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UK: A decent troublemaker

The Guardian

Tuesday 19 Mar 2002

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"All change in history," wrote AJP Taylor, "all advance, comes from the
non-conformists. If there had been no troublemakers, no dissenters, we
should still be living in caves." Commander Brian Paddick is just such a
man - a dissenter, a nonconformist and a troublemaker. His views on
cannabis and policing will one day seem commonplace. But his courageous
advocacy of those views - coupled with his sexual orientation - made it
almost inevitable that he would be personally targeted and vilified.

Yesterday the hunters claimed their scalp. Paddick, a refreshingly bold
Metropolitan police commander for the Brixton area, was transferred from
his high profile job following a tacky investigation into his private life.
A Sunday newspaper reportedly paid £100,000 to a former gay partner to spill
the beans on their life together. He suggested they had shared at least 100
cannabis joints. This was denied by Mr Paddick but, he admitted that his
partner had openly used cannabis while they shared a home.

A Police Foundation report is due out tomorrow on the six-month pilot
programme which the commander organised in Brixton. It will show his
strategy saved 2,500 hours of police time, allowing his officers to
concentrate on more serious offences, including a 19% increase in arrests
of dealers in hard drugs. No wonder Brixton's community leaders yesterday
were upset by Mr Paddick's removal. He has a real commitment to the area.
Unlike his contemporaries, he actually sought the post, possibly the
hardest in English policing.

Mr Paddick's police experiment will stand the test of time. It is in line
with last week's report from the advisory council on the misuse of drugs,
which endorsed the home secretary's plan to downgrade cannabis to category
C, turning it into a non-arrestable offence. His own career is less
certain. Yesterday he behaved with a dignity notably lacking in some of his
homophobic accusers

 

 

 

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