How Britain's police went from being the most revered to most despised

Telegraph

14-05-2025

By his own admission, Danny Theobald is no saint. As a young man, he spent time behind bars for robbery and cultivating cannabis. Then he became a father and turned his life around. He has spent the last 13 years building a successful business and doing his very best to be a good role model. In his spare time, he volunteers as a football coach for local children and works with the disabled.
A year or so ago, he had dramatic interaction with the police. Video footage shows up to 12 police officers and multiple police cars outside his Surrey home.
What on earth was going on? Had he reverted to his bad old ways? Apparently not. In what is becoming an alarming new trend, the heavy-handed police response was prompted by nothing more than a complaint of ' malicious communications ' following a minor argument with a local councillor. No further action was ultimately taken, after the complaint was withdrawn. What an absurd waste of everyone's time!
How is it that the police, who spend so much time whining about lack of resources, are able to find the means to go all-out in their pursuit of cases such as this? While the overwhelming majority of real crimes go unsolved (less than six per cent of reported offences result in charges), forces across the country appear to have no shortage of time and energy to investigate obviously inconsequential complaints, rushing to arrest decent citizens for choosing the wrong words on social media or causing fleeting offence.
The weight and speed of the response of some forces to the flimsiest allegations of hate crime or 'harassment' is breathtaking and raises serious questions over the judgement of commanding officers. Already, public trust in policing is hanging by a thread, following umpteen high-profile failures and scandals. As examples of outrageously heavy-handed responses to matters that should be of no concern to law enforcement continue to emerge, something terrible is happening. Once admired all over the world for their high standards and professionalism, our police are falling into disrepute.
In some cases, wildly disproportionate responses to petty or vexatious complaints appear to arise from simple stupidity. Take the appalling treatment of the retired volunteer police officer who was detained over a social media post about anti-Semitism in Britain. Blundering officers appear to have misread Julian Foulkes' innocent warning about the growing threat to Jews as an indication that he is anti-Semitic himself. Cue an appalling invasion of his privacy, as his house was turned upside down in search of non-existent evidence of non-existent offences. As officers rifled through his books, they were captured on camera commenting on the discovery of 'very Brexity things,' – namely, innocuous 'small c' conservative literature, such as copies of the Spectator magazine and works by Telegraph contributor Douglas Murray. How crashingly ignorant and foolish these officers and their bosses now look.
In other cases, police forces are allowing themselves to be exploited by individuals and organisations with obvious political agendas. Witness the ridiculous incident in a town square during the recent local election campaigns, in which police could be heard warning a man that telling someone to 'speak English' could be perceived as a 'hate crime.' Why on earth did officers waste any time engaging in what they could surely see was nothing more than a silly verbal spat between rival party activists?
Such cases – along with many others, including the now notorious police pursuit of Telegraph writer Allison Pearson – cry out for officers to exercise sensible discretion, as they are absolutely entitled to do. Unless there has been a blatant crime, they cannot be forced by their superiors to make arrests. In the case of Mr Foulkes, the constables who took it upon themselves to treat him like a terror suspect could just as easily have sat down to talk to him over a coffee; swiftly established the facts, and – in police speak – 'non crimed the allegation.' That was all that was required, if they truly had no choice but to follow orders to knock on his door.
Which brings us to the murky matter of quotas. This little secret may explain quite a lot. According to well-informed police sources, senior figures in some forces set informal targets for arrests, pressurising junior officers to 'book' a minimum number of people every week or month. The idea is to ensure everyone looks busy. How much easier it must be, to haul in some quiet middle class retiree, than challenge a Pakistani rape gang suspect or drugs kingpin! The downside is ending up looking completely ridiculous – and rapidly losing what little remains of our respect.