"Mr Watson, one of the best known defence solicitors in the North East of England, was arrested when Cleveland Police raided his Middlesbrough home in June 2009.
He was held in a cell for almost 30 hours and questioned on suspicion of perverting the course of justice before being released on bail.
Speaking about the incident Mr Watson said: "The shenanigans at the Old Bailey, as appalling as they may be to an outsider coming and looking at them for the first time, is the sort of behaviour Cleveland Police have been up to in small things and big for the bulk of my professional career.
Speaking to Newsnight about the case Mr Watson said: "What sticks in my throat is that millions of pounds have been wasted of taxpayers’ money at a time of supposed austerity when public services are closing down hand over fist in Middlesbrough. Millions of pounds wasted and not one police officer held to account.
In the wake of their inquiry the IPCC recommended that Cleveland Police consider suspending Ch Insp Riordan.
Instead, he was retired on a full pension following a decision by Cleveland Police’s Assistant Chief Constable Sean White, a man who knows Ch Insp Riordan personally as they were both on the police sailing team."
Unbelievable that this happens in this day and age.
Now some people shouldn’t be surprised about my utter cynicism of the police service.
I was just reading this and googled to find out Riodans’ age (didn’t find it but came across this post by Kaos) He looks very young to be retired!! That is a catastrophically bad decision by White.
The whole thing stinks. From the millions wasted by the police to the 500k given to a well off solicitor. I think Watson should do something charitable with that money, otherwise he is bleeding the resources for personal gain and that would not be right in this case.
I normally back the police. It’s a tough job, and I believe the majority of police officers do the job well. However this case shows there is something seriously wrong in Cleveland, and they should be handing out P45s not pensions!
It seems very odd that the IPCC asked West Yorkshire to investigate Cleveland, when it was West Yorkshire’s money laundering investigation that apparently swayed the judge into issuing the search warrant! Cleveland should have been investigating West Yorkshire, not the other way round!
Note that there is a complaint ongoing about West Yorkshire’s/IPCC’s investigation, therefore its probably a bit premature to be drawing too much conclusion from this at this stage.
Also given Watson’s concern about the wasting of taxpayers’ money, I assume he will be handing his half-a-million-pound payout straight back to the Treasury.
Why do you think the IPCC are taking 2 years plus to sort out which of the SYP and WMSCS will be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice over their roles in the Hillsborough cover up? Maybe it is to do with letting them retire early on medical grounds, keeping their pensions. It means all internal disciplinary proceedings are dropped. Duckenfield did it in 1989. Bettison did it in 2013. Same old, same old.
Solicitors / Lawyers / Barristers have been getting up to all sorts of shennanigans for years and many getting away with it.
Easily on a par with corruption in the Police service and other jobs but of course that will not suit the slanted and opinionated view that the op has on this.
Until we make our cops robots then that will be the day that there is no wrong doing. It will continue to happen until then. The vast majority are out there
though doing thier best and will risk all for anyone. This blokes inquest took place last month.
You can go online, right now, to the Bar Standards Board website and browse around the disciplinary pages.
You will find PLENTY of Barristers that have done wrong and paid the price for doing so.
Not given a full pension and a nice handshake, but barred from practising in the profession.
The idea that there is wrong in every group, is NOT the issue.
The issue is that the police are not being held to account, when those conducting the investigations and making the decisions are…lo and behold…the police.
Corruption to the very core is the problem with the police, it is no wonder that no one trusts them and no one intervenes to help them when they are in trouble. Look back at my previous threads for raising this issue previously.
Until you begin to admit the truth of your own problems, nothing will change.
Kaos I wasn’t having a pop at Watson, I was purely stating my expectation of him handing the half million pounds taxpayers’ money back to the Treasury. I can’t see how even a lawyer can construe that as a criticism.
Yes you was criticising, not only was you having a pop at Watson but you are attempting to twist the debate into whether he should give back the money or not.
Let’s not talk about the fact that the police launched an investigation into someone, simply because they didn’t like him.
Let’s not talk about the fact that the police completely trampled over legal professional privilege.
Let’s not talk about the fact that the police held a person illegally for 30 hours.
Let’s not talk about the fact that the police held a wife and child locked in their homes for 7 hours, for no good reason.
Let’s not talk about the fact that they held onto documents and continued to investigate a person, despite knowing he was innocent.
Let’s not talk about the cover-up by Cleveland police.
Let’s not talk about the IPCC recommendations of suspension.
Let’s not talk about the full pension pay-off by “chums” within Cleveland police.
Happy to talk about all that stuff - after the complaint over the investigation has been resolved. Until that has happened, the debate is unable to begin, I would have thought.
And nope, I can confirm I was most definitely not having a pop at Watson.
Appreciate that the majority of police are decent guys doing a tough job. Also that their are bad apples in every profession. My issue is that when the bad apples are identified, the police close ranks and protect them rather than expose them and kick them out.
Want a recent example? The 6 police who stood and watched the copper push over Ian Tomlinson. They watched an assault and did nothing to stop it. Perhaps naive of me to think they would, but things then got a whole lot worse.
Within hours it was known the guy had died, within a couple of days the police were reporting that they had had no known contact with him. So half a dozen coppers, watched one of their own push a guy over, knew that he died and then chose not to highlight the fact, just to cover up and pretend they saw nothing.
Any reason why these 6 are allowed to remain in the Met undisciplined? Public servants who see loyalty to another policeman (since kicked out) is more important that apprehending a criminal (who happens to be another policeman).
We constantly told that the cover up by the SYP / WMSCS (24 years ago) - that the police are much changed today…but to be frank, I don’t believe it for a minute. Still covering up for bent corrupt coppers, still letting them take early retirement
Covering up is how it works at work no matter who you work for is it not? We do… Someone fucks up, things go wrong, money goes up in smoke, more parts need ordered or total loss… Keep it country is the cry, the cover up swings into action, parts sourced in th e alternative style, things left to develope, job cards vanish ,management are bamboozled with facts, Big boss is told nothing, rug is lifted, curtains are closed, all are protected. Jobs are safe. Why should the police be any different while they are humans?
You do not judge other people’s actions and decide whether they should face criminal charges or not. You are not entrusted to dish out punishment like Judge, Jury and Executioner.
No-one is complaining when one police officer damages his boots, while off-duty, for the 4th time, the other officers rally around and say…look I have not had new boots in awhile, we the same size, I will order new boots you can have them, save you the trouble you will get in.
I am not really complaining about where an officer dings the new police car by fucking about in the car park playing football and everyone denies any knowledge of what happened.
We are talking about officers breaking the law and using the power vested in them to subjugate people.
Still covering up though aint they , you cant go switching the natural cover up for buddys instinct like a light switch … humans see . Be like asking someone not to take the large envelope full of cash just for saying nothing .
