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Camden New Journal - by RICHARD OSLEY
 
Police officer sings like a canary in tell-all blog

Website tells of life at the sharp end on Camden’s mean streets

A POLICE officer has risked the wrath of his bosses by publishing his own controversial internet diary of life on the beat – including strong views on how the street murder of teenager Mahir Osman might have been avoided.
In a series of web ‘blog’ entries, the officer also reveals repeated concerns about police radios that don’t work properly and a bureaucratic system that ties staff to paperwork rather than patrols.
The unnamed officer is in the Camden ranks and is thought to be training to reach the badge of sergeant. Well-placed sources have told the New Journal that he is a genuine officer patrolling the borough’s streets.
Camden police yesterday (Wednesday) said they would investigate the website if they began receiving complaints about it but overall had little control over what officers published on the internet in their spare time.
The blog’s main title is The Law Is A Donkey and last night (Wednesday) was still available people to read at oldwilliam.blog.co.uk.
One of the most striking entries is an article published in January in direct relation to the stabbing of Mahir, 18, in Camden High Street, Camden Town. Six men are awaiting trial but the case is still being investigated.
The officer said: “If that had been a white undergraduate walking home to Mum and Dad with his school books, I’d lay my wages that’d have had a higher profile with various ‘experts’ wheeled out to talk rubbish about the state of society today.”
He added that problems with ‘stop and search’ meant beat officers could not find weapons during patrols.
The blog said: “It is specifically written into the stop and search legislation that we cannot stop someone on the basis of what they are wearing. These little (insert your own expletive) know this and run rings round us while we stand there helpless. The law truly is an ass. If we had been allowed to our job, when common sense tells you something bad is going off, then maybe a murder could’ve been prevented at the weekend. Not that the media would have cared.”
The writer makes it clear his site is not an official police site. It is thought the articles are largely read by other police staffers, although they are intended to reach a larger audience.
Other entries include descriptions of specific call-outs, while further comments make complaints about the way the police work.
An earlier update said: “One of these days I will post something on here to give people an idea of how much a beuracratical (sic) joke doing anything other than sitting on your butt is. I have to sign two bits of paper just so I can get keys to the car at the moment.”
Another, filed last month, bemoans the new Metcall radio system which channels calls from across London into one network – rather than using borough by borough radio rooms.
The blog said: “We have lost the local knowledge that the local control room had. Metcall has no idea about the sectors and sends officers out of their sector… It makes me laugh when I hear senior management blather on about how local knowledge and local policing is the way forward to build trust BLAH BLAH BLAH. It strikes me the radio system they have just introduced is the total opposite.”
A spokeswoman for Camden police said: “We cannot stop any staff member from creating or contributing to blog sites. However, we do ask that they conduct themselves in a professional manner and consider the impact of expressing views and opinions and as such there are guidelines that officers and staff should adhere to.”
She added: “The views expressed on such sites are not the views of the MPS and the web-log author should make clear that the views expressed are theirs alone and this is the case on ‘oldwilliam.blog.co.uk’.”
 
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