at the tone of these remarks.
“This legislation was rushed out, it was confused, it had poor definitions, there was this constant confusion between what was legislation and what was guidance. Often it seemed ministers themselves didn’t understand the impact of the legislation.”
Sir Peter suggested he would not have rolled over had he been called in and told to get tough.
“The conversation would be ‘sorry the legislation is not clear enough, the definitions are not clear enough, we’re trying to do our best but you’ve not given us the powers to enforce the legislation’. I know those were the messages going back into Government,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The former officer of 34 years said “police were stuck in the middle” as some members of the public wanted stronger enforcement, while others “felt it was turning into a police state”.
Police forces were repeatedly criticised for being over-zealous, prompting Neil Basu, then the Met Police assistant commissioner, to warn, in this newspaper, “how we police this pandemic will be remembered for years to come”.
Police in England and Wales processed 118,000 fines under Covid rules up to Feb 2022. Derbyshire Police were admonished for using “sinister” drones to monitor ramblers in the Peak District amid rules on non-essential travel.
They also dyed a turquoise blue lagoon black “to make the water look less appealing”.
Responding to the messages, Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said Mr Hancock’s use of language, including the word “plod”, is “much more a reflection on him than it is on the committed police officers and staff on the front line”.