Crime and Deviance in British comedy film

Within British comedy film , the issue of crime and deviance has been explored in depth, with the earlier dark comedies exploring serious issues. Though, British comedy tends to reflect crime in a lighthearted way. Notably, films such as The Lady Killers (1955) focus on crime which involves conmen trying to exploit old women, though with comical results. As well as this, modern comedies on crime such as Parole Officer (2001), Hot Fuzz (2007), Home Alone (1990) seemingly satirise social issues, and policing in particular. Interestingly, these films relfect the incapability of the police to control issues, with Hot Fuzz being a prime example, as some of the officers are constructed as being more laid back, unfit and carefree.

Though, comedy has managed to give a more accurate stereotype of the comical, haphazard police and secret agents, who manage to mess things up, but are still touted as the 'Proppian hero', as evident with Rowan Atkinson in Johnny English (2003).

Scene from Hot Fuzz (2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uPlNKWWsgY

Hot Fuzz revolves around the life of Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), a proud, dedicated police officer, working in London's Metropolitan Police Service. Angel excels in every area of his work and is commended for his numerous achievements, making him better than his colleagues. Due to his hard work, he is promoted by his superiors and is transferred to a rural village called Sandford (Gloucestershire), where he meets a group of laid back, care free police officers such as Danny Butterman (Nick Frost).

In many ways, Hot Fuzz (2007) is an example of films which reflect current social issues. In response to the July 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, police had to be more resolute and attentive over threats to the country. However, the accidental assassination of a suspected Brazilian electrician Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell Station on 22nd July 2005, resulted in a moral panic over policing. As a result, this mistake signified how the police intelligence was misleading and how inadequate the police was at handling situations which gradually led to the Chief Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair to resign over fears of disorganisation and poor government intelligence.

This article from the Guardian looks at how police are unable or in many ways incompetent at handling situations such as terrorist alerts, as their is usually mis communication with the Metropolitan Police and police officers on patrol. The article mocks the police for thier incompete and follow up in the investigation, as they have made a huge cock up.

De Menezes shooting investigation 'like an episode of Fawlty Towers', says Brian Paddick

By SARAH OLIVER and MARTIN SMITH

Last updated at 12:14 05 August 2007

One of Britain's most prominent ex-lawmen has likened scenes that unfolded in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of an innocent Brazilian at Stockwell Underground station to 'an episode of Fawlty Towers'.

Brian Paddick, who recently resigned as a Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard, said the sequence of events that followed the tragic shooting by police marksmen of Jean Charles de Menezes starkly exposed weaknesses at the top of the Metropolitan Police.

As a one-time member of Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair's inner circle, Paddick reveals the confusion at the heart of Scotland Yard during the height of the Al Qaeda threat and how an extraordinary confrontation with the Commissioner presaged the end of his own high-flying police career.

Paddick spoke out following the publication last week of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report into whether Scotland Yard told the truth in the hours after officers shot the wrong man.

The report found that Sir Ian had not known for 24 hours that De Menezes was innocent because his senior command had failed to tell him.


Forced out: Paddick feels his honesty cost him his career

In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Paddick:

• Questions how Sir Ian found himself in a position where he had to explain that his high command kept him in the dark.

• Reveals that he feared there would be a cover-up by the Metropolitan Police.

• Claims that he felt sidelined and forced out of his job after he challenged the official line on who-knew-what about the shooting.

Paddick's story starts on Thursday, July 21, 2005, when a gang launched a wave of failed terror attacks on the London transport system. It was a mere fortnight since the 7/7 bombings had killed 52 people and injured another 800 on London's public transport network.

Shortly after 10am the following day, Friday, July 22, 2005, De Menezes, 27, was shot dead by anti-terror officers who believed that they had failed- bomber Hussain Osman in their sights.

Paddick claims that at 3.15pm on that Friday he was told by two of Sir Ian's closest aides, Chief Superintendent Moir Stewart and Chief of Staff Caroline Murdoch, that the dead man was a 'Brazilian tourist'.

Both officers later disputed that they had used that expression.

However, Paddick claims the conversation went thus: 'You'll never believe what we've done now,' said Chief Supt Stewart. 'We've shot a Brazilian tourist.'

'You're joking,' replied Paddick.

'I'm not,' said Stewart.

'No,' added Murdoch. 'We've found a Brazilian driving licence in his back pocket.'

Minutes later, said Paddick, Sir Ian told a Press conference that the shooting was directly linked to the operation to catch the failed bombers ? a statement that Paddick felt did not tell the whole truth.

At about 4pm, a knot of senior officers, including Paddick, met in Assistant Commissioner Alan Brown's office and were given the Brazilian's name.

