TRIGGERnometry - Police Whistleblower: "I Quit to Share the Truth"

Episode Date: September 2, 2026

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. I think London is on a very, very bad path, and something has to be done immediately. The police needs reputing from scratch.
Starting point is 00:00:41 I think impartiality has gone a little bit downhill. We had one training in which one of the questions asked of us was as follows. How treating everyone equally would potentially lead to each. inequality. You know, this is a little bit Orwellian. If something similar happens to 2011, I don't think we'll be able to call it. We might be indeed seeing the total collapse of the police. The British government wants to force YouTube to downrank independent content like ours and replace it with approved messaging from the mainstream media.
Starting point is 00:01:28 The only way you can fight back and continue to enjoy our content, is to make sure you're subscribed. Like this video and comment below to have your say on what the government is doing. Dimitar, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate that.
Starting point is 00:01:44 You're a former police officer with the Metropolitan Police. Yes. We will talk about your story and some of your views on policing and other things that are happening. But the first thing actually we wanted to talk about is we both ourselves have experienced this.
Starting point is 00:01:57 You know, I've seen people get mugged repeatedly now in London and I don't spend a lot of time in London. And more broadly, we hear from our supporters, friends, people who live in London, that they just increasingly feel less safe. Do you think there's a reason for this? Do you think it's true that people are less safe? Yes, I think that's most definitely the case. And I actually think people don't speak enough about how dangerous London has become because they had enough. They have reached a level of detachment from reality only. because they have realized they are speaking about the topic, you know, they're bringing it up,
Starting point is 00:02:39 nothing really happens. So a lot of people know how dangerous London is, but they actually don't talk about it. So your friends, I think, are rather in a minority of people who still talk about that topic. For example, the new statistics saying that the crime in London is going downhill. is going downhill only because people are not literally bothered to report it. And I'll give you an example from my own self. I don't have many, many hobbies. One thing I like a lot, it's mountain biking.
Starting point is 00:03:15 I'm a big mountain bike fan. So I bought me a brand new, quite expensive mountain bike because I'm a big guy and I'm quite heavy, so I wanted to buy a nice piece of machinery there. After a couple of months, got stolen. I didn't report it myself. Why? Because I know it's not going to go anywhere. So yes, to answer your question, they're absolutely right.
Starting point is 00:03:38 It's getting very, very volatile. It's getting very dangerous. I've seen that even when I was back working for the Met. I remember people will be, you know, someone get their phone snatched. And then suddenly, you know, people getting pushed away, you know, pushed on the floor and then getting their fault snatched. Then people branding knives and getting your phone away. And I was seeing, you know, the violence was escalating drastically.
Starting point is 00:04:10 That's my personal view, to be honest. Also, I've seen that a lot of people started to, you know, criminals, started to, you know, attack police officers, absolute disrespect towards, you know, law enforcement and anything of such sorts. So yes, I think London is on a very, very bad path, and something has to be done immediately. And the question that will be on everyone's lips is why is this happening? And I think your personal story ties very much into this. So why do you think it's happening? Okay.
Starting point is 00:04:44 From a police perspective, I think a lot of officers, they call it disillusionment with the job. They understand in a way that they're fighting a job. losing battle. I think for the first time in the history of the MET, voluntary resignations has surpassed people who retire. Wow. And that's absolutely extraordinary. And whatever I say here, everyone can go and look it up. I am here mostly because I want to speak to the regular member of the public, you know, for the taxpayer and ask them to go and check these things for themselves to actually realize that the situation is not good at all. So does that disillusionment with the job? It's impossible tasks. I used to work in Westminster from being famous Charing Cross
Starting point is 00:05:38 Police Station. It is not exaggeration when I say that is non-stop call after call, after call, after call. It is impossible for you to keep on top of that, let alone proper investigate further their own. There's some wonderful people still in the Metropolitan Police, and I think Londoners are incredibly happy to have them. I have been inspired by such people. Probably that's why I lasted in the Met so long, because I thought to myself, not everything is lost, but I think the amount of work is impossible. Nobody wants to join the police because, specifically lately the last few years, you know, there was a lot of bad media coverage, some egregious examples, you know, if you want to speak about this egregious examples later on, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:27 we can address that, but they don't recruit and they're losing mostly the best people they have. This is a recipe for a disaster, and it's just a matter of time before something happened, and they won't be able to control it. And I think deep down, they know that. I really think deep down, you know, the senior leadership of the Metropolitan Police realizes that. So tell us your story then. And how did you decide to join the police? Why did you join the police? And then what happened from there? And maybe just tell, you know, a lot of people were saying you've got an interesting accent.
