Should NX121 have faced a murder charge for killing Chris Kaba?

·20 min·1 clip

Neil Basu says the IOPC should use evidence, not emotions, in the Chris Kaba murder decision.

Jane on Instagram asks about double standards in policing. Andy Hughes opens the conversation, and Neil Basu answers by drawing a line between policing and the wider culture around it. Madeleine McCann is the first example on the table. So are black children who go missing and barely make the news. Basu says the issue is really double standards in society and media. He points to a majority white society. He says young, innocent, beautiful white children going missing or being murdered tend to get more attention, especially when they are British kids. He says that has been the case for a while. To underline it, he refers back to Ian Blair, then commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The subject then turns to police discipline after a Panorama documentary. Basu says retraining incompetent people should be the first move, because the job is to teach officers how to do the job. He says Mark Rowley is the closest they have had as commissioner since 1974. He still wants chief constables to hire the best people, fire the worst, and keep zero tolerance for the prejudiced and the corrupt. Andy Hughes pushes on how slowly those decisions can happen in practice. The exchange lands on a basic point: chief officers cannot simply fire someone in a heartbeat. They discuss a fast track investigation. They also discuss fast track dismissal. One officer was arrested and questioned. Basu says policing is different from most organisations because the power of the Federation shapes the process. He and Hughes note that police suspensions can stretch on for years with full pay. The discussion ends with the ongoing push to change regulations through the Home Secretary to make it less of a bureaucratic burden to get rid of people more quickly.

As heard by us

A blunt Q&A on who gets seen, who gets missed, and how policing discipline works.

The Crime Agents turns a listener's question about double standards in policing into a sharp look at how missing children are covered, why Madeleine McCann still draws attention, and how black children can slip out of the news cycle.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A missing-child question turns into double standards in policing, media attention, and the slow machinery of discipline.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Crime Agents