Civil War at institutionally racist Met. police

[TonyGosling]

Ian Blair's Met. clique exposed by Tarique Ghaffur

Does Tarique smell a freemason?


Police division: The Met at war
Rival gangs are engaged in a vicious feud war within Britain's largest police force. Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter, sheds light on the tensions that have turned New Scotland Yard into a war zone
Friday, 29 August 2008
Three times a week at 9am sharp, a group of eight men and two women troop into room 806 of New Scotland Yard.
Sat around the table in a boardroom that would grace a medium-sized engineering company, the 10 members of Metropolitan Police's management board are privy to some of the most sensitive information in the country.
But when they meet today, it won't be the safety of Londoners at the forefront of their minds.
It will be the debilitating feud between two of their members that broke out yesterday into open warfare and threatens to bring a premature and ignominious end to both their careers.
Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, the Uganda-born Asian who is Britain's most senior ethnic minority police officer, finally went public and announced his decision to sue Sir Ian Blair, the Met's Commissioner and Britain's most senior police officer, along with a number of his highly-placed colleagues in an employment tribunal for racism, in a case that threatens to tear the Yard's upper echelons apart............



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-division-the-met -at-war-912330.html

[TonyGosling]

Looking bad for Sir Ian.
The limpet.

Tarique Ghaffur's 7-year dossier against the Met chief
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2641509/Tarique-GhaffurTop-Asia n-officer-and-his-7-year-dossier-against-the-Met-chief.html

Today's leader column?
That's enough of Sir Ian
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/29/ dl2902.xml

[IanFantom]

[TonyGosling]

This story too easily forgotten
100-250 corrupt Scotland Yard 'Untouchables'
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=14854

Anyway - This is my favourite headline so far - a sense of humour at the Press Association?

Officer lodges racism claims

then there's this.....
Race-row policeman Tarique Ghaffur 'fears for his life' after death threats


.....but this is the accusation that may yet sink Sir Ian Blair's pirate ship

[TonyGosling]

How long can this pathetic shower last?

Scotland Yard civil war deepens as 'race claim' police chief is placed on gardening leave
Sir Ian Blair has punished the Asian police commander who accused him of racial discrimination by putting him on gardening leave and stripping him of his duties.
Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, who attacked the Met chief at a press conference last month, will no longer be in charge of security at the 2012 Olympics.
Mr Ghaffur, 53, was also warned he could face misconduct charges for speaking publicly about his £1.2million race discrimination claim against Sir Ian.
Sir Ian said the £180,000-a-year officer's comments to the media were affecting the Met's 'operational effectiveness'.
But within hours of Sir Ian's statement, Mr Ghaffur hit back, saying he was being 'victimised' because of his personal stand against racism in the force.
One of Mr Ghaffur's key supporters, Alfred John of the Met's Black Police Association, described yesterday's developments as 'suspension by stealth'.
However, London Mayor Boris Johnson said he was 'totally supportive' of Sir Ian's move. [What would Ken have said I wonder? Not that. - ed.]
The stand-off marked a new low in the venomous dispute which started in June when Mr Ghaffur's supporters revealed he was considering suing the Met.
In the following weeks, a number of revelations outlining his case were leaked to the media.
After officially launching his employment tribunal claim last month, Mr Ghaffur - joint number three in the Met - held a press conference to explain why he had taken such drastic action.
Although on annual leave, he ignored police convention by turning up to the press conference in his uniform - and then gave a five-minute monologue about his alleged ordeal.
In a statement, Sir Ian said his decision yesterday had nothing to do with Mr Ghaffur's case against the Met, but was because of his 'personal conduct' and 'media campaign' against the force.
He said: 'I have reflected whether operational effectiveness, leadership and confidence in the Metropolitan Police Service as an organisation and the security and safety concerns of Londoners are being affected.
'It is also clear this is having a negative impact on the London 2012 Olympic security programme and risks undermining confidence in it. Certainly, it is the case that the interests of Londoners are not being well served by this current situation.'
In his own statement last night, Mr Ghaffur responded: 'The actions that have been taken, today and yesterday, have all the hallmarks of wilful acts of victimisation against me for explaining I had made my complaint.'
Deputy Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson complained to the Metropolitan Police Authority about Mr Ghaffur on Monday.
He asked the Professional Standards Cases sub-committee to consider whether by calling the press conference Mr Ghaffur had been guilty of misconduct.
The committee found there were potential grounds for misconduct and will appoint a chief constable to investigate.
But Peter Herbert, a member of the MPA and chairman of the Society of Black Lawyers, said he was 'astonished' by Sir Ian's decision yesterday and that it would be seen as 'racial victimisation' by an employment tribunal.

