"Engrenages" - Spiral (French TV cop series) - Series 1

I wrote a couple of years ago about the 2nd series of this 'gritty' French television 'cop' drama.

Since then I've seen the 3rd series, equally-astonishing in its 'grittiness', but just recently I've at last seen the 1st series, which I missed the first time around. This evening, in fact, I've just watched the final two of the eight episodes of this marvellous drama, like all the three series it was shown on BBC4 television. The adjective 'gritty' doesn't quite do it justice though - perhaps 'stomach-churning', 'hurl-worthy' or plain 'gruesome' would sum it up better!

It would be wrong and insensitive to say I have grown to 'know' and/or 'love' any of the characters in this bleak drama, but I suspect it is, whilst no doubt over-dramatised for the purposes of producing a television series, unfortunately not too far removed from the harsh daily reality of many involved in some of the nastier real-life crimes I've heard about in recent years.

I do hope a 4th series is in prospect? - and from this website of French producing company Canal+ it seems that filming of the 4th series began in August this year and will be completed by next April, with the series being expanded from the usual 8 episodes to 12 for this 4th series. What new horrors they will have in store for us can only be imagined! You can find a rough translation into English of the synopsis of the 4th series, linked to above, here.

Middle-class areas 'must police themselves'

This is the basis of an amazing new 'policy' announced by Patrick Shearer, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (Acpos) and chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary.

Mr Shearer says police forces need to target their efforts where they are most required. That sounds reasonable enough in itself, but there is more, much more, to this pernicious policy. Mr Shearer is quoted as saying:

"The idea of the universal police service for all belongs to a time when resources were plentiful. "We have to accept that a lot of the public can look after themselves. When times get hard you really have to target resources. "A gold-plated service is no longer appropriate and we’ll have to stop doing some of the things we are doing at the moment or have done in the past. "For us to continue to be effective we have to very much target our resources where the need is and not necessarily where the demand is."

As I mentioned above, this may sound reasonable, but it does seem to make a number of highly dubious assertions. For example, when Mr Shearer opines "We have to accept that a lot of the public can look after themselves", I have no doubt that many people (and not just 'middle-class' people) could look after themselves if allowed to do so, but the reality is that home-owners are actively discouraged from 'helping themselves' and may very well suffer severe legal consequences if they dare to do so! A case in point, a relative and his wife, returning home some years ago (they lived then in a very nice part of Dundee, in what by any standards would be described as a 'middle-class' area) to see a man - a burglar - exiting an upstairs window across the roof of a rear extension, with a bag of 'loot'. Other bags of 'loot' were later discovered in a back corner of the garden, indicating that he had made at least three trips into the house to steal prior to my relatives' return home. Coming off the roof of the rear extension he fell badly and so it was easy for my even then quite elderly uncle to detain the man until the police responded to the telephone call that my aunt made for assistance. No violence was used by either the man or my uncle. Nevertheless, for several months, until the case came to court, my uncle was under threat of police prosecution for 'illegal detention'. Luckily that threat was removed just before the trial - the burglar having withdrawn his spurious claim, when it became clear his lengthy prior record of theft would be an issue.

So, if what Mr Shearer is proposing is that if some ned/chav/ne'er do well invades my home intent on theft, that I may stop that person by ANY MEANS AVAIALBLE, then I might be prepared to go along with him. And I think the means I should be allowed to have available, should I so wish, should include for example a baseball bat or a gun. Why should I have to afford a robber ANY rights whatsoever?! And why should I be at risk of criminal proceedings for defending my home? However, I very much doubt that this is what Mr Shearer proposes.

In summary, the scope of police duties should be for elected officials to decide, not for the police to set arbitrarily. Given the fact, too, that it is highly probable that middle-class people pay the vast bulk of the taxes that pay for public services like the police, it is bare-faced effrontery for some jumped-up policeman to make this kind of policy statement. Mr Shearer should get on with doing his policing job and not interfere with policy matters way above his pay grade!

"Engrenages" - Spiral (French TV cop series)

Unfortunately I didn't see the first series of "Engrenages" a couple of years ago, but the second series of this gritty French TV cop series is currently showing on BBC4 television. The English title of the show isn't particularly good, although it does try and encompass the different themes of the story, I suppose. In any case, I have to say I have become addicted to the second series - I started to watch it before I went to Spain in mid-September, but made sure I recorded every episode on my DVR, because I knew I proabably wouldn't be able to watch every episode when I was there.

