Up next in 10
WATCH: Former Scotland Yard Detective hits out at Met Police 'mess'
Aug 31, 2025
A former Scotland Yard Chief Detective Inspector has hit out at the record number of police officers working "desk duties" on full pay, declaring the situation is "out of control".Speaking to GB News, Mike Neville said he had personally seen "ridiculous" cases of officers being granted "light duties", claiming it is "too easy".FULL STORY HERE.
View Video Transcript
0:00
Now, what is this story about
0:02
Well, it's about... So, you've got about... In the Met and Essex, for example, and in other big forces
0:07
12%, 13%, 14% of the officers are on what they call restricted or adjusted duties
0:12
It means they can't go out on the streets. There's several issues around this
0:17
So, firstly, they're not on patrol, they're not doing the work that most of the public
0:22
would want them to do. But what you had... Theresa May got rid of 20,000 police officers
0:26
and a lot of those have been replaced by very junior staff. But what they also got rid of was 10,000 civilian staff
0:33
So all those jobs that the civilian staff used to do, somebody's got to do them
0:38
And what you can do, there's always been officers who've been injured on duty. Of course
0:42
I had one officer who'd lost a hand, and I employed him to do some CCTV work with me
0:47
and he said, I feel valued because I'm actually doing something useful. And I had a team at Scotland Yard
0:52
where people could work inside. So I had people who had heart conditions, epilepsy
0:58
see cancer and obviously you've got to look after staff who are in that position but even when I was
1:04
in charge there was some ridiculous cases I had a female officer sent to me who she couldn't sit
1:09
down and she couldn stand up so I said what she going to do like she going to it going to lie lie lie on the floor and then had another officer who they put on the restrictions that she had to work five miles from the house but this didn stop her going on holiday to Torremolinos
1:23
So whatever was wrong with her to get to the police station, she could get to get out
1:27
We can fly out. So too often in the police, it's too easy to take the easy option and say, you can have this easy, easy work
1:35
when really that should be saved for those real officers who have got cancer
1:40
who have been shot, who have been badly injured on duty. And they can be looked after and given a worthwhile and meaningful role
1:48
But like everything in the public sector, it gets out of control
1:52
I mean, I'll be saying that there are people there swinging the lead. Bearing in mind people, by the way, this is costing you £11.5 million every week
2:01
to pay for these coppers to not actually get out there and tackle crooks. And what people will see, of course, is they know, and they see in the press all the time, 1% of thefts are solved, 5% of burglaries are solved, 6% of rapes
2:15
And so people see this and they constantly see these stories about the police
2:20
And what saddens me is that British policing was seen as the best in the world
2:25
But it was the envy of the world. I was proud to be a Scotland Yard detective That really meant something It meant expertise it meant hard work courage all these things And over the last two decades it been the senior officers
2:39
who've allowed it to slip and become the utter mess. It is, and this is just one part of the mess
2:46
You know, one minute they'll be focusing on, you've got the Chief Council of Emergeside all upset
2:51
because reformers said, oh, I don't like seeing two female officers together. She's campaigning, oh, we want 50-50 men and women officers
2:57
because no-one ever bothers 89% of nurses in the NHS. I don't bother either. My wife's one of them, our daughter
3:04
But what's ridiculous is they focus on the wrong thing. The public can't bother about it if it's 50-50 men and women
3:09
What they want these managers to focus on is getting the crime solved, preventing crime
3:15
and making sure that the officers under their charge are actually doing what we want and being visible on the streets
3:20
Yeah, which is what we want. I mean, sort of like recently we had the elite squad set out to look further into our social media postings rather than..
3:26
Important stuff, Don. Yeah, very important stuff. Now, is there an issue here with recruits not being as fit as they used to be as well
3:34
Well, I think fitness is one thing. You know, I went from the army. I joined direct from the army
3:39
And there's a lot of they're not recruiting people that sort of individual
3:43
It used to be a stock thing that soldiers and Royal Air Force personnel used to go in the police and the Navy guys went in the fire brigade They deliberately went again I heard a commissioner say I don want those type of people
3:56
And so they're not recruiting robust individuals, really. Why wouldn't they want those type of people? Well, because they've already seen life
4:01
You can't take them to a university and tell them that diversity is more important than catching criminals
4:07
I mean, surely they're the people you want. Well, not if you... The senior officers are all..
4:11
When I joined, half of the senior officers at the Yard were ex-army
4:15
I don't think there's any there now. And they're all university graduates, and they want their own kind of people, university graduates
4:21
And what they're doing is they're recruiting people who don't realise, if you join the police
4:25
you have to do nights and weekends, that you might have to get involved with a fight and grab hold of somebody
4:31
And so they're recruiting these people. And the consequences are that a lot of them, and I speak to a good friend of mine who works for a constabulary
4:39
and he was saying he speaks to these young officers and their first aim is to get an inside job
4:45
They don't want to be busy on the outside. So what I would say is they're recruiting the wrong people
4:51
I've banged on about this for a long time. They need to get back to where they were
4:55
have a mix of people, but particularly get those ex-soldiers or armed forces personnel into the police
5:02
and unlike the prison service, places like that
#Law Enforcement
#news
#Politics
#Public Safety