[TonyGosling]

Nice piece in the Guardian - good to see they're not on the side of the racists

[TonyGosling]

UK police being `religious cleansed,` says ethnic group
Posted: 2008/09/20
From: MNN

The Metropolitan Black Police Association `MBPA` Friday withdrew its cooperation with London police service after accusing it of `ethnic and religious cleansing` following the suspension of Commander Ali Dizaei for a second time.

MBPA chair Alfred John said he was "appalled" at the action taken against the Iranian-born officer, who has been the "victim of what we believe to be the culmination of a sustained witch-hunt."

Since being reinstated after being cleared of previous allegations, Dizaei had "not received a single complaint for over 4 years and yet, within the last 3 weeks, three complaints have materialized," John said.

"The significance of the timing of these allegations cannot be ignored. This insult has come during the holy month of Ramadan to cause maximum distress to his family, his profession and his role as the President of the National Black Police Association," he said.

His suspension is the second and comes after Dizaei being unanimously cleared following an estimated Pnds 4 million (Dlrs 7.2 m) investigation in 2001.

MBPA said that the previous campaign against him was "publicly accepted as the single biggest disaster" for the London's
Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), when once again it focused on a "concentrated attack in order to discredit his character." His suspension from duty was for allegedly wasting police time, perverting the course of justice, assault and unlawful arrest. It comes after the force's assistant commissioner, Tarique Ghaffur, was suspended last week after launching a racial discrimination claim.

The MBPA catalogued a series of other incidents to show why it no longer had any confidence in the leadership of the police force or the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), which oversees it.

These included Commissioner Sir Iran Blair being "drawn into an ugly investigation involving the awarding of a Pnds 1.2 million (Dlrs 2.1 m) contract to his friend" but there had been no suspension.

It also referred to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick being promoted during the investigation into the mistaken police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, an operation which she led.

Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman was also said to have been allowed to 'quietly' retire despite the significant financial irregularities that are still the subject of a criminal investigation.

"As a consequence of these disproportionate actions, the MBPA will now disengage from all meetings with the MPA and MPS except those that will involve discussions around the reinstatement of Dr Dizaei," John said.

He pointed out that Dizaei "still remains the president of the National BPA and a fully functioning member of the MBPA Executive and maintains our full support against the latest relentless attacks on minority staff." --IRNA

http://mathaba.net/news/?x=606748

[TonyGosling]

Black officers to begin recruitment boycott at Met
Rebellion following Blair's resignation could see officers placing adverts urging ethnic minorities not to apply

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/05/police

The crisis at Scotland Yard will worsen tomorrow as black officers begin a boycott of their own force.

The Guardian understands the open rebellion could see black officers placing newspaper adverts urging ethnic minority people not to apply to join the Metropolitan police.


Superintendant Ali Dizaei is one of a number of black and Asian officers to criticise racism inside the Metropolitan Police

Britain's biggest force is still reeling after its commissioner Sir Ian Blair was ousted from office by London Mayor Boris Johnson following a series of controversies.

One of those was a bitter race row which has led to the suspension of the Met's two most senior ethnic minority officers.

Assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur was suspended after he began to sue the force for racism and publicly denounced Blair as a racist. One of his main advisers, Commander Ali Dizaei was suspended over alleged misconduct and both senior officers are under investigation.

The decision to begin a boycott was made by the Metropolitan Black Police Association. Despite Sir Ian Blair announcing his resignation BPA chiefs believe discrimination is institutionalised in Scotland Yard's leadership.

In a statement the Met BPA said that as of tomorrow it would " … totally boycott all recruitment drives initiated by the Metropolitan Police Service to attract black and ethnic minority recruits and police staff.

"We will actively discourage (through our extensive community network) potential applicants from applying to join the Metropolitan Police."

The Met BPA said the force was plagued by "a hostile atmosphere where racism is allowed to spread and those who challenge it are either suspended, told to shut up or subtly held back in relation to career development."

Alfred John, chair of the Met BPA said the boycott was still needed despite the announcement of the commissioner's departure: "We're not going to stop because Ian Blair has gone. It is about the institutional racism that takes place in the organisation."

The race row has been buffeting the Met for months and began in the summer after it emerged Ghaffur was considering suing the force for racial and religious discrimination.

He formally issued employment tribunal proceedings then held a press conference where he professed his love of British policing and denounced Sir Ian Blair.

The force and the Metropolitan Police Authority insist that press conference led to the suspension from duty of Ghaffur, who was joint third in charge of the Met and part of its inner cabinet. His key adviser was Ali Dizaei who chairs the national Black Police Association who was suspended over separate misconduct allegations, which he denies.

In 2003 black officers began a boycott which was only ended after the Home Office stepped in and pressured the Met's leadership to reach a deal.

BPA leaders say the force has made too little progress since the 1999 Macpherson report found British policing was institutionally racist.

Tomorrow the Metropolitan Police Authority meets with mayor Boris Johnson installed as its chair.........................................

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Even at dinner, warring Met chiefs can't bear to face each other
Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter
14.11.08



SIR IAN BLAIR and his assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur were seated at different tables and facing away from each other to prevent their bitter rivalry spoiling a prestigious police awards dinner.

The organisers of last night's event today admitted they kept the warring officers "as far apart as possible" to prevent an "awkward situation".

Sir Ian, the outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was seated at the head table while Mr Ghaffur, who is suing the Met for race discrimination, was placed at table six among the VIP guests at the Jane's Police Review gala awards dinner.

Further blushes were only spared when Met commander Ali Dizaei, who is also suing the Met but is currently suspended from his post, failed to show up at the dinner at the Royal Horticultural Halls. Organisers had found Commander Dizaei yet another VIP table putting his back to Sir Ian.

The need for separate tables for high-ranking officers highlights the extraordinary rifts inside the Met ahead of Sir Ian's planned departure on 1 December.

Chris Herbert, editor of Jane's Police Review, said: "With all that has happened, we decided to keep them away from each other on separate tables. We also pointed them in different directions so they were not in each other's eye line. It's a nice event for them all and you have to be aware some people don't get on."

One guest - a senior police officer - suggested the event, hosted by the BBC's Huw Edwards, had been an "icy affair" among top ranks. "It was unbelievable. Everyone noticed what was going on," the officer said..........

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23587204-details/Even+a t+dinner,+warring+Met+chiefs+can%27t+bear+to+face+each+other/article.d o

[TonyGosling]

Continuation of a racist witchunt and vendetta.
Why have the met decided to take out this chap?
Misconduct in public office.
An interesting charge.
If he's aquitted all hell breaks loose.

Commander Dizaei charged: 'The most senior police officer ever to be charged with criminal offences'
Vikram Dodd on the charging of police commander Ali Dizaei with misconduct and perverting the course of justice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/audio/2009/may/22/ali-dizaei-charge d-police

[TonyGosling]

Verdict today
Guilty of course
Well he is from Iran what do you expect.
This case is a trivial Yard fit-up.