Starting point is 00:06:59 Just tell us a little bit more about you. Yes, of course. I am originally Bulgarian. And I came to the United Kingdom because of my grandfather, to put it that way. From a very, very young age, he taught me to read the classics. So I started with, yeah, with Russian classics. unbelievable. You have to read those two yearskin, you know, probably in Tolstoy and Gorki, and you know so much about life. If you want to be depressed. Yes, yes, yes, and informed.
Starting point is 00:07:32 And then I moved to French classics. Yes, of course, wonderful. And then I ended up with reading British classics. And I thought to myself, one day I want to go to Great Britain, you know, and I ended up in Liverpool. That was the first place, which I went to leave. An incredibly unique place. It's not English, not British Liverpoolian, you know, more power to the people there. They're very, very friendly, some of the best people ever met. However, deep down, I always wanted to come in London. Because when I was in Liverpool, I'll get the bus and I'll come to London.
Starting point is 00:08:04 I'm just going to walk around and I see this magnificent city. And I'm thinking about the history that brought this city into existence. All this lovely, amazing people who made it happen for me to have your own. opportunity to walk as a free man, as an individual, according to what I think is the best values in the world, the British values. That's what I think. I sincerely believe that. And I was thinking to myself, well, I am young. I believe I have courtesy and dignity, transparency and integrity. I'm relatively fit. What can I do to help this place, this country, this city that I felt in love with preserve itself and not only, but make it the best city in the world. And I think
Starting point is 00:08:54 the best position to do that is actually joining the police because you can make an everyday difference in someone else's life. And that person can remember that and they can make that difference for someone else. And you can spread that goodness upon hundreds of thousands of people for the next 10 to 15, 20 years. So I joined in the police. I applied, I got the job. One day before I came to London, I got, you know, a phone call, you know, hello, Dimitai, you know, you on that university degree path. Welcome to the police and, you know, you're going to work becoming the best constable
Starting point is 00:09:34 you can possibly be while attaining to this university degree and, you know, even further fulfill your professional, you know, goals. I don't think to myself, that sounds very nice. In my head, I'm thinking this will be probably something very well related to the legislations, which a constable most definitely needs to know inside out. That's absolutely paramount. So I thought to myself, okay, you know, that's great. I'm happy.
Starting point is 00:10:05 I come to London and I find myself a place. It was a little bit of a COVID. We had a few lectures online, and then eventually we started going to university. And this is the first time when I was starting to think, this is not very well conducted. Brand new building in the city of London, East India. I can name it. I was assigned to a university called Anglia Ruskin University.
Starting point is 00:10:33 So we go there and sometimes in the beginning, I know it's the beginning, we're the first course, you know. They used to call us also the Guinea Pigs. And please bear that in mind because it would be covered. very relevant later on. So we go there. In the beginning, sometimes the internet wasn't working very well.
Starting point is 00:10:49 You know, it's a brand new building. That's absolutely fine. Then, guys, you are in room 10. Oh, no, no, no, guys. I'm very, very sorry. You're in room 12. Oh, I apologies. You're in room 15.
Starting point is 00:11:01 You know? And I'm thinking to myself, this is all paid with taxpayers money. Millions upon millions of pounds are implemented into that program. And I understand we are the first class, but I think there must be some expectations from an establishment which is paid by taxpayers' money to be adequately prepared to make the program a relative and, you know, smooth as smooth as possible. Anyway, you know, those things, they were a little bit strange.
