Our thanks to Stephen for a piece in yesterday’s Times (£), Police officer left with broken nose after Manchester Airport brawl tells court she was ‘absolutely terrified’. The piece includes a video (1:34). The officer was PC Lydia Ward, who described herself to the court as “petite and eight stone” and “absolutely terrified”, clearly incapable of doing what was required in a violent situation, either physically or temperamentally. Doubtless she was being paid the same as her male colleagues who inevitably had to sort out the situation.
Sky News has this, with videos. An extract:
“Defence lawyer Rosemary Fernandes suggested 20-year-old Amaaz had been “taken by surprise” and believed he was being attacked when police approached him.
She argued he punched PC Ward in “lawful self-defence on the basis that you were an assailant”.
“It is important you identify yourselves as police officers, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I don’t think we had any time to do that,” replied PC Ward. “We didn’t have any time for rational discussion with this male as it turned violently quickly.”
She [J4MB: PC Lydia Ward] said it would have been obvious to the defendant that she was a female police officer.” [J4MB emphasis. In plain English, she had assumed that being a woman, she wouldn’t be the victim of violence.]
As in other professions and life generally, women want the upsides of everything (in this case, a good salary, the opportunity to boss people about and maybe Taser them, and more) and the downsides of nothing (in this case, being the potential victims of violence, something always accepted by policemen).
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Justice for Men & Boys 
Its a local story. I was saddened by some commentary on the male police officer, who gave his evidence the day before, which seemed to blame him for being smaller than his assailants and not getting a grip. This despite him having to deal with two men bigger than himself. Its pretty clear he got a thorough battering before eventually subduing the pair.
One key point, being Airport duty, is that he was actually armed. And was trying to avoid a close in grapple in case his weapon was taken from him, and used by one of his assailants. This reminded me of the number of cases occurring in the US where female officers panic and use their weapons. Our guy will get no credit for his restraint in not drawing his gun even under such extreme assault. His concern about the potential consequences for “the public” if his weapon was used either by his assailants or himself in such a confined and public area will go unnoticed. While we worry that his colleague was hurt, in tears and terrified.
The other is the point that under the Equality Act the “Police Service” can’t insist on a height or fitness requirement for men different for women. Hence favouring women requires them to reduce standards all round. This is simply the practical effect. In the days of WPCs it could be said that there were differences between the sexes and therefore different criteria and different specialisms. Without the pretense of “equality” one could have simply increased the number of WPC posts while at the same time keeping up a reasonable supply of suitably burly and intimidating Police Men (to supply the force in Police Force). It’s unflattering to my sex but the truth is the majority of the Police’s “customers” are young men.
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In one report of her evidence the young police officer says she had never experienced violence towards her in 4 years as an officer. I have had friends in GMP. This seems unlikely unless she’d been remarkably lucky or maybe given duties where such is remarkably unlikely (eg not in one of our town/city centres on Friday or Saturday night.)
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