ARTICLES Silenced by the police
Bill Heaney
George Square, Glasgow, 23 December 2014
Police Scotland have come in for a great deal of stick recently, so you may consider it below the belt for me to kick them when they are down. Get out of my way, then, while I put the metaphorical boot into Chief Constable Sir Stephen House and the Scottish Police Authority, the board of distinguished persons and politicians who are supposed to regulate the men in blue. They are already in trouble over the issue of firearms to bobbies on the beat, their stop and search policies and the imminent proposed closure of police offices in large towns like Dumbarton.
In my lengthy experience of reporting for national newspapers and editing local ones, the police used to be helpful to reporters covering stories – not always entirely helpful but helpful just the same. Apart from a few curmudgeonly coppers who were a pain in the tail, the police provided assistance to journalists. For example, the late Detective Superintendent Tom Goodall, the Glasgow CID man who nailed the mass murderer Peter Manuel, and his colleague, Sir David McNee, who is still with us and who arrested the notorious but now reformed James Boyle, treated reporters with respect. Not as close friends mind you, but these senior officers knew the relationship between the police and the press was symbiotic. Put simply, it was a case of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’.
The police appreciated the fact that publicity was an excellent tool for information-gathering and helpful too when it came to providing a deterrent to criminals. Why else would we have television programmes such as ‘Crimewatch’? The police realised too that no one would have heard a word of the heavy prison sentences being handed down in the High Court by Lord Carmont to the Glasgow razor gangs if the press weren’t there to report this and other important cases. The policemen then agreed that justice should be seen to be done and didn’t – as we sometimes see today – co-operate with criminals to put blankets over their heads and whisk them away from court in high-speed vehicles. Or assist so-called celebrities to slip out the side door to escape the attention of the waiting media.
Bar officers, often just constables and sergeants, were on first-name terms with the likes of Ken Bryson, Charlie Beaton, Freddie Robertson and David Scott. They were prepared to tip off reporters doing the late night police calls in exchange for a few copies of the next day’s paper for themselves and their bosses. ‘Anything doing?’ might elicit a remarkable response from behind the counter and reporters could pick up information on anything from a double murder to a kidnapping while doing the police calls.
The police have changed, though. Police Scotland have recruited an army of civilian press officers allegedly to assist the media but who in fact are there to keep us in our place, wherever they perceive that to be, usually behind a tape or an obstructive arm.
For example the police issue press releases about incidents and refuse to add to them. They control and manage the information that is allowed into the public domain. In the name of ‘victim support’ they tell witnesses to speak only to them and not to the media and they take control of photographs. In my opinion, the police are going far beyond their remit.
The traditional media modus operandum of going to a house to interview people and collect pictures or take photographs is frowned upon. The police make it clear that they are the ones in charge and the press are portrayed as unprincipled, ghoulish figures who are too often intruding into private grief.
I know this because I helped one national newspaper to cover the Glasgow bin lorry crash in December. Some of the victims were friends of mine. We had known each other all our lives. Their relatives would normally have spoken to me. It was the same with local clergy. But these people retreated from the press behind drawn curtains and closed doors and refused to speak publicly about the tragedy. This led to reporters trawling through social media sites for quotes and photographs, which is no way to report any newsworthy incident, never mind a major tragedy. The photographs that appeared in the press were not necessarily the ones the families would have wished to see there and neither were the quotes from friends and relatives. Television interviews were carried out in the street with people who hardly knew the victims and screened on news bulletins despite the fact this it was obvious from their comments that they had little worthwhile to contribute.
Constructive, helpful quotes could have been obtained from members of the family and the local clergy and councillors but they all felt constrained after the police had a word with them. The police also took an interminable time in this, the age of social media, to release the names of the victims and then Glasgow City Council joined in the obstruction business by stating they would never release the names of their employees. Some hope. Someone should tell the council and the police that neighbours talk and communicate more than ever in the 21st century by telephone and social media.
Sub-judice laws do not apply to the public out in the streets and nor do they apply to the media until someone is charged. A secret in Scotland is something you tell one person at a time.
Police Scotland, the National Union of Journalists and the Society of Editors (Scotland) should inquire immediately into how their media relations are conducted. Meanwhile the police should learn the three Rs about dealing with the press – relationship, respect and responsibility.
By Bill Heaney | March 2015