Currently we're on episode 6 of 8 of the second series (with episode 7 being shown tonight and again next Friday, both on BBC4). It's still possible, however, if you're quick, to watch the whole series on the BBC iPlayer here.

I mentioned that the series is "gritty" - well, it's that all rght! "Engrenages" means 'gears' or 'cogs', but a more colloquial translation might be 'convolutions' or 'complications'. I think what the actual English title 'Sprial' is trying to convey is the theme of the hidden complexities of the criminal and semi-criminal characters in the series and their inter-relationships. Apart from the fact that the legal system is different in France from the usual English or American we are more familiar with, it adds the seediness of various of the legal protagonists (from the frankly corrupt Advocate Szabo to the ambitious, unscrupulous and completely out-of-her-depth AdovocateKarlsson), not to mention the ambition and publicity-seeking of a Public Prosceutor and a randy and stressed (female) police inspector and the undercover (and good-looking) Arab police officer Samy with whom she flirts.

For me one of the attractions of this second series is the argot, a mixture of slang Parisian French and slang Moroccan Arabic - I can follow most of the dialogue in both languages without using the sub-titles (which are pretty good, I'd say), but it does add an atmosphere of authenticity. Just as in modern 'popular' English, which is peppered with words orginating in India/Pakistan, Africa or the Middle East (which many people don't realise, so ubiquitous have they become), French is similarly admixed with a lot of north-African words and slang, even amongst native French, but of course in this cop show many of the ne-er do wells are of Moroccan or Algerian origin anyway, mainly Moslem but from what I can observe a few of them are probably north-African Jews too (when I lived in Casablanca in the early 1970s, for part of my time there I lived in an apartment in a smartish part of the city adjacent to the Jewish quarter or 'mellah', although many of the original inhabitants had left in the wake of the '67 war). The seediness, corruption and general back-biting, ambition and spite seems to involve all the communities portrayed in the programme, whether French, north-African or Jewish and whether they are the professionals (judges, advocates, police) or the low-life criminals who they are trying to catch or in some cases colluding with. Much grittier than most of the CSI offerings from the US - in fact I'd say the closest to it I've seen is the Glasgow-based Taggart, specially some of its earlier episodes.

Catch it on BBC4 (Sundays at 10pm, Fridays at 11.35pm or on the BBC iPlayer) if you can.

BoJo on Blair

The name's Blair, Sir Ian Blair. London Mayor Boris Johnson didn't think much of this man, or his handling of his job whilst Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, some time before he became Mayor. And told him so in a startlingly-frank exchange of correspondence. Well done, Boris!


I called for Blair to be sacked as long ago as September 2005, then in January 2006 urged him to shut up, as it was becoming very clear he seemed to have a habit of speaking without first thinking, so I reacted with great pleasure last October when news that he had resigned emerged, helped on his way by the self-same Boris Johnson. I repeat: Well done, Boris!

(thru Fraser Nelson writing at the Spectator 'Coffee House')

Met Police Chief Sir Ian Blair resigns - well done, Boris!

It was with great pleasure that I heard rumours earlier today that Sir Ian Blair was probably going to announce his resignation at around 4pm today. Shortly before that I had to go out for a few hours, but I almost put the car off the road when I heard confrimation on the car radio that it had come to pass.

It has not been a secret that Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, would ideally have wished to get shot of Sir Ian and I am delighted that Boris seems to have had a hand in his long-overdue departure. It gives me exquisite pleasure to read also the letter Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has written [had to write more like] to Boris Johnson; one can just imagine her bawling out some poor Home Official official who advised her she had no option but to include the Mayor of London in the process.

I have been calling for Sir Ian Blair to go [or to be sacked] for some years, my most explicit call for this having been here in September 2005; I am glad that at long last this odious politician/policeman has been seen off!

Police hypocrisy over disclosure of information

The police often tell us, when the subject of ID Cards comes up, and the centralised database apparently necessary to make the system viable, that "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

Now we see clearly the hypocrisy of the police when it comes to the police themselves being required to reveal operational information, by no less a person than the Scottish Information Commissioner.

The case involves Northern Constabulary, the force responsible for policing my part of Scotland and relates to the death of a man in Wick in February 1997. His body was found in the harbour and the police stated that his death was accidental. The family did and do not accept this conclusion. A review of the police investigation conducted by Central Scotland Police Chief Constable Andrew Cameron, published in February 2007, criticised some procedures followed by Northern Constabulary; only parts of the report were published, however, with sensitive parts being 'blanked out' at the request of Northern Constabulary.

