Arming the British Police - The Great Debate

Arming the British Police - The Great Debate

Book by Roy Ingleton Reviewed by Keith Lloyd Webb.

Published by Frank Cass & C0. Ltd. Newbury House, 900 Eastern Avenue, London. IG2 7HH UK

Price £25. ISBN 0-7146-4741-1 (cloth). ISBN 0-7146-4299-1 (paperback).

When I was 18 years old the Atom had already been split and someone had just climbed Everest. So what was I going to do with my life? I saw the film The Blue Lamp and I was deeply moved when PC Dixon of Dock Green was shot while protecting the rights of others. I later joined London’s Metropolitan Police. I never forgave the star for coming alive again for the long running popular television series that later followed on BBC TV.

The real world is very different to that of fiction. Even when you act within the law, with the highest of integrity, there is always some one aggrieved by your actions, even if it is only a parking ticket! Imagine the anger, felt even by the worst villain, if you had legally shot at him, missed, but hit and killed a young pregnant mother with a baby in her arms. That is far from the image of the friendly British Bobby who is as much part of British folk lore as bowler hats and black umbrellas is the image of British businessmen and English roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. An image fondly held by many people abroad but far from real.

I wonder what the reactions of new arrivals are when they first see the heavily armed officers at British international airports? Do they think that they must be a separate force or a branch of the armed services as in many other countries? Hard to believe but in this country they are officers who have the same outlooks and standards as the long standing tradition of British policing. That reputation is well deserved and recognised all over the world. That is despite public confidence having been shaken by doubtful evidence and bad practice on the part of some that in recent years have resulted in a number of sentences being over turned on appeal. That notwithstanding the British police are the envy of many other countries.

Roy Ingleton, a retired police superintendent, first examines the history of violent crime against society and against the representatives of law and order. His style is clear and easy to read By the end of the first chapter you have learned some interesting facts that makes you want to read on. I learnt that between 1830 and 1850 there were 32 police officers killed while carrying out their duty. Today we know of major crimes or incidents, as they happen, because of television news coverage.

Comparisons are not easily made. The police then were very much the enforcing arm of the ruling classes. Who does the general public perceive the police serve to-day? In my day it was common to have a Mini car driver accuse a police officer of only giving him a parking ticket because he is the owner of a Mini. I have had the same complaint from the driver of a Rolls Royce. It would appear the only way a police officer is able to demonstrate his impartiality is by having a complaint made by both drivers against someone who is only doing his job.

In the Nineteenth Century the debate for arming the police was the topic of the day, and in London out of a total of 6,325 police officers no fewer than 4,430 expressed the wish to be personally armed. To-day I think there would be a different outcome. The emphasis is on better risk and crisis management training, more effective protective clothing, better long batons (many types are on trial) and deterrent or disabling sprays.

Roy Ingleton points out the British police have always been armed under certain circumstances. In the 1950s I remember the many cold dark nights standing outside one building or another with a heavy revolver weighing down my trouser pocket while in the other was an envelope with six rounds of ammunition in it. The envelope was taped up with so much sticky tape that World War III could have been declared and would have been over before I would have got the envelope open.

Fortunately today it is a different story. I envy the training selected officers are given and the weapons, surveillance equipment and other experts that are available to them. I admire the police officer who remained armed and kept his cool when the Iranian embassy was overrun by terrorists in the 1980s. There is no room for macho Rambo behaviour in such circumstances. He left the action to the highly trained Military Special Air Service. That way he probably saved himself and others from getting killed. Cause and effect are areas that the book does not cover. That is all subjective. The British press, public and courts have one luxury that a police officer does not have at the time of his actions. Lawyers can argue their views for years after an event and we can all voice an opinion with the benefit of hindsight. What of the police officer, invariably alone, who has to react in seconds to a situation that confronts him?

Double standards and expectations are the prerogatives of most people. They want strong militant action against the people that terrorise them personally. There are cries of “Bring back the death penalty” and other blood curdling demands. But if an element of doubt is subsequently raised there quickly follows a sense of revulsion and disassociation from such thoughts. If someone is killed by the police or dies while in their custody, outrage is swift as society itself feels threatened. In a civilised society an accused must be protected whilst in custody but their alleged victim is soon forgotten.

Roy Ingleton gets to the heart of the matter in the chapter “Deadly Force”. He spells it out. “A verdict of justifiable or excusable homicide will be returned only where the coroner’s jury is convinced that there was no alternative to prevent another person from being killed and that the doctrine of ’minimum force’ has been used.” Every police officer has got to be able to demonstrate that he used minimum force at all times. He is not fit to be an officer of the law unless that doctrine is uppermost in his mind at all times.

There are many instances related where police arms were involved. The one most vivid to me, personally, was the shooting in the Mall that involved the Princess Royal. Off duty I had attended the event at which the Princess had been just prior to the shooting. A few weeks later, again off duty, I was the Princess’s host when Her Royal Highness opened the Diamond Centre for Handicapped Riders at Carshalton in Surrey. We were about to walk past a group of people that had gathered outside the fence. A spectator shouted that her little boy had a present for the Princess. We walked over. What was tightly clasped in the child’s hand was hidden from view but the Princess was delighted when a golden frog brooch was placed in her hand.