Then, at 5pm, a meeting chaired by Sir Ian was held in Room 806 of New Scotland Yard. Paddick was there. Another Assistant Commissioner, Andy Hayman, said that the police would need DNA evidence to confirm the dead man's identity.

'By this time I was concerned there was some sort of cover-up,' said Paddick. 'But I was bound by my loyalty to my Commissioner and the fact that I was outranked by Alan Brown and Andy Hayman.

Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead at Stockwell Underground station

I did think people would have understood if the Met had confessed promptly to shooting an innocent man ? the Press and the public were talking about a war-time situation that summer.'

Paddick is adamant that the calamity was common knowledge among Sir Ian's aides.

'The information available was good enough for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be told on the day of the shooting,' he said.

'What if the Brazilian Ambassador had telephoned the Commissioner personally to discuss the killing of one of his nationals?

'If it was correct that senior officers such as Assistant Commissioners Andy Hayman and Alan Brown had not told him, Ian Blair would have run the risk of looking stupid and out of control of his own force.


'Detective Chief Superintendent Maxine de Brunner, staff officer to Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson, was asked by Blair at 6.30pm if they had an ID on the victim yet. She said no. Yet her boss's secretary Laura Holford gave evidence to the IPCC that she [Holford] knew by 4pm the man was an innocent Brazilian.

'By 7pm on the day of the shooting the Muslim Safety Forum, a community liaison group, was told the victim was not a Muslim but was South American, possibly Brazilian. They are civilians ? and yet they know ahead of the Commissioner?

'It's taking on shades of an episode of Fawlty Towers where a guest dies and Basil hides the body under the bed. You had the Commissioner arriving at meetings where people were being briefed, someone was frantically hiding the metaphorical body under the desk and shouting, ?Don't mention the Brazilian.?

The farce, said Paddick, didn't stop there. He questions why Sir Ian ? on this of all days ? left his office in the early evening.

'And then the Commissioner went home at 7.15pm. What did he do? Listen to the radio, put his feet up, have a cup of cocoa and turn in, a man reassured his best people were on the case?

'By 9pm that night anti-terror officers had handed the investigation over to the Department of Professional Standards, they'd washed their hands of it because they knew they'd got the wrong man. Is it credible to suggest it would have been impolite to have called the Commissioner then to tell him?'

Paddick reconciled his desire for transparency with the overarching requirements of the anti-terror operation and kept silent for a month.

Then came a development he considered to be a legal and moral bombshell.

On August 21, 2005, Sir Ian gave an interview to a Sunday tabloid newspaper in which he claimed that neither he, nor his senior command, had known that De Menezes was innocent for 24 hours after the shooting.

Paddick said: 'Blair said that he and everyone who advised him believed the dead man to have been a suicide bomber for 24 hours after his death. It was quite clear to me this was not true. I didn't know what to do. I found the dilemma between loyalty and personal integrity almost unbearable.'

Paddick felt compelled to speak to his boss and made an appointment to see him at 5.15pm the following day. He said: 'I have been given various labels down the years, but the most fearless, bravest, most macho man in the Met is not one of them. So how come it was down to me a month after the Stockwell shooting to go to Ian Blair and put him straight?'

Jean Charles de Menezes


The body of Jean Charles de Menezes after the shooting

Paddick tried to make his loyalty clear. 'Since the time of your appointment, I have called you Commissioner. Today, I'm going to call you Ian,' he said, determined that Sir Ian should know he was addressing him as a trusted friend.

Paddick then told Sir Ian that his closest advisers had known the shooting was a fatal mistake on the day it happened. If they had not told their boss of the emerging evidence, then they should have done, certainly before Blair had given the Press conference.

Sir Ian, he claims, disagreed. 'He suggested it was me who had the wrong day and the wrong time,' said Paddick. 'Then he realised that I was definite about being told on the Friday and he asked me what I wanted him to do. I said it was up to him what he did. I was just there to tell him what I knew. He was still my friend as well as my colleague and I was torn. I wasn't there to confront him, I wanted to help him.' The men parted with a handshake. But it was also a farewell to their friendship. From that point on, Paddick claims, he felt sidelined.

In his evidence to the IPCC, Sir Ian would later dismiss his meeting with Paddick as lasting no more than a minute. He admitted making no notes, unlike the ever-meticulous Paddick, who wrote an aide memoire stretching to two A4 pages and took the trouble to telephone two senior colleagues, the clerk to the Police Authority and the IPCC to inform them of the exchange.

Paddick claimed: 'These are just a few of what I consider to be a series of significant anomalies. But the IPCC accepts he's telling the truth and therefore so must we.'