Starting point is 00:11:37 But then we started having some lectures. And the materials given to us, I think a lot of it has no relevance with the training of a frontline police constable, specifically in the beginning of their career. For example, they used to teach us theories such as broken window theory. Well, that's okay. Maybe if someone wants to expand in the professional conduct in the future to come as a criminologist, maybe they can look upon that in the fullness of time, but not at the moment. You need to know how legislations are presented and how legislations are presented in circumstances
Starting point is 00:12:26 in which a constable may happen to be part of, you know, was that a burglary, was that theft, was that robbery? Do you understand what to do? You know, it should be more police-oriented specifically about the job, not about theories. Then we had one training in which one of the questions asked of us was as follows, how treating everyone equally would potentially lead to inequality? You know, this is a little bit Orwellian. Yes, yes, this is a little bit Orwellian.
Starting point is 00:13:03 I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, officers, police officers in training told that question in a very, very interesting, very interesting wording, you know. And it seems to me it goes against the very core principles of impartiality. You know, it makes you think, oh my God, what do you mean? I'm treating everyone equally and my lead to inequality. It's very, very, very confusing, very, very confusing. And I think this is an extraordinary bad thing to introduce to office, specifically some of my colleagues who are very, very young people, you know, in their 20s and I'm thinking they're getting confused here. And I thought to myself, well, this is, this is crazy. I don't want to be part of that. You know, this is waste of taxpayers' money.
Starting point is 00:13:46 I want to be a police officer. People are getting robbed. People are getting stopped, selling drugs, fights all over the place. Let me be. Let me get off this course and let me specialize, you know. Let me just be the officer. I wanted to be to protect this city. And I truly mean that from the heart. Anyway, so I was very, very lucky because my, class, my class was actually very outspoken about that. On few occasions, we actually made it very, very clear the whole class that we want to be taken of this course. Guess what we were told on many, many, many occasions. Guys, you either do this or you're going to lose your job. I want everyone that will be watching the show just to think for a second if they think it's
Starting point is 00:14:37 appropriate to tell a police officer in training that if you do this, if you don't do this, I'm sorry, you're going to lose your job. That's coercion to the best, I think, to the max. This is really, really, really, really bad. And when they said that quite a few times, I was looking around me and I could see the faces of my colleagues. They were so gloomy. You know, they had nothing to say about that. And, Dimit, I just interject one thing. I think it's important to say that one of the problems is that having a university degree was made a requirement for police officers. Absolutely. And this is why you're all sitting doing this course.
Starting point is 00:15:19 Yes. I imagine most of you would rather just be out there being given practical skills to do with how to police. In a heartbeat. Right. In a heartbeat, yes. Yeah. And they used to say that quite a few times. You know, guys, if you don't do this, you're going to lose your job.
Starting point is 00:15:33 However, a few days after that, they'll come and they will say, you know, something, don't worry, guys, you're the first class, you're all going to pass. And I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, this is an extraordinary thing to say. I really was, that was bewildering. Oh, don't worry, guys, you know, you're the first class, you know. Yeah, we have made some mistakes, but you are the guinea pigs, like I've mentioned in the beginning of our conversation. And I'm thinking to myself, this is, this is extraordinary. You know, if this is a serious university, you know, I don't think they'll be acting like that. You know, there will be a dialogue.
Starting point is 00:16:12 There will be a discourse, a proper discourse of why we actually don't want to be on that course, not be told where we have to do it or you're losing your job. But that was not the most extraordinary thing we have been sold. On few occasions, and I'm not exaggerating, and if some of my colleagues are watching that I beg of them to come forward and say the same thing. And I already spoken to one of them and he said, yes, Dimee, I clearly, clearly remember that. On one occasion at least, the lecturer who was supposed to deliver a material to us,
Starting point is 00:16:49 read that material to us, said, she looked at the PowerPoint and she said, and I quote, oh my God, who wrote this? Please, guys, don't shoot the messenger. I'm only here to read you that. And I'm looking around me and thinking, am I drinking crazy pills? A lecturer openly mocking the very same material they're going to deliver to us. I went back to the station, you know, after my university days.