Now the Scottish Information Commissioner has ruled that Northern Constabulary must reveal the names of officers based in Wick at the time and the force is appealing against this decision on what seem to me to be the most far-fetched, wrong-headed and vexatious grounds:

"The appeal is based on the grounds of the law, in relation to the disclosure of personal data, covered by the Data Protection Act 1988 and requests that the decision should accordingly be quashed."

How can it be in conravention of the Data Protection Act to reveal information about who was on duty? The strong suspicion must be be that the police do have something to hide.

Police State Britain: 42-day detention update

A joint committee of MPs and Peers has today published a report stating its belief that 'the plans breached European human rights laws and the amendments offered were "inadequate to protect individuals against the threat of arbitrary detention"'. The chairman of the committee, Labour MP Andrew Dismore, is quoted as stating:

"The government has talked of a major emergency, the 'nightmare scenario' of simultaneous plots across Britain or two 9/11s at once. "Yet the amendments tabled by the government provide for possible events falling well short of that."

In other words their 'what if' scare tactics are not working as completely as the government would have wished!

The committee concludes its repot thus:

"No amount of additional parliamentary or judicial safeguards can render the proposal for a reserve power of 42 days' pre-charge detention compatible with the right to liberty in Article 5 of the ECHR (European Convention of Human Rights)."

Now I am no lawyer, but if the above conclusion were to be upheld by a judicial committee of the House of Lords then the present 28-day detention period should also be declared ultra vires as it seems to me it is not qualitatively different from the 42-day detention limit which the government now proposes.

Make no mistake, this is a matter of prime importance. I was very disappointed yesterday that at Prime Minister's Questions this matter was not included in the questions from either of the leaders of the Conservatives or LibDems, although I was pleased to see that at least one [female] Labour MP had the guts to ask the PM a pointed question on it. She of course got more 'waffle' in response!

The general opinion on Andrew Neil's 'The Daily Politics' was that David Cameron would not ask a question about it because whilst his Party and the LibDems were opposed to the policy, public opinion polls seem to show that only a relatively small number of people throughout the country are perturbed about this further proposed drastic erosion of civil liberties so there is no political 'mileage' in it for the Conservatives. It also seems to be the case that too many of the potential Labour MP 'rebels' have been won over either by the government's blandishments or simply by fear for their own political futures if they continue to oppose government policy. Completely odious and despicable.

There is a great propaganda war being waged by the government at present to try and get the vote it needs next week. I urge anyone who reads this to start making as much noise about this as they can to try and thwart them - only by making enough Labour MPs see where their true long-term interests lie will they ignore their own base short-term interests and vote their consciences.

For those complacent fellow-citizens who either think the 42-day limit is necessary or acceptable I urge them to consider the following. The dirty unspoken assumption is that 'only' brown-skinned or Moslem people are going to be affected by this change and the not-so-far-under-the-surface racism of many people means that a lot of people don't see that as a problem. It will be no good them complaining when, in a few years time, some perfectly ordinary middle-class white citizen is swept off the street into the State's clutches with little right of redress because they have said or read something that the government of the day finds unacceptable! We have already seen how CCTV and other covert surveillance is being misused and I find it very frustrating and alarming how complacent so many people are about their basic civil rights. There are yet another couple of alarming posts on SpyBlog recently here and here which frankly scare the bejeebers out of me; you need to read the whole of the first lengthy linked post before the implications begin to sink in.

My most recent previous article on the 42-day limit proposals is here.

Police State Britain: the 42-day detention 'protect the public' myth

There is an absolutely appalling article in today's Telegraph, basically a piece of government propaganda, written by Peter Clarke (until recently head of the counter-terrorism command at Scotland Yard). There is so much to write about this outrageous attempt at extending the right of the State to lengthen the [already far too long] period it may hold citizens without charge from 28 to 42 days, but I will limit myself (today is my birthday after all) to one of the many highly-disingenuous justifications for the change:

When I was asked, in 2005, by the home affairs select committee how many terrorists I had been obliged to let go through lack of time to investigate, I inwardly despaired. It was the wrong question. We should look forward, not back. The fact that we have been able to convict more than 60 terrorists in the last year or so is irrelevant. The better question would have been: "Is it likely that there will come a time when the present 28-day limit is insufficient?" The answer would have been, "undoubtedly". That is why we should legislate now, and not in panic in an emergency.

