Bad cop, bad cop

Everyone's far too distracted by Handsy Hancock to think about the security implications, let alone the other police disgraces of the past week

It occurs to us that two people who must be deeply enjoying Hatt Mancock's discomfiture are the terrible twins of British policing, Clever Dick and Pretty Patel.

Suddenly the Daniel Morgan report and the conviction of a serving police officer for the manslaughter of Dalian Atkinson seem ancient news. The revelation that black people are eight times as likely to be Tasered by police as white people, which was a prominent feature of reports on the trial of the footballer's killer, no longer dominates the discourse. The BBC's shocking catalogue of domestic abuse by police officers, most of it committed with impunity, is even harder to find on Google now. And even today's news that Atkinson's killer managed to sneak two police cautions past his recruiters is fighting a losing battle for airtime.

We've almost forgotten that the Morgan inquiry panel wrote this about the Met: "The Metropolitan Police’s culture of obfuscation and a lack of candour is unhealthy in any public service. Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit. In the panel’s view, this constitutes a form of institutional corruption.”

And this about Dick: "The panel has never received any reasonable explanation for the refusal over seven years by [then] assistant commissioner Dick and her successors to provide access to the Holmes [police database] accounts to the Daniel Morgan independent panel.”

It didn't accuse Dick of corruption, not quite, so she's still in her post. But then again, the extrajudicial killing of Jean Charles de Menezes on her watch didn't have any effect either on her glorious career. It's hard to imagine what could unseat her.

Mancock's creepy bum squeeze has just made all her recent inconveniences quite a lot less inconvenient. But is it too much to hope that Dick and indeed Patel might cop some flak for the security failing that allowed a video bug to be placed in a minister's office?