Untouchables: Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard

by Michael Gillard, Laurie Flynn

With Scotland Yard in the dock, now more than ever the public needs to know why the police cannot be trusted to investigate their own corruption. "Untouchables," a five year investigation which the Yard tried to stop, provides the essential context to the phone hacking and other scandals currently engulfing Britain's most powerful police force. Republished after seven years, it was the first book to question the cosy relationship between the Yard and sections of the media, to explain why cops are incapable of investigating themselves and to expose the lack of independence in the new police watchdog. From the 1983 Brinks Matt robbery, through the murders of Daniel Morgan, David Norris, Stephen Lawrence, Jill Dando and Damilola Taylor to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, "Untouchables" reveals the cover ups, double standards and miscarriages of justice during the Yard's phoney war on corruption. "Sunday Times" journalist Michael Gillard and TV producer Laurie Flynn expose how the discredited use of supergrasses in the war on corruption has re-emerged in the new wars on terror and crime, with the same disastrous effects: prosecution misconduct, collapsed trials, huge bills for the taxpayer, victims left without justice and the guilty walking free.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, True Crime, Reference, Law

544 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Michael Gillard writes for The Sunday Times on corruption and organized crime. In 2004, he co-authored Untouchables: Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard. A two times winner of Investigation of The Year in the British press awards, in 2013 he was voted Journalist of the Year for his investigation of organized crime and the London 2012 Olympics, his next book.

Reviews

[Richard Bartholomew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Untouchables is a multi-stranded chronicle of crime and corruption, in which an astonishing array of news events relating to policing in London since the 1980s – ranging from the 1983 Brinks-Mat robbery and its aftermath to the murders of Daniel Morgan in 1987 and Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and the racist persecution of Gurpal Virdi in the twenty-first century – are explored within a web of interconnected investigations. The cast is extensive and the narrative at times convoluted, but one is left with little doubt that the various scandals that have rocked the Met over the years are not isolated incidences of human fallibility but the symptoms of an unaccountable police culture that it would be complacent to assume has since been reformed.

The name "Untouchables" refers to CIB3, a secret anti-corruption team which was supposed to clean up the Metropolitan Police – but which instead, through its use of supergrasses and criminal informants, became mired in ethical compromises that damaged the cause of justice, put public safety at risk, and actually damaged the careers and well-being of innocent officers.

The story also touches on links between police and media – a subject that has since come into stronger relief with the phone hacking scandal and discussions of links between senior police officers and senior figures in tabloid journalism. In one astute passage on the police’s media strategy, the authors write:

The wholesale removal or blunting of ITV’s once powerful quartet of factual programmes… meant there was already little counter to the breathless, drive-by journalism of the Crime Reporters Association… [Sir Paul] Condon offered access to the CIB casebook in return for the media’s support for his war on corruption. In the emerging low-risk, dumbed-down news age such handouts not only help assuage in-house libel lawyers but could also be repackaged with two narcissistic ingredients – a public interest claim and the pretence of independent investigation. What’s in it for the police? They get to control the media access while looking serious about clearing out their stables. Subliminally or explicitly, the argument for self-regulation is also reinforced.

The book is as much about London's organised crime scene as the police itself: the semi-mythologised days of the Krays may be long gone (although an elderly "Mad" Frankie Fraser makes a surprising cameo as an "enforcer") but crime families and networks continue to map London with schemes that have international dimensions (one involved the "fantastically corrupt Guangxi Zhuang provincial government" in China; another takes a strand of the story to Sierra Leone).

It is good that the 2012 Blackwell Reader edition makes the book available again (the original edition is an expensive rarity on the second-hand market), but the new version, unfortunately, is as a bulky bound printout of an "electronic edition" the text which has pointlessly wide margins and hence fewer words on each page. As such, the overall page count is expanded, which in turn means that the index from the original edition is not included. We're not even given the luxury of running chapter headers. Given the way that various individuals and strands are dropped and picked up again later in the work, the lack of an index is a loss that seriously compromises the book’s value as a reference source for so many developments of wider public interest. The new edition does, however, come with a new introduction that brings the story up to date.

I did detect one likely error in the account, in references to a criminal named John Fleming as "John 'Goldfinger' Fleming". There are a few other references online to Fleming having this nickname, but I think we can be confident that it has been accidentally carried across from the late John "Goldfinger" Palmer, due to the power of association between the two words "Goldfinger" and "Fleming".

[Kieran McAndrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prior to the death of Stephen Lawrence, the Metropolitan Police was already running a Ghost Squad of Undercover Officers who were soon inextricably linked with corruption and the criminal heart of London. Gillard and Flynn were already looking into the questions surrounding the strange death of Private Investigator Daniel Morgan and began to broaden their scope.

'Untouchables' is an in depth piece of reportage on the failures of the Met to police itself and the lengths they went to to cover up the dirty dealings of their officers. A fine and important piece of journalism.

[Joan K · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is utterly amazing what bent cops get up to, and get away with. If they would only use their brains for non-selfish purposes. And to get away with so much, it is disgraceful. They really must be evil, as they do not care about anybody’s life!

[Rob Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ellroyesque exposure of police corruption

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's natural to one's thinking, that the police are the good guys, imbued by a sense of fairness and passionate about protecting the public. A view reinforced by TV's Dixon of Dock Green and the literary genres such as Agatha Christie's crime novels. This book destroys those views; the Metropolitan Police's top management is corrupt and incompetent, has been, and probably will remain so. This view is spelled out in example after example and the sheer volume is utterly depressing.
It's not the only book shouting out this message, but it is probably one of the best.
We now need the book "what to do about it!"

[Hamid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrifying and compelling. This covers the most horrific corruption in the Met over the last thirty to forty years and it is masterfully told. It's truly shocking what the police have been able to get away with and how they have been helped at every turn by an equally corrupt - or at the very least, complacent - political system shielding their crimes.

This is an absolute must-read.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very helpful for those interested in police corruption in Great Britain. If you think Line of Duty paints a bleak picture, think again. However, this book is difficult reading for those not familiar with The Met and as an Australian I did get lost between chapters with the amount of names and events to remember. Still, useful for the British crime novel.