Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Personal Responsibility? Anyone? No?

Welcome to another nauseating display of weasel words and dodging of respsonsibilty.

I first saw this Daily Fail article, so I was sceptical, but then I found it written more or less the same in the Telegraph. It seems the mother of Chanella "Sasha" Jones, who was stabbed to death by her father, warned the police on 102 occasions about her worries.
"But despite Fisher’s history of violence going back to his teens – and him being wanted for a serious assault by another police force – officers failed to take the reports seriously. Four officers are now facing disciplinary action within the force."
Let's have some guff about best practice shall we? Tee up some diversity refresher training eh? Should help.
Tom Davies, the IPCC commissioner for Wales, ...added that the officers had not accorded with “best practice and policy” for dealing with reports of possible domestic abuse.
Some fairly large-scale incompetence going on here.
One Pc who did take the allegations seriously failed to notice that Fisher had a police record and was wanted for a serious assault by another police force.
It's OK though.
Despite the numerous failings, the IPCC concluded that no individual errors “had any impact on Fisher’s later actions when he murdered Sasha”.
Right, so him being arrested for the pending assault charge would have made no difference? Thank God. Otherwise how would those poor officers sleep at night?

I wonder what a senior figure thinks of all this?
Ms Jackie Roberts, Deputy Chief Constable of Dyfed Powys Police, said: “Firstly I would like to express my condolences to Sasha’s family for their sad loss.
Note the choice of words. "Sad loss". That's like when your fucking puppy gets run over. Not when police incompetence means a 15-year-old is stabbed to death by her dad.
“We have noted the findings of the independent IPCC investigation and acknowledge that there are areas in relation to the historic involvement with the family which could have been dealt with better. The IPCC acknowledge that the historic individual errors are not suggested to have influenced the tragic outcome in this case.
Ass well and truly covered, moving on.
“We are committed to follow up the recommendations made from both policy and operational perspectives which will assist us in delivering a high quality of service and making improvements where necessary.
Whoo, buzzword bingo, someone's got her eye on the Chief Constable's comfy chair. "High quality of service?" You're not running a call centre for Christ's sake.
"The officers identified as having dealt with previous incidents will be supported in terms of advice and guidance on dealing with such matters and the lessons learnt communicated accordingly.”
I am speechless. No taking of responsibility, no actual apology, just a sorry for your loss platitude and move on. I hate litigation and I know the taxpayer pays but I hope she sues the ass off of everyone she can.

2 comments:

  1. As I said on Twitter, I'd like to know why the mother didn't take her own action. Yes, custody is difficult, and the girl was of an age where a court would be expected to take her wishes into account, but still...

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  2. You're right, it is odd, as I mentioned yesterday it's the absolute inability of anyone to take any responsibility for anything that pisses me off. Maybe the story needs more investigating, but even so the corporate statement the police issued infuriated me.

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