Earlier, unbeknown to the Princess, a unexpected bouquet had arrived at the centre. Security was such that it was taken apart to see if it was a security risk. The flowers looked a little bedraggled as an attempt was made to put the bunch of flowers back together again. It was a happy occasion but the tension caused by the events in the Mall could have so easily made someone overreact. Assessment of a potential threat has to be made in a fraction of a second. There is the rest of your life in which to regret an enormous mistake.

We all want our police officers to be human and humane. We want them to make allowances for our silly mistakes. But as human beings they make mistakes too, however good their training. If you have shot and killed somebody you live with that action, right or wrong, for the rest of your life. Would or could we, the public, forgive them. Could or would they forgive themselves?

The events that Roy Ingleton relates in “Deadly Force” are graphically told in simple words making them all the more chilling. He draws the chapter to a close with the salutary reminder “that the forces of law and order are not themselves above the law and, should a police officer kill or injure someone without justification, he or she will face the full rigours of the law”. Every police officer knows that and accepts it. There are many of the public who do not believe it. A survey in 1991 in one police force showed that 77 per cent did not want routinely to carry firearms. Maybe they think the law would not protect them even when they have carried out their duty to the highest standards.

We are authoritatively informed that violent films are the cause of more and more violence in society. There are calls for such scenes in films and on television to be curbed. But there is more than enough violence on the screen in every television news, every day, that more than makes up for whatever is removed from fiction. We have lived on a diet of Nazi atrocities, Vietnam, Third world coups, the Balkan civil war with its scenes of mass graves and the televised violence on the streets of nearly every major city everywhere in the world. There was a newscast about a mass shooting across the Atlantic and within ten days there was the mass shooting in the town of Hungerford in southern England. Any attempt at trying to edit such horrors from our news programmes would be met with allegations of censorship. Followed by demands for the public to have the right to know.

In the chapter “To be or not to be” many mistakes are examined in as much clarity as the other stories that have been related. Those who would quickly acclat the police should be armedlyso from the safety of their arm to make the decision to aim, and face the consequencesed for two years while abroad was heavy and got in the way. It had to be constantly kept clean for inspection at any time. I used to hope I would get the chance to duck if I came under fire. My greatest worry was the thought of losingtionon the beat are already laden down with enough equipment and responsibility.

Far better to be able to radio for support from an armed response team of police officers specially trained for such an event. Officers chosen not to react in the heat of the moment. Such teams are readily available but their firearms are securely locked away until an instruction is given. The conclusion of “To be or not to be” is chilling too. Dr Ian McKenzie who after being attached to Fort Worth (Texas) police department wrote “ To be involved in a shooting, at either end of a gun, is, in the jargon of psychology, a ‘traumatic incident’ of the first order”. The rest of the paragraph is more than reason enough never to want to carry a gun every day. Even today my stomach turns over when a child playfully points a toy gun at me. I feel physically sick as I repeatedly see on TV the replay of events such as at Hillsborough, where football spectators were crushed, for they awaken my own memories of what so often nearly happened.

The chapter “Abroad is unutterably bloody!” relates experiences in some other countries. It is backed up with some enlightening statistics. The United States is a poor comparison with their “Gun Culture” or “Right to Bear Arms” way of life. There are some widely varying discrepancies in countries that are looked upon as having a “British Stock” background such as New Zealand and Canada. Statistics can be made to favour any view point and in my opinion nothing can be gleaned from such figures. There are other factors at work that we need to identify and quantify. There is no room for preconceived ideas or prejudices.

The conclusion of the book I found just as fascinating as the rest of it. I am glad he wrote it. Many things are now clearer in my own mind. I know what it was like to be involved. So how much more of an enlightenment it will be for others to have their eyes opened by the historical background and reasoning that will explain why our civilisation is where it is now. Roy Ingleton has studied and researched the subject. More importantly he has got the book published, no mean feat in itself. He evidently cares very much about what is happening. On the other hand he is not prepared to let his personal feelings influence the debate one way or the other.

To be effective, any police service must reflect the society it serves. If it does not, it is too easy for them to see themselves as judge of those they should be serving. Roy Ingleton’s book sets out quite clearly the case for and against British police being armed. That could mean we might either get the police we deserve or alternatively we could influence the way we are policed. As a result of the events at Dumblane, where teachers and children in their classroom were shot by a lone gunman, handguns over point 22 calibre are now to be banned. In some ways I feel sorry for the gun lobby. I should hate to lose the use of my car because of all the deaths on the road but it is a positive sign if we can still be shocked.

The answer to the question as to whether the British police should be armed is very much in our hands. How secure do we feel?. Who do we feel threatened by? Is it by an arm of the establishment that is meant to protect us or by those who would use firearms to commit violent crimes? What are our aspirations in life? Do they threaten the concepts and expectations of others? Until we can all answer such questions to everyone’s satisfaction the Great Debate will go on.

Keith Webb was a police officer for 30 years from 1952. He joined London’s Metropolitan Police in 1955. He served on the Beat in the West End around Piccadilly Circus and later joined A5 Branch, New Scotland Yard (Mounted Branch) in 1959. He was involved in Public Order events in the Capital and was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1975.

He is Founder and President of the Diamond Centre for Handicapped Riders. Carshalton, Surrey.

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