Oh, this aims to sound very re-assuring (or at least Peter Clarke presumably hopes it does), but what is he really saying? Basically there might, sometime in the future, be a case where, whatever limit on detention without charge is set, the period allowed would not be sufficient for the police to formulate actual charges against a detainee. This was the same when the period was 72 hours and is the same now with 28 days. It would be the same with 42, 56 or 90 days. Even if the period of detention were to be set at, say (just to be ridiculous), 5 years, there might come a time sometime in the future where the police contended it was not adequate for them to investigate exhaustively their suspicions of a given detainee and come to the conclusion that no plausible charges could be brought.

This idea that we should legislate for every theoretical contingency in the future is tanatmount to saying that people should be able to be held indefinitely, just in case. I'm truly amazed at the brass-necks of these people, expecting us to swallow their half-baked ideas and ignore this blatant attempt at normalising increasingly-long periods of detention without charge as somehow being 'for our own good'! The mindset of these would-be tyrants seems to be that the concept of 'habeas corpus' no longer has a value.

As for Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's attempts to placate Labour 'rebels', disingenuous does not even begin to cover it!

PS/ I find it extremely depressing that a writer for the Spectator is so easily-duped by the current propaganda offensive by the government to have its way. Frankly this is far more important than Party politics and the suggested desire by potentially-rebellious Labour MPs not to inflict further harm on an already-weakened government and is most certainly no justification for them going against their consciences - it is not something to understand, rather it is something to condemn them for if they take this course of action and for which their electors should punish them at the next election for their treachery against the long-term public interest and the democratic future of this country.

Police State Britain - 'stun gun' use described as 'wicked' by a judge in court

The use of a device of a similar kind to that used by the police has been described as wicked by a High Court judge in Edinburgh. Habitual criminal Steven Burns was told by Lord Clarke that he had committed:

"... a wicked, unprovoked and vicious attack on an innocent member of the public. "The fact you initiated this attack by the use of a stun gun made it all the more sinister. It was also cowardly. "Your criminal record is appalling and conveys to my eyes a man who has absolutely no respect for the law and simply refuses to learn his lawless conduct must stop."

I suppose context is everything, but the fact that Burns's victim, Craig Samuel, has been severely injured and permanently disfigured whilst using a device 'of a much lower strength than used by law enforcement authorities' will have little effect on plans to deploy these vicious devices amongst those, in theory, employed to protect the public (and not simply used by the State as a means of controlling and coercing citizens to its will, as seems increasingly to be the case).

Police State Britain: Dorset cops destroy message calling for referendum

Some person this morning chose to write a message in the sand on the beach opposite the Labour Party Conference venue in Bournemouth (at about 11am apparently). By 1.20pm, just after the morning session of the conference had closed, and by complete coincidence (do you believe that? - I must admit I don't), six mounted cops walked in line along the beach, 'accidentally on purpose' destroying the embarrassing message. Read more here.

Very sinister, I'd say. Of course, this is the country where a woman who was simply reading out the names of the British military personnel who have been killed in Iraq, in front of the Cenotaph in London, was arrested (*). It is becoming increasingly clear that even peaceful dissent is no longer tolerated in this country by the 'forces of law and order' and our government.

(*) As regular readers here will know I strongly supported British involvement in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and our presence there since - but I believe in free speech, that's all. And in any case the lady was only reading out a list of names of brave men and women whose families have lost them forever; a respectful gesture I would have thought, however one may feel about the war. I also support strongly UK participation in the EU and whilst I am broadly supportive of further integration in Europe thought that both the now rejected Constitutional Treaty and the current Reform Treaty are not in our best interests for reasons I have written about here many times before, but even if I had been in favour of both think it is essential that the population is asked to confirm the decision the government wishes to take on our behalf without consulting us.

Jean Charles de Menezes shooting - IPCC report due

The fall-out in the wake of innocent, but still dead, Jean Charles de Menezes's shooting in London in July 2005 continues. Teflon-Blair (the Met. one) seems to have escaped censure once more.

Controlled explosions "pour encourager les autres"?

This is the kind of hysterical over-reaction that got poor, innocent, Jean-Charles de Menezes shot because his face didn't fit.

I don't know whether to laugh or to cry about some of the quotes attributed to the Police in this article:
- ' Strathclyde Police said there had been "absolutely no specific information" that the car was a threat. '
- "The car did not constitute a threat and we will shortly move into the phase where we will start the forensic examination, firstly with the car in situ, and then later the car will be removed for a full forensic examination."

"THE CAR DID NOT CONSTITUTE A THREAT" - so it was blown up. All perfectly logical.