Senior Met official jailed for attacking Iraqi
(AFP) – http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iKxbJAaMHqC25c63rev olTNSXXTA
LONDON — A senior official at the Metropolitan Police was on Monday sentenced to four years in jail for assaulting a man and trying to falsely accuse him in a spat over money.
Ali Dizaei, 47, was convicted of misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice following a four-week trial in London, and given a sentence that the judge said was intended as a deterrent for others.
The jury heard how Iranian-born Dizaei had met his victim, 24-year-old Iraqi businessman Waad al-Baghdadi, in a west London restaurant run by a friend of the police officer in July 2008.

[conspiracy analyst]

Re-thinking the Ali Dizaei issue is it a case of trying to multi-ethnicise the MET?

It still remains a predominantly white force in a totally globalised city.

The government over the years has tried every trick in the book to minimise the role of policing and maximise the role of restraining civil liberties by using the police as their tool.

There is obviously some type of faction fight, but does Ali Dizaei represent progressive interests or NWO ones?

What has he ever actually said regarding the De Menezes killing?

[conspiracy analyst]

Asian police whistleblower 'was treated like a terrorist'

By Kim Sengupta
Tuesday, 4 July 2000

An Asian police sergeant claimed yesterday that he was framed by senior officers and treated like a " terrorist" after he made serious allegations of racism in the force.

Gurpal Virdi told an industrial tribunal he was sacked by Scotland Yard after an internal disciplinary panel found him guilty of sending racist hate mail to 18 black and Asian officers, including himself, at Ealing police station, in West London.

It was suggested he had done it to help substantiate a claim of racial discrimination he was thought to be preparing against the Met.

The officer, whose family came from India, was sacked in March. He had given evidence about racism in the Metropolitan Police to the inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The force, he said, was still smarting from the inquiry's conclusion that it was "institutionally racist".

On 24 December 1997, 13 out of the 15 non-white officers in the Ealing division got a letter telling them to leave the force. A further six letters were delivered to six civilian workers on 19 January 1998. The letters, delivered by the Met's internal mail system, carried a picture of a black man's face and the initials of the National Front. It read: "Not wanted. Keep the police force white, so leave now, or else."

Mr Virdi, who had served for 16 years in the Met, said he had no idea he was under suspicion until 15 April 1998, when he noticed a police surveillance team following him. But when he contacted his chief superintendent he was told he was being paranoid.

"I confronted these officers and I was arrested for distributing racist material and perverting the course of justice," he said.

A special police search team,which usually conducts terrorist searches, scoured Mr Virdi's home for seven hours, he said.

"This search was incredibly distressing and frightening to my children," said Mr Virdi, of Cranford, near Heathrow, west London.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/asian-police-whistle blower-was-treated-like-a-terrorist-707109.html

[nrmis]

[nrmis]

You may have noticed that the link I posted above no longer takes you to that article.
The article has been replaced with another regarding the same story with a different heading and text.

Edit
I've just clicked the link from here again, literally 1 minute later, and its changed again. I dont know how yahoo news works. Is that normal?

[TonyGosling]

dunno
check google cache and yahoo caches
always cut and paste chunks of relevant text with yr link so this sort of thing can be documented
unofficially news sources tend to include times of edits in their article data

[scienceplease 2]

Nothing I say here can be as damming as this report...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/24/metropolitan-police-spying-un dercover-officers

Quote:

Scotland Yard deployed undercover officers in political groups that sought to uncover corruption in the Metropolitan police and campaigned for justice for people who had died in custody, the Guardian can reveal.

Scotland Yard spied on critics of police corruption

Exclusive: undercover officers in Special Demonstration Squad targeted political campaigns against Metropolitan police

Rob Evans and Paul Lewis
The Guardian, Monday 24 June 2013 21.14 BST

Mark Jenner, the undercover officer in the Metropolitan police's special demonstration squad, who spied on the Colin Roach Centre

Scotland Yard deployed undercover officers in political groups that sought to uncover corruption in the Metropolitan police and campaigned for justice for people who had died in custody, the Guardian can reveal.