Starting point is 00:17:22 And I said to my supervisor and to my inspector that I want to be taking all the course as soon as possible. and I stopped submitting any work required, you know, of me. And everything I have submitted before that was halfway through because I was really, really scared that. I'm really going to lose my job. But I reached a breaking point. I'm thinking I cannot morally continue like that. It may cost me my job.
Starting point is 00:17:51 But I live my life on a very, very simple mode. So if it's not right, don't do it. If it's not true, don't say it. I couldn't. I really, really couldn't. So I stopped submitting anything. I haven't submitted anything from probably 12 months. I haven't submitted dissertation, you know, final work, nothing at all. And I spoke to a chief inspector in learning and development,
Starting point is 00:18:18 and they told me, you need to write us a letter. And we're going to assess the letter. And if you made the exceptional circumstances, criteria, you may be taking off the course. So I write everything I told you in the letter, and I specifically said to them, I truly think it is indeed an exceptional circumstance for someone to mock the very same material they're going to read the stitches. That's extraordinary.
Starting point is 00:18:49 My application wasn't adequately under the umbrella of exceptions. circumstances, and I was told that I have to continue with that course. Then in a little bit more strong worded email from my side, I said, I am not doing this, and that's that, you know. And then after I said that, I sent that email, I received an email from another external company, which was given the contract initially, and that external company has given the four universities the ability to teach new offices. And that email sets me literally Dimitar, you either do this or you need to resign. And then it follows, of course, I hope it's not the latter and, you know, we want to help you out.
Starting point is 00:19:45 And that was a breaking point. That was a breaking point because a few days before that I did an attachment with ARVs, which means I'm response vehicles and I was so happy to be surrounded by such professional police officers and I did 10 hours with them and in the end of the shift they told me
Starting point is 00:20:07 okay Dimitur you can send us an application and we will see what we can do for you and I know what that means I'll send an application probably I'll be given a chance to prove myself and eventually join them if I pass all the assessments required. So So I was very, very happy.
Starting point is 00:20:25 I went back to my inspector, to my sergeant, and it was like, Dimmy, we're going to sign you off immediately, you know, and you can go specialize every way you want. But we can't because you don't have the degree. And this is when I send the email, when the email comes back, you either do this or you need to resign. And that was a breaking point. I resigned.
Starting point is 00:20:45 I resigned two days after that. And my last day was on the 31st of March. 2024. And it was a devastating moment for me and for my partner. I'm not with my partner anymore because I became very, very detached from everyone, from her. I just couldn't understand why this is happening. The news doesn't just tell you what's happening. It tells you what to make of it. And the real red flag isn't what said. It's what gets left out. That's why I use ground news. Every day, they gather thousands of stories from across the political spectrum. Compare how different outlets are covering the same story side by side
Starting point is 00:21:30 and contextualize it, including specific differences in how each side is reporting it. That's how you see what whole audiences are not being told. My favorite feature is their blind spot feed. Every day, it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored by either the left or the right. Let's look at some examples. Follow along at ground.new slash trigonometry. Take this story, a pure research survey, found that 56% of Americans now support banning social media for anyone under 16,
Starting point is 00:21:59 with a majority of Republicans and a majority of Democrats behind it. Genuine, bipartisan agreement is rare enough to be newsworthy on its own. And yet, coverage came almost entirely from the right. The left barely touched on it. On the other hand, look at this. An AP poll found that 66% of Americans now say democracy is central to what it means to be American, down from 80% five years ago. That is a serious story about how the country sees itself, especially on its 250th anniversary.
Starting point is 00:22:28 And it got three times more coverage from the left than it did from the right. Ground News puts all of this in one place. Headline comparisons, bias breakdowns, ownership insights, and context so you can actually understand what's going on, not just react to what you're told. Go to ground. com slash trigonometry or click the link in the description of this episode. Get 40% of their vantage plan, the same one that we use, and stop being managed by the media. I did have two exit interviews, which is quite extraordinary on its own.
