Frankly, I can’t say I’m surprised. I feel like this was bound to happen some time or another. Being a police officer gives you power over others. Power over other human beings is something that many Nazis and fascists crave. That’s why there are so many “bad eggs” in police forces in the West. The power draws them in.
Ben Hannam, a young police constable (22 – younger than me) has been found guilty of being part of a banned far-right neo-Nazi group here in the UK. He’s been willingly filmed taking part in their boxing sessions and even filmed spray painting the symbol of the banned group on a wall. These videos were, I believe, used as a recruitment tactic.
He’s also been charged with fraud because he lied in his police application. He said that he was not part of any groups that went against the duty of the police to uphold racial equality. Obviously he was in that group at the time of his application.
The police at the moment are patting themselves on the back because they found and prosecuted him “quickly” and that this rarely ever happens in the police force. However, he was only caught and charged because he was literally filmed promoting the group and fraternising with its members. If getting into he police is as easy as ticking a box saying “yes I’m not a bigot”, then you really have to wonder how many people slipped through the cracks because they weren’t stupid enough to be filmed being a racist.
The weird thing is that, from what I could gather from the ITV news video I watched about it, he had a gay family member, a Jewish grandparent and a girlfriend whose family was Muslim.
Well, it’s not that weird. Many bigots I know are very selective about when their bigotry applies.
Here are some articles to give you a sense of the case if you haven’t heard of it before:
The Guardian - My personal favourite mainstream news source in the UK
What do you all think about it, @Discussions? Do you agree with me that this could be just the tip of the iceberg? Or do you think that I’m being unfair to the police? Do you have any experiences of something similar in your own countries?
Right? I just kinda rolled my eyes because of course. I mean, there have been occasions where US police officers have been linked to the KKK, so of course we’ve got to have our Nazi officer or two
In the ITV video I was watching, the reporter basically said that if he had said “yes I am a racist” then they wouldn’t have spent 66k on training him.
SIXTY SIX THOUSAND POUNDS?! FOR ONE OFFICER?! AND WE’RE CUTTING NURSE’S PAY?! NURSES HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR OWN TRAINING/GET A LOAN
yees
also might I add - at least where I’m from, there’s a lot of REALLY ‘backwards’ people here. My ‘community’ is similar to one you’d find in the 70s or something - majority of kids’ only ambitions are to work for their dad, people are actively racist, homophobic, transphobic, ect. There’s fights constantly and when the police get involved, it gets bloody fast, and there’s so much more than that that I’m just not gonna get into
So no, I don’t believe that it’s possible to have just one ‘bad egg’. That egg was there long enough to spoil the entire batch, and I expect that he won’t be the first to be found out
makes me angry
After a certain medical thing which I won’t expand on - the doctors were literally guessing on how my organs would react. They didn’t know. There were a bunch of things they didn’t check that were panicked about a little when I showed signs that that lack of checking could have made things worse. They still don’t know why some things aren’t working the way they’re supposed to. I had to use google to find answers. Basically - please start funding the NHS because I do not want to get that close to permanent damage again - we don’t need so much money in the police lol
I feel like I also need to point out: an independent inquiry also stated that Britain doesn’t have a problem with institutional racism around the same time. Like, HMMMMMMM
basically ‘human error’. as much as we believe we’ll have a time in the future where everyone is accepted, it won’t and these people will always be there. it’s sad but a reality since as long as people are free to speak their minds, people will say they don’t agree with others and point out their ideals. I think the best we can do is take time to show that these types of layered problems need to be looked at, but don’t give it more attention than it deserves if you know what I mean.
It’s just sad to see people who are suppose to be an example, just become ‘bad examples’ instead.
yeah, for some reason non of my history teachers ever straight up said it, they just said. “People have found out and believed” and I was there just shaking my head wondering why, if they have proof, they don’t just tell us it is so and instead are so hesitant about it.
(I dropped history as soon as I could because I never learned anything in it anyway).
First of all, hi, welcome back
Second…I have no idea how I feel about this. It’s weird how easily someone could lie on an application. That dude only got caught because he was promoting the group, which I guess was trying to say that ‘the police is on our side and won’t hurt us’, that’s what I think, please correct me if I am wrong. Without the video, he wouldn’t have gotten caught…
Also, side note, did you say they had a boxing ring?!