At least three officers from the controversial Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) spied on London-based activist groups.

Mark Jenner, an undercover officer, used the identity "Mark Cassidy" in the 1990s to penetrate the Colin Roach Centre, which was named after a 21-year-old black British man who died in the foyer of Stoke Newington police station in north-east London. The campaigners worked with people who said they had been mistreated, wrongfully arrested or assaulted by police in the local borough – Hackney – which was at the time mired in a serious corruption scandal.

Jenner, who was married with children, had a five-year relationship with a woman he was spying on before his deployment ended in 2000.

A second SDS spy was used to gather intelligence on another group that represented the victims of police harassment and racist attacks in a neighbouring part of east London. The second spy, whose identity is not known, did not infiltrate the Newham Monitoring Project directly, but got inside associated groups and was able to monitor its activities.

The revelation comes a day after the Guardian revealed that Peter Francis, a former Met officer turned whistleblower, was asked to dig for "dirt" on the family of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence. The revelation provoked anger across the political spectrum, led by the prime minister.

David Cameron promised an investigation into what he called the "absolutely disgraceful" disclosure that police sought to discredit the Lawrence family in the weeks after their loved one was stabbed to death by a racist gang.

"To hear that, potentially, the police that were meant to be helping them were actually undermining them – that's horrific," Cameron said.

Link to video: Undercover police officer: 'How I spied on the Stephen Lawrence campaign'

Boris Johnson, as mayor of London ultimately responsible for the Met, describing the Stephen Lawrence revelations as "deeply, deeply unsettling".

In an urgent Commons statement Theresa May, the home secretary, told MPs she would ask two ongoing inquiries to investigate the Lawrence revelations.

But Neville Lawrence, Stephen's father condemned the response as "completely unsatisfactory".

He said: "I am convinced that nothing short of a judge-led inquiry will suffice and I have no confidence that the measures announced today will get to the bottom of this matter."

Francis said the Met planted a number of spies in groups that politically opposed the force. Of the Newham Monitoring Project, Francis said: "Every single event they were organising was being reported back to the SDS. We knew everything that was going on in the NMP."

Francis, using the alias of Pete Black amongst others, went undercover in a group called Youth Against Racism in Europe between 1993 and 1997. He said he was specifically asked by his superiors to gather intelligence on the so-called "black justice campaigns", which were seeking justice for mostly black or Asian men who died either in custody or after contact with police. Many of the campaigns were led by grieving relatives – although more radical groups also campaigned alongside them.

Francis recalled one episode during which he attending a candlelit vigil outside Kennington police station, for a man who had died after police contact. "I found myself questioning the morality of my actions for the first time," he said.

"To some extent these campaigns had been taken over by extremists but at their heart were families who had lost their loved ones and simply wanted justice. By targeting the groups, I was convinced that I was robbing them of the chance to ever find justice."

On Monday night, after being asked to comment on the latest disclosures about the deployment of undercover officers in police monitoring and black justice groups, Scotland Yard replied with a general statement from the commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, on the Lawrence revelations. Hogan-Howe said that he was "personally shocked by the allegations that an undercover officer was told to find evidence that might smear the Lawrence family". He added: "It's imperative that we find out the truth about what happened as quickly as possible."

The full details of Francis's deployment are charted in Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police, which will be published on Tuesday.

After telling MPs they should show "zero tolerance of police corruption and wrongdoing", the home secretary said the latest revelations would be handled by an existing inquiry into allegations of corruption in the murder investigation into Lawrence's death which is being conducted by a barrister.

May said the issues raised by Francis would also be dealt with by an internal Met police review which has been ongoing since 2011. Operation Herne – which the Met has indicated will not conclude until 2016 – is being overseen by the chief constable of Derbyshire Police.

Herne is also investigating why undercover police adopted the identities of dead children and developed long-term sexual relationships with the people they were spying on.