Starting point is 00:23:02 On my second exit interviews, on my second exit interview, the chief inspector that wanted to help me out had a conversation with the chief inspector in learning and development. And they were speaking for over 45 minutes, but I very vividly remember she's saying to her, I'm sorry, but why are we losing this officer again? His public order trained level two. He stays a train. He speaks multiple languages. His inspector is here. His sergeant is here. They're very, very supportive of him.
Starting point is 00:23:37 His team is very, very supporting of him. Why are we losing him? I vividly remember that. And I don't know what the structure of the MET is, what type of a contract precisely they have signed with this university awarding degree. I really, really don't know. But they couldn't give me a decisive answer. They wanted me to wait. And I couldn't, gentlemen, I couldn't.
Starting point is 00:24:00 I was broken. I love every moment police in London. And I think I have benefited quite a few people to say the least. And I think my colleagues can, quite a few of them can say that I was. a substantive and well overall in general, complete officer to begin with. I have done so many things to help my colleagues, so many cell exits with other teams,
Starting point is 00:24:28 which I don't know anything about, pulled people from the bridge, going into the bat cell, if I may put it that way. I did it so selflessly. I was really prepared, if the circumstances are such, I'm not exaggerating to lose my life if I have to,
Starting point is 00:24:46 but to preserve human dignity and goodness. And I sincerely believe that. And probably that's why the impact was so heavy on me and resulted in me eventually breaking up with my girlfriend. I was in a very, very dark place. I just couldn't take it anymore on what point. I thought, you know, I lost my meaning of life. You know, I was good at this, you know.
Starting point is 00:25:10 I just wanted to make a difference and they have taken that away from me. And I'm not seeking vengeance. I just hope people can hear my story so that will never, never happen again. So other complete, decent officers who want to make a difference because we need them now more than ever to be honest, more than ever. Yeah, yeah, that, it's a little bit of a sad story. Let me continue. I'm sorry, just had a little bit of a flashback. Three months after I resigned, it was a beautiful summer day. I think it was July.
Starting point is 00:25:50 You know, I'm at home, doing nothing. I open my laptop and I go to my private email. And I'm seeing there an email from Anglia Ruskin. Congratulations, Dimitza. We have awarded you a diplomat policing. And I'm thinking to myself, of course, this is a mistake. They have made so many mistakes. You know, probably there was, there's some type of an explanation. You know, that's not true. You know, maybe they made a mistake, like I said. Anyway, I was free.
Starting point is 00:26:23 Let me go into my Anglia Ruskin profile. I go into my Anglia risking profile. Lo and behold, I have been awarded a Barcelo in policing with no honest, with no honest, which is an insult to injury. You know, that is so insulting to my intelligence that I was so bewildered at that moment and angry and angry. I'm thinking to myself, I left because of this insanity and eventually you awarded that to me without me submitting anything for over here.
Starting point is 00:26:59 It was quite, quite, quite interesting. I'm thinking to myself, let me actually download that diploma because that is extraordinary. A few months later, because I still talked to quite a few years. people in the Met. And in the Met, there's a lot of gossip. But the gossip in Met can be very, very precise because it's a very, very close community. So the gossip most of the time is actually quite accurate. And I heard that someone was awarded a degree, not only without submitting dissertation, but without submitting level two in maths. And I'm thinking, it's possible. Man, it's possible. If they're giving me a degree without me submitting anything, maybe they did that to
Starting point is 00:27:39 someone else, let me double check, let me just check. And I send a freedom of information request, which I have is on my emails. And the freedom of information request goes as follows, I think, from memory. Has anyone being awarded a degree in policing without A, submitting dissertation, or B, submitting dissertation, or achieving level two in English or maths? The freedom of information request comes back and says no. Yes, and I think I think is either the freedom of information
Starting point is 00:28:16 request might not be truly accurate or the university needs to explain how this is actually possible to happen. And I wanted to find out. I went back to the very building, which we used to, you know,
Starting point is 00:28:34 have our lectures in East India. I go there, they're not there anymore. I'm thinking, oh, they're not here anymore. Well, they lost the contract with the Metropolitan Police. I actually think by now the university degree has been scrapped for, I think, few years because the backlash was nationally quite quite loud. You know, people say, this is, this is not, this is not working well. People resign because of it, you know, the amounts of work officers experiencing, policing, London, and on top of that, they need to do, quite frankly, in my opinion, Alice in Wonderland, the grid's quite striking.
