Take the case that's some up in court this week of the former policewoman who advertised herself on a website for escort girls. I'm quite sure that many people disapprove of prostitution and the veneer of the "escort" tag is not really going to convince anyone that she was doing anything other offering sex for sale at £100 an hour. I think people are a bit to quick to judge on such matters - especially when you see figures about how many men use prostitutes. Nevertheless, even I would concede that her part-time job potentially compromised her integrity and could have made it difficult for her to do her full-time job properly and for that error of judgement I could understand that she probably deserved to be sacked by the police force.
However, so far as I have read, nobody is suggesting that she blackmailed anyone into anything by telling them she was a police officer, or that she had actually treated a "client" differently when she came across them as a police officer, nor that she even told her clients that she worked for the police. There is no suggestion that her activities "out of hours" hurt anyone except perhaps herself, and now her family, given the way she has been named and exposed by the press and media. So why do we need her to be charged with the offence of "Misconduct in a Public Office" (to which she has pleaded guilty)? The charge can lead to a possible sentence of Life Imprisonment! That she has now been remanded in custody while the case takes place against the other defendants involved means that the judge is clearly minded to impose a prison sentence for this "offence". I would have thought that there had to be more of a connection between the "misconduct" and the "public office" (like if she'd attempted to use her police position to obstruct the investigation) but the law doesn't seem to have such a requirement. It's not entirely clear what constitutes a public office but I guess all of us employed in the public sector will have to be careful.
I think she should be freed now and allowed to try to rebuild her life instead of being hounded like this.
2 comments:
I hadn't come across this case before. Very strange. While I believe that prostitution should be legalised and properly regulated, I have to say I am kind of shocked that anyone would take that risk while holding a public office. My first instinct is to think that a police officer committing a crime should be treated more harshly than an ordinary citizen committing a crime. But maybe it's the nature of the "crime" that counts.
If a police officer was caught smoking marijuana, would/should they be charged with "Misconduct in a Public Office". Is this being treated differently because
a.) it involved sex
and
b.) she's a woman?
I can't help but think, yeah.
Anyone else who's missed this story can find the Daily Mail's take on it at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1092841/Policewomans-secret-life-100-hour-prostitute.html
I feel she's been treated really badly. Losing her job and having her family and friends find out about it all would have been bad enough. The offence she was charged with is supposed to be only for really serious cases where other laws couldn't allow the defendant be given a sufficiently serious penalty - I suppose she could have been charged with soliciting but they obviously wanted to amke a big thing about it. I don't really buy the argument that police officers who break the law should get harsher penalties - you could probably extend that to many other categories of people but - ironically - they're probably all people who really have something to lose and so I would say they certainly don't need to be treated more harshly. I do think there are growing numbers of people who want to make sex a crime.
Post a Comment