100 UK cops suspended annually on corruption suspicions

100 UK cops suspended annually on corruption suspicions



Nearly 100 UK police officers are sacked annually on corruption charges. (File photo)
Wed Aug 27, 2014 5:3AM GMT

Nearly 100 British police officers are suspended each year on suspicion of involvement in corruption, according to recently released figures.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that a total of 460 officers have faced corruption probes in the last five years with such offenses as selling information, hacking into police computers and interfering with criminal probes, UK-based MailOnline reported Tuesday.

The force with the most suspended officers, according to the report, was London Metropolitan Police, where 119 officers and 67 other employees have been relieved of their duties during a corruption probe since 2009.

This is while Conservative British MP Mark Reckless, who sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee, described the number of corruption claims as troubling, saying that “460 is a worryingly high number.”

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“It’s more than just a few rotten apples in the barrel,” he added.

Earlier this month, Scotland Yard officer Thomas Ridgeway was sentenced to 12 months in prison after he admitted selling stories to The Sun for £2,600, using his mother as an intermediary.

The exposure comes days after it was revealed that a total of 828 UK police officers and civilian staff had broken social media guidelines over a five-year period, making racist and threatening comments on Facebook and Twitter. They were also found to have friend-requested victims of crime and uploaded “compromising” images of colleagues.

Three former Metropolitan Police detectives were also recently revealed to have had deep ties to the criminal underworld, selling illicit drugs on a mass scale with apparent impunity. The officers were thought to have seized tens of thousands of ecstasy pills from British criminals only to sell the drugs on the black market.

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/08/27/376707/data-revealed-about-uk-police-corruption/