He is profoundly unimpressed with the IPCC report. Paddick said: 'The idea this report is a professional and thorough investigation is a conclusion only Inspector Clouseau could reach.

'Either the IPCC has been incompetent or political pressure has been put on it not to look too deeply into what happened.

'You can follow the cock-up or the conspiracy theory, but I believe a more extensive investigation may have come to a different conclusion.'

And he has huge sympathy for the only person to be censured by the report, Britain's most senior anti-terror officer, Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman.

Paddick said: 'All I can say is that it wasn't just the Met which shot the wrong man ? the IPCC has too. Andy Hayman and I have clashed many times in the past, I would not describe him as a friend or a supportive colleague, but I think it grossly unfair for him to have been singled out by a flawed investigation.'

The bottom line is that, like the IPCC report, Sir Ian himself and his senior command, Paddick can't explain why the Commissioner simply wasn't told that De Menezes was innocent for 24 hours.

It is a personal sadness for Paddick because, prior to Stockwell, he and Sir Ian had been professionally close. Lunching at Tate Britain prior to his appointment, Sir Ian had asked Paddick which job he coveted if Sir Ian became Commissioner. (Paddick said that he would like to run the internal affairs department.)

The junior officer had also helped the would-be Commissioner with his application form, offering three pages of feedback, and polished the speech that Sir Ian delivered to Scotland Yard staff upon his appointment.

This was not a particularly altruistic act. Sir Ian was familiar with Paddick's super-sensitive antennae, both social and political, and, of course, Paddick's private life ? he was Britain's highest-ranking gay officer ? suited Sir Ian's commitment to diversity across the Metropolitan Police.

However, the men's differences following Stockwell would prove irreconcilable.

Media leaks about subsequent police operations were blamed on Paddick. He was summoned to see the Commissioner and told that he was being moved from the powerful department of Territorial Policing, where he enjoyed day-to-day control over 20,000 officers, to Information Management, a tiny unit which Paddick described as 'staffed by people on defaulters parade'.

It was a career cul-de-sac for a man who had been told his promotion to assistant commissioner was a case of 'when, not if'.

After being told that he was being moved, Paddick turned and told the Commissioner: 'Ian, our mutual enemies will be celebrating today.'

Paddick's well-tuned antennae recognised that his quest for accountability over Stockwell was putting both of their careers and reputations on the line. Until this point, their clash had been a near- private affair.

What happened next turned it into a public tempest that dominated the airwaves and newspaper headlines for weeks. The BBC learned an officer had made a statement contradicting Blair's 24-hour claim to the IPCC. Paddick's name was in wide circulation.

The Metropolitan Police's Press operation issued a statement saying 'whatever his [the officer's] motives, it is simply untrue'. In effect, it was calling Paddick a liar.

By then in his late 40s, isolated within the Yard and with his life's ambition of achieving the rank of commissioner comprehensively dashed, Paddick had finally had enough. He threatened to sue his employer for libel, forcing the Met into a humiliating climbdown.

On that point at least, Paddick was victorious.

Today, there will be many in Scotland Yard who believe that in speaking out Paddick is doing from civvy street what he once did within the force: dividing loyalties and opinion while promoting his own agenda and profile.

A maverick and a loner, he had few friends among the senior echelons of the force, and it's fair to say he has even fewer now. But they shouldn't forget he was always a formidable operator.

He said: 'My career from my first night duty as a constable to the reason why I had to leave was about being open and honest.

'The outcome of Stockwell was never going to be about the truth, it was about politics and power ? and I was clearly never going to be reconciled with the Commissioner so I had to leave.'

Paddick broke with police tradition and had his leaving party away from the Yard.

The number of members of Sir Ian's top team were outnumbered by the cooks and waitresses from New Scotland Yard's canteen ? and there were only three of them ? who joined Paddick's driver and secretary and 70 other guests in wishing him well.

He extended an invitation to the Commissioner 'because I thought I ought to', but the chief declined, saying he would be out of the country.

Oddly,' claimed Paddick, 'he was not.'

Last night, in response to Paddick's allegations, Scotland Yard said in a statement: 'Brian Paddick has his own recollection of events. The IPCC has independently scrutinised relevant issues in relation to Stockwell and has taken evidence from both police and non-police witnesses.

'They have not upheld any complaints against the Commissioner, and as the Commissioner has made clear, he did not lie.

'Mr Paddick's reasons for leaving the MPS are entirely a matter for him.

'However, the MPS wants to make it clear that the reasons for his move from an operational to a non-operational post 12 months ago are well known to Mr Paddick, and were wholly unrelated to the events of Stockwell.'