David Spencer

Each new revelation that has followed the banning of Israeli football fans from Birmingham shows that West Midlands Police is rotten to the core. As more evidence emerges, the case that the force responsible for policing our second city has been captured by sectional interests becomes stronger. The association between the police and Green Lane mosque is one

The actions of West Midlands Police in the case of the Maccabi Tel Aviv football ban are perhaps the most dramatic demonstration in modern times of what happens when a police force no longer operates ‘without fear or favour’.  The information now in the public domain shows there was never sufficient justification to ban the

When the history books reflect on the commissionership of the Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley, there is a risk – with less than two years of his five-year term to go – that the headline will be ‘an opportunity wasted’.  Appointed in the midst of too many crises to recount, late 2022 was the

Few will mourn the loss of Police and Crime Commissioners following the news that the government intends their abolition in 2028. An unloved part of our democratic settlement, many of those elected as PCCs failed to capture the public’s interest in the way that was intended when Theresa May as Home Secretary legislated for their

The latest episode in the rolling farce that is His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service was this week revealed to be yet another foreign-born sex offender released in error. Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, an Algerian sex-offender, was let out by mistake from HMP Wandsworth over a week ago. He was only recaptured today after nine days on the run. What steps has

Is the Met on an inadvertent campaign to make Nigel Farage the Prime Minister? Politically he is the only winner from the arrest of the comedy writer Graham Linehan at Heathrow Airport on Monday, for a series of posts made on the social media platform X earlier this year. A senior police officer with a

It’s a statement of the bleeding obvious: London is in the grip of a street crime epidemic. Between 2021 and 2024, knife crime in London increased by 58.5 per cent to 16,789 offences – the highest number ever recorded. Most, about 60 per cent, are robberies, and in a significant proportion of them the item stolen

Palestine Action’s attempt to defy a ban on their protest outside parliament yesterday was one of the most vital tests of Sir Mark Rowley’s five-year term as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. It was a test he passed and the Met should be applauded – but the police’s robust response to this dangerous far-left extremist group

Does the Metropolitan Police have more respect for the rights of aggressive protestors than it does for Parliament itself? That’s the unavoidable question after the Met handled the latest demonstrations outside the Palace of Westminster with the usual kid gloves. If the police were not aware of the protestors’ plans, how could such a failure

Two years ago, few had heard of the term ‘two-tier justice’. Indeed, Ministers and leaders across the criminal justice system have spent much of that time vigorously denying its existence. Yet the examples of a justice system which is failing to deliver ‘equality before the law’ are numerous: the failures of the police and prosecutors to act

Today marks a year since Sir Mark Rowley became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. When Rowley took over, his predecessor Cressida Dick had been pushed out of office, the force had been placed into ‘special measures’ for the first time in its 200-year history, and public trust had cratered following the conviction of police officers for some

The Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has hinted that the capital’s police officers are to be banned from activities such as wearing political badges on their uniforms, flying colourful flags from police stations and ‘taking the knee’ at protests. ‘Once you start having environmental and other subjects there are lots of people in the organisation

It’s another bad day for the Metropolitan police. The serial rapist former PC David Carrick has been given 36 life sentences and told he will not be released for at least 30 years. The details of the case are hard to believe: Carrick, known as ‘Bastard Dave’ to colleagues, has admitted using his status as