Starting point is 00:29:15 And I go there and said, okay, but do you know where they have moved to? Well, we don't know. And I can't find anyone from Anglia risking. You know, I wanted to go there with my diploma, sell them my circumstances, and just ask them how this is possible. You know, tell me how was awarded that without me submitting anything to begin with. It seems to me the university never has taken into account that there will be someone like me that eventually will speak about that. I think they thought maybe to some extent they can intimidate us, but that is not going to happen because they're bigger things about me and them. And the bigger things are the health and well-being of Londoners and how the police can preserve that.
Starting point is 00:30:05 Not only preserve that, but to make sure the many, many problems of London, which already exist, can be resolved. This is bigger than me, this is bigger than them. We need to find out exactly what's going on, because I think is absolutely outrageous. And I think the worrying thing, look, there's many worrying things about your story, but the thing that resonates with me is how are we meant to have good police? officers when we're not doing the training programs that will prepare them adequately for the job. Francis have an answer for that, and I have to be very, very honest. I'm a big believer in individual responsibility.
Starting point is 00:30:43 There were other officers like myself that could say, no, we are not doing this. This is insanity. However, for one reason or another, and I understand, I understand the price to pay, it's truly, truly devastating. Like in my case, maybe some of them thought, I'm just going to get along with it. And maybe in future things will get better. I don't think in future things will get better.
Starting point is 00:31:10 You are holding the office of constable before you being a student or anything else. It's absolutely necessary for you to have that honesty before anything else. I don't want to do this. Don't only say it to the people in university or to your sergeant. Speak to your colleagues. Unite with your colleagues.
Starting point is 00:31:36 Say it clearly. I am not doing this. What are you going to do? This is crazy. We don't want to do universities degrees. I want to be the best police officer. I can. It is up to them.
Starting point is 00:31:48 They could stand up and say, no, we're not doing this. A lot of them didn't. For one reason or another, I understand some people have family, some people need that income, but essentially, to some extent, they are a little bit part of why this is perpetuated upon them because they haven't done enough.
Starting point is 00:32:09 Maybe some of my colleagues won't like that, but I think that's the case. You need to stand your ground. It was crazy. It was insane. You can't continue like that. You know the struggle you have been through to get an Alice in Wonderland degree again.
Starting point is 00:32:23 I mean, why? Why you need to go through that struggle? taking so much way from your time, you know, years that will never come back. And I think it's up to them. They need to make a stand. In everyday policing as well, I am a big believer that if you're a frontline police officer, you should look after yourself. Instead of finishing the shift and saying, oh, you know, guys, let's go to the pub. That's absolutely fine. You're socialized. But sometimes you need to say, you know, guys, let's go to the gym.
Starting point is 00:32:50 you can't have five or six officers jumping on a just a regular male who is a little bit more volatile in order for you to detain him, you know? You need two, three officers,
Starting point is 00:33:04 maximum to be able to do that. We already struggle with numbers. We need to expand on standards. But standards, no matter what you give me, Francis, you can give me the best training in the world.
Starting point is 00:33:18 If I don't want to do it myself, it will go nowhere. It starts with an individual. But that also comes to recruitment, Dimitar, because, I mean, look, this is just when I walk around London, but I've noticed the standard of police officers, the way they conduct themselves, the way they dress, and also the shape that they're in, I mean, they don't look like they'd be able to arrest anybody, to be brutally honest. And they don't necessarily look very professional. Of course, not all police officers. There are a lot of police officers. There are a lot of police officers that do. But even in the 40 or so years that I've lived in this city, I've seen a
Starting point is 00:33:55 market decline in standards. I agree with you, yes. You know, I'm not a religious person, but there are few things in the Bible, which are actually quite correct. You know, open rebuke is better than secret love. I wholeheartedly agree with you. Again, I don't think some of my ex-collex understand the incredibly important nature of the objective
Starting point is 00:34:23 reality, physical reality of frontline policing. I'm here to speak only about frontline policing. You have to be
Starting point is 00:34:32 most definitely, in my opinion, above average when it comes to an average fitness test, what an average male can do
Starting point is 00:34:42 or a female. Some of one of the fittest police officer I've ever worked with was a female. She was always downstairs with me in the gym. She was incredible.
