This chap claims to be "a lawyer and writer working in London". He doesn't say what area of law he specialises in but I strongly suspect he rarely interacts with the police service. The reason I suspect this is that the modern British police service is not a hiding place for the secret facists in society. Even if it was, we operate within the law set down by Parliament and the courts and policy set by senior officers which is heavily scrutinised by the police authority.
It's not as if we can go around beating people up or locking people up for crimes they haven't committed. If any of us, volunteers or full-timers, did that we would be out of the front door before we could say Police and Criminal Evidence Act.
No, I think Mr Green is operating from a position of inexperience. Has he never been guided through the arrest and custody procedure? Has he never had explained the right to free legal advice? Has he never been asked a whole series of questions to find out how the unpleasantness of being locked up can be minimised?
I can't speak for everyone, but I do not volunteer because it gives me the opportunity to intimidate people or to give me a false feeling of power in order to indulge some sense of insecurity or inadequacy. If I did I would have given up a long time ago because being a police officer gives me neither of those things.
Mr Green obviously hasn't taken the time to get to know many police officers as individuals. There are a few dickheads, but most are liberal, decent and extremely nice. I think Mr Green is labouring under some kind of weird, outdated stereotype of rough men whose use physical force to subdue their victims.
I realise that the Twitter posts quoted above were probably simple flippant remarks, written to get a cheap laugh from his followers. But they do highlight a worryingly common opinion amongst some educated professionals that we are just here for our own fun and to stop anyone else having any fun. It simply is not true. It annoys me when people who should really know better make the suggestion.
