PAPER RED-FACED ALL OVER?

By our crime correspondent, Nina Neenaw

WHAT’S black, white and red-faced all over?

Quite possibly Kendal “newspaper”, The Wasteoftime Gazette after an embarrassing display of social justice credentials backfired in its latest edition.

“Forceful policing is used against a higher percentage of black people than white people in Cumbria, new figures show!” screeched the Scroogequest title beneath the headline: “Racial disparity in forceful policing.”

“Force was used 183 times against black individuals and 15,159 times against white people…with figures suggesting around 1,200 black people and 488,000 white people live in the Cumbria area,” the young Churnalist crowed.

The Chronic won’t bore you with the details but the article looked to all intents and purposes like a smear story about Cumbria Police officers being four times more likely to rough up those of a certain complexion.

Only that community could possibly say.

But it was clear from the response provided to the newspaper by Cumbria’s chief constable that The Wezzie may have gone off somewhat half-cocked in its Rodney King-like conclusions.

The top cop had to spell out that the Home Office use of force data also included black people from OUTSIDE of Cumbria but arrested in Cumbria – (rather than the police going around disproportionately duffing up the county’s non-white population).

Given the millions of people driving through the county on the busy M6 or holidaying in the area, Cumbria Police will stop and arrest a wide range of demographics – although the “newspaper” did not appear over keen to spell out this fact.

According to Cumbria Police, the figures mostly related to the correct use of handcuffs by police officers.

The most common reason being to “protect” officers, the Head Bizzy insisted in waffly corporate policespeak.

Use of force was also only used “when necessary in response to violent situations,” he added.

The Chief Constable also had to spell out to the “newspaper” that the Home Office data it had relied upon to come up with the story could wrongly “inflate” the use of force taking place here.

(That’s because multiple officers may be involved in a single detention and afterwards have to fill out “use of force” forms. So there could be a single detainee but four officers could all record “use of force” forms which would incorrectly make Cumbria’s figures look higher than they were. Handily, the newspaper chose not to explore this quirk in full.

The article was published online at the end of December in the Wezzie’s sister “newspaper”, The Fighthaven News, where it has attracted nearly 200 comments.

Let’s just say reactions have not been universally favourable, but it has at least artificially inflated the paper’s page views!

In Kendal, the story ended up being demoted to Page 24 where we’re sure it was greeted across the no-go areas of the Auld Grey town by an ecstatic multi-racial crowd of white readers .

It was used in the January 9th edition – presumably to fill another hole in the paper – and noticeably four pages along from another article about Cumbria Police:

This one referred to the head of the coppers’ union praising officers for their “tireless efforts” in 2024!