JerryChicken wrote:
You miss the point completely.
Well perhaps this is because you keep making points that are irrelevant to the main issue...which is justice or in this case a possible injustice and even more worrying police corruption and another white wash by police investigating themselves. Now this is the point that you keep failing to address for what I can only imagine to be political reasons.
You also completely miss the other main point here which is that Mitchell has never been charged with any offense. It was the politically motivated and malicious leaking of the confidential police log to the Sun, followed by fabricated evidence by police, and then a high profile campaign by the police Federation and Labour front benchers to get him sacked.
The only people that have been arrested have been 5 police officers and 3 of their family and friends.
Three Chief Constables, journalists and MP's of all parties have publicly apologised to Mitchell.
JerryChicken wrote:
His PR team released to Channel 4 two very poor quality short cctv clips which had a missing section and no audio, as evidence of what was said they may as well have given Ch4 a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
This statement is wrong and misleading.
It was not "his PR team" as you claim but in fact an independent award winning TV company, called Blakeway that managed to get hold of CCTV footage which told a very different story. The black-and-white images, from three cameras, suggested Mitchell was the victim of a terrible conspiracy. One which, a year on, the police have still not got to the bottom of.
The reporter Michael Crick and the Despatches team then dug deeper and found the following:
The evidence is clear enough. The police ‘log’ reprinted in the Daily Telegraph cited ‘several members of the public’ who were present and ‘visibly shocked’ by Mitchell’s behaviour. But the CCTV showed no such crowd. While investigating for Channel 4’s Dispatches, Blakeway also saw two emails from a man who claimed to be a bystander among the supposed crowd. He had complained about the ‘incident’ to his MP, John Randall. Coincidentally, Randall was Andrew Mitchell’s deputy chief.
Crich explained: "When we tracked the emailer down to his home in Ruislip, the man claimed he hadn’t been ‘a witness to anything’; and when I questioned him on his doorstep, he denied any police links. When we obtained his marriage certificate a few days later, however, it revealed he’d been a policeman. By now, the Met knew we were making a programme for Channel 4. They quickly arrested the man in Ruislip, and announced that he was actually a member of the Diplomatic Protection Group, the body whose work includes guarding Downing Street.
The police added, though, that the man from Ruislip wasn’t working in Downing Street on the night in question — which suggested collusion. One of the most senior figures in government, it now seemed, had been stitched up by some of the police whose job it is to protect the most powerful people in the land."
JerryChicken wrote:
There has been no recorded evidence of the altercation released into the public domain at all, only Mitchells own personal account which, if correct, should not have resulted in his forced resignation from his post and of Camerons willingness to accept it, if an employee and a good mate, and a senior member of your management team comes to you and states that he is innocent of all charges and that he is being fitted up by the police then the least that the Prime Minister could do would be to demand all recorded evidence be submitted to him - then Cameron made his decision.
Again your comment is inaccurate and misleading (have you had police training by any chance?)
There are in fact three recordings of evidence in the public domain. The first is the dodgy police log leaked by a police officer to the media, the second are the 3 separate VT's at the gates which throws serious doubt on the police log and the third is Mitchell's 40 minute taped answers to the questions posed by the 3 police Federation officers. Then there are a couple of interviews that Mitchell gace to the media.
To suggest that Mitchell's account " if correct, should not have resulted in his forced resignation from his post" is to seriously fail to understand the events of the time which were reported thus:
"Mitchell spent much of the day placating colleagues who’d lost their jobs. At 7.31 p.m. that night, Mitchell left his room in the Cabinet Office, mounted his old-school bicycle (complete with undergraduate basket), and pedalled his way down Downing Street. He was late for a dinner at the Carlton Club. At the gates, Mitchell was stopped by the police, and told to wheel his bicycle through the side entrance instead. He protested; he swore, and then?
The next night the Sun’s headline screamed, ‘CABINET MINISTER: POLICE ARE PLEBS’. The paper claimed that Mitchell had told the police they didn’t run the ‘f...ing country’; that they were ‘morons’; and, most politically dangerous, that they were ‘f...ing plebs’. The media went into a frenzy, egged on by the Police Federation. Mitchell denied uttering the phrases, but most people in politics felt the Sun story smelt right. And the case against Mitchell looked clear cut once the Daily Telegraph printed a ‘police log’ which contained similar phrases. Plebgate, as it became known, fitted the image of the Cameron regime as a bunch of arrogant, public school toffs. Mitchell toughed it out for three weeks, but was eventually forced to resign."
The crucial final straw for Mitchell was the Federation police officers statement on national TV news only minutes after their 45 minute meeting together. Inspector Ken MacKaill, from West Mercia Police, accused Mr Mitchell of refusing to give any more detail of the incident. Mr MacKaill said: 'I think Mr Mitchell has no option but to resign. 'He is continuing to refuse to elaborate on what happened. I think his position is untenable.'
The tape recording reveals Mr Mitchell going to great lengths to explain what happened in Downing Street.
He said: 'I did not say and I give you my word, I give you my word, I did not call an officer an f'ing pleb I did not say you are an f'ing moron and I did not say you should know your f'ing place.
'I would never speak to anyone like that least of all a police officer and you have my word I never said those things.'
Later Detective Sergeant Stuart Hinton said to Mr Mitchell: 'I appreciate your candour, and we appreciate you have gone beyond what you said in, to the medie"
JerryChicken wrote:
Where is that evidence ?
Quite. There is no evidence against Mitchell. Mitchell was not charged or even cautioned. One has to ask that if he had really said what was in the dodgy police log then the police would have at least cautioned him. Whereas 5 police officers and their 3 mates have been arrested so it is obvious there is evidence against those arrested.
JerryChicken wrote:
At the moment we, the public, are being asked to believe that Downing Street is secured by two cheap, poor quality, badly located cctv cameras of the type used in door entry systems, indeed as they were mounted on a treasury building then that looks as though thats exactly what they were.
JerryChicken wrote:
If you believe that that is the total sum of Downing Street security then you are a fool.
Who are the security forces in Downing Street. Answer the police? If indeed there is further evidence as you seem to believe, then this is in the police domain.
Question why wouldn't the police use it if indeed it justified the police log. No amount of political pressure would prevent that sort of cover up. The police would have loved to leak a story thet the PM was suppressing the truth no wouldn't they?
So this is where you you theory falls slips down it's own grassy knoll.
