Police are part of us, not force to be feared

Asked to describe our working day we highlight the best bits, carefully stepping around the mundane moments all jobs have.

It’s harmless. Who wants to hear about the boring bits anyway?

The much-derided police recruitment video turns up the volume to 11. Bombs, guns, tasers, car chases, it has it all.

Everything, unfortunately, except a dose of reality.

For this is not an entertaining bit of bragging down the pub, it’s a representation of Bailiwick policing. As such it says something not just about the job but about island life.

Guernsey is not Line of Duty meets Luther. The island does not take pride in how many murders have been solved but in how few took place. We want to prevent crime, not investigate it.

The police are a valued part of our community, not a faceless, gun-toting, helmet-wearing force more suited to quelling riots. Officers who apply for the job should not yearn for a bit of pepper spray action on a Saturday night but instead enjoy walking the High Street beat chatting to islanders who know them by name and respect them.

Pictures of bad guys being slammed to the ground would jar at any time. In the wake of the death of George Floyd under the knee of a US police officer it is crass insensitivity.

The image of the police as violent paramilitary enforcers of the law is something to be resisted, not lionised. The ‘them and us’ view of policing that has all too speedily crossed the Atlantic to the UK must not be allowed to take root here.

Thankfully, the tone of the national newspapers was one of Hot Fuzz mockery. It could have been much worse.

This was a mistake, a poorly-executed piece of PR which was always likely to blow up in the police chief’s face.

He was right to withdraw the video quickly and say sorry. The publicity will attract scores of candidates but it is not good enough to say the ends justify the means.

The island needs officers who value their job for what they can offer the community, not for how fast they can drive or how well they can shoot.