Andrew Mitchell "f'ing plebs" gaffe

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Documentary about this showcase of craven classism on UK tv tonight. Shocking double standards, lapsed professionalism and contempt of the electorate within the CONservative party.


NOTE for the benefit of non UK people, 'Pleb' is short for 'Plebian'. It is intended as a derogitory remark to those not in the upper class.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/realit ... ing-police



Andrew Mitchell 'plebs' row: do ordinary people get arrested for swearing at police?

The chief whip has apologised for his actions and admitted he swore. Would someone less powerful have been arrested?


Andrew Mitchell arrives at the cabinet office in Whitehall shortly before speaking to the press. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA


9.46am: Andrew Mitchell, the government chief whip, is in big political trouble. His latest statement seeking to explain what happened on Wednesday evening, when he allegedly called police officers "f*****g plebs" for not letting him cycle out of the Downing Street main gates, has raised as many questions as it answers – what did he say?; does he accuse police of lying? – and failed to quell the calls for his resignation.

And yet... it could have been worse for Mitchell. The original Sun story detailing the incident says police warned him at the time they would arrest him if he continued his reported rant. This takes us to our question: under different circumstances, with an ordinary member of the public, would such behaviour end with the ranter's collar felt? It's worth noting here that while Mitchell denies using the word "plebs" he admits being intemperate and, through anonymous briefings to newspapers, concedes he swore.

Firstly, the law. Someone swearing at the police (or, indeed, just swearing loudly and repeatedly at anyone) can be arrested under section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act for causing harassment, alarm or distress through
"threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour". They can also be arrested under the common law offence of breach of the peace.

The Ministry of Justice keeps records of convictions under both these measures – they're promising to email over the latest statistics - but these are not broken down into what action caused the offence, meaning there is no statistical record of how many people are convicted specifically for swearing at police. I could, they suggested, put in a Freedom of Information request, but that would involve some poor minion combing through each offence individually, and would probably be turned down on grounds of cost.

It's worth mentioning that a report last year said the UK's biggest police force, the Metropolitan Police, has instructed officers not to arrest people for just verbal abuse as "the courts do not accept police officers are caused harassment, alarm or distress" by such words. I've called the Met's press office to ask about this but they're all busy, a brand new Direct Line-style apology message tells me.

Either way, others clearly take a different view. One blog notes that an 18-year-old in Manchester was jailed for four months for "ranting and swearing" at police during the riots in the city in August last year, a conviction noted by a Greater Manchester police tweet. A 38-year-old man was jailed for 10 weeks for swearing at police, the same force tweeted on the same day.

So how common is this? In the absence of easy-to-access statistics, does anyone know of other people arrested, even jailed, for a Mitchell-style venting, whether or not they (allegedly) involved the use of archaic, Latin-derived abuse?

10.45am: This is the sort of court decision which, presumably, makes police wary of pursuing convictions for swearing - last December a high court judge overturned a 20-year-old's £50 fine for repeatedly swearing at officers in Hackney, saying such actions would be unlikely to cause them distress. Cue predictable outrage from Tory MPs and the Daily Telegraph.

It's worth, however, reading this human rights blog about the case, which points out that the young man in question wasn't specifically abusing officers but said, for example, to a policeman searching him for drugs: "f**k this man, I ain't been smoking nothing".

Sounds rather like Andrew Mitchell's version of his swearing, albeit in a slightly different context.

11.00am: Re the Met's policy on this, I've still not managed to speak to their press office. It's a rainy, grey Monday morning here in London so possibly everyone's called in sick. But it's worth mentioning that the commissioner of the force, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did subsequently say that there are "still opportunities" for officers to arrest suspects who swear at them, assuming it's sufficiently abusive or threatening

You are quoting a relatively old article there. The story has changed dramatically since the date of that article. Haven't you heard?
Andrew Mitchell always admitted he swore, but claimed he never called the police officers plebs.

The widely-accepted story now is that the police made up the allegation to ruin Andrew Mitchell's career. An email sent to a Conservative MP by a member of the public who claimed to have witnessed the incident was later revealed to have been sent by a serving police officer who later admitted he was not present at the incident at all.

More details are here: http://www.channel4.com/news/andrew-mit ... leb-police

I must admit I believed the original version at first.
Still, I imagine this is just another one of those little scandals that will be largely forgotten about in a few months.

i only mentioned it because it appeared in a documentary tonight.

The program in question actually corroborated the claim that he did in fact use the 'P' word. So if thats the case the story has changed, yet again.