Sorry to belabour the point (quite a good pun, in view of our current government, doncha think?), but whilst I have absolutely no doubt that the Police thought they had good 'intelligence' (and I use that word advisedly) that the vehicle might pose a risk, this 'intelligence' fiasco is now being dressed-up as some kind of serious operation. I would like to see the Police take a look back and re-examine the source of this 'intelligence' to see whether lessons might be learned for the future. (Of course, I'll look pretty silly if their "full forensic examination" does turn up some important information, but I'll take my chances on this.)

I hope there is more to it than that it was owned by a Moslem and that someone thought that, therefore, it must be suspicious. For example, I have had it remarked to me on at least four separate occasions over the past few weeks and by different people that they "don't like Moslems" - well, there are some things/people I don't like either, but that doesn't give me an excuse to go around demonising a whole demographic, does it? A little bit of calm, rational, appraisal of what we are being drawn into is urgently required, methinks.

The police and the BNP

The Guardian is reporting that Greater Manchester Police is investigating claims that it has British National Party (BNP) members in its ranks. It seems that some police officers called to enforce the peace outside a Manchester pub where BNP supporters had gathered to celebrate St George's Day (23rd April) had spotted off-duty police officers at the event.

I will repeat a comment I have made in this blog several times in the past: whilst the BNP is an odious organisation promulgating odious policies and beliefs it is NOT an illegal organisation.

The Guardian points out that Greater Manchester Police was one of the police forces where racism amongst recruits was identified by an undercover reporter; I wrote about that in October 2003. It also refers to the three-year old policy of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) under which BNP members would be dismissed from police forces, it being felt that membership of this particular political organisation is incompatible with being a police officer. My reaction at the time, and now, is that whilst I understand fully the desire of ACPO to keep racism and bigotry out of its ranks, its job is to enforce laws passed by Parliament and signed into law by Her Majesty the Queen. I am not aware that any law has been passed by Parliament, or that any statutory regulation has been introduced by the Government, to make membership of the BNP illegal. Personally I would shed no tears if membership of that organisation were to be made illegal, but ACPO has no legislative powers and it should not act as if it does.

I expressed similar views when I read in September 2004 that the Home Office was contemplating introducing a ban on BNP membership amongst civil servants and when I read in May 2005 that Scottish police forces were to screen recruits for racism, in itself a laudable aim.

Whilst I loathe and fear the BNP (I am after all a gay man, not perhaps a favourite category for these people) I do not think it wise to abandon certain of our liberties so casually by allowing bodies such as the police, or indeed the Government, to act in ways which the law makes no provision for. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, there was a very interesting programme on BBC Radio4 this evening called Turning Right (to be repeated on Sunday 13MAY07 at 5pm) about the rise of the 'Far Right' in Britain; you can listen to it again for the next week by clicking on the 'listen again' button. Amongst others interviewed was the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, who said that he no longer believes, as he admits he did ten years ago, that the Holocaust is a myth. When asked why he had changed his mind he said:

"Because of European law; if I say I believe that, I can be extradited to France."

When asked to clarify whether this means he has actually changed what he believes rather than just what he is willing to say, he responded:

"I believe that which the law says I must believe."

He predicted that by sometime like 2040 either a political party like the BNP, or perhaps the BNP itself, could be the Government of this country; a frightening prospect. Draw your own conclusions. For myself I believe that the BNP continues to be a dangerous and loathesome organisation. Perhaps there is a case for making it illegal. There are dangers in that course of action as banning it might merely drive members and like-minded people underground, but I think this is a better and safer option than allowing the police to take the law into their own hands.

Police Chief 'banged to rights' for mobile phone usage

A senior policeman with Strathclyde Police, Chief Supt Kenny Scott, has been fined GBP60 and had 3 points added to his driving licence for using his mobile 'phone whilst driving. He was off-duty at the time.

I don't know what the circumstances were in this case, but I find personally it requires some discipline not to reach for the mobile if it rings when I'm driving, but so far I haven't given in to the temptation. Whilst I am in general supportive of the ban it is difficult to believe that simply talking to a passenger (or being talked to by a passenger) is not at least as distracting. I do swig from a bottle of water whilst driving and I have read in the past that people have been fined for this too - so I had better watch out I suppose!

I hope the police have some kind of evidence ...

... to back this up. There have been so many cases recently of the police arresting people on suspicion of terrorist activity amid a blaze of publicity then releasing them quietly without charge a few weeks later that I hope they have something concrete to back this up; otherwise the suspicion will be that they are acting merely to curry favour with the perceived wishes of the government.