Starting point is 00:34:52 But I don't know what is stopping them. I think I have a theory what is stopping them. A very good friend of mine who is still in the police, he's there, I mean, a few decades now told me that a lot of people come and when they see the horrible circumstances of what policing means, they become very, very cynical. not only the approach in work, but, you know, in their personal lives. And I think he's actually correct.
Starting point is 00:35:25 It takes a lot of effort to go to the gym. It takes a lot of effort to be immaculate every single day. And in my opinion, being a police officer, holding that incredibly important role in London, it is a demanding position. And if you're not ready to reach that level, perhaps you can go home
Starting point is 00:35:47 you can speak to someone in work and say to them you know buddy I don't think I'm the best version of myself let me get some help what can I do you know I'm always giving people the benefit of the doubt I'll never say no that job is not for you
Starting point is 00:36:04 no no no never I want to help you out buddy but you need to do it on your own and like you said yes I quite often go to central London and you know I walk past by people and when there's a police guy
Starting point is 00:36:21 and suddenly a few offices looking like just described them come out I can just hear the public oh my God look at them I mean it's actually quite dangerous because one gentleman was walking and he saw these officers having a coffee and he said they look like
Starting point is 00:36:39 a caricature in uniforms and it's not only you. It's quite a quite of a situation, and that situation can only be addressed within the individuals to begin with. However, the institution is quite difficult to inspire them to be that best version of themselves. But surely, Dimitar, this comes from the top. It's the people at the top who set the standards of any organization. Because if you don't set the standards at the top, then look, There's some people like yourself who's self-motivated, who are really passionate, but there are other people who are just there because it's a job.
Starting point is 00:37:21 And if you let standard slip, then it's going to affect everything and everyone. To me, this is a crisis of leadership, isn't it? The people who watch this show have generally done more thinking about how governments operate the most, but there's a difference between understanding the problem and having actually built insulation again. That's the world McEl Thorup operates in. He's been living as an expat for over 25 years, visiting more than 110 countries and calling nine of them home. He founded expat money nearly a decade ago to help others do the same. When he helped someone build an international Plan B, the knowledge he brings is entirely firsthand. Every recommendation comes from something he has already done himself.
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Starting point is 00:38:49 There's no charge, no catch. That's expatmoney.com slash trigger. To me, this is a crisis of leadership, isn't it? It is definitely a crisis of leadership. And let's speak about leadership indeed. I think I don't want to offend anyone in the senior leadership of the metropolitan. and police, there's some lovely, lovely, extraordinary great people there. But in general, I think
Starting point is 00:39:20 they have reached a level of astonishingly being capable of self-deception. And I call that the magic Excel document. We need 10 people to go
Starting point is 00:39:39 to that place and we need 20 people to go to that protest, you know, let's see how we can manage the numbers. It's all about numbers. But the quality of offices, it's through the window. It's all about numbers. And I always thought to myself, these people in these positions of so much power and decision making, they should know better than anyone else. It's not only about numbers. A football team has 11 players. If you take Ronaldo and put me in, it still be 11 players. But the performance will deteriorate massively.
Starting point is 00:40:15 I don't think to myself, can they not see the bigger picture? And unfortunately, I think, which is very, very sinister, I think, maybe some of them do. But the next promotion, the next promotion is very well paid. You have a lot of power if you are chief inspector and above working for the Metropolitan Police. It is a nice place to be. I think some of them understand that, and I would like to say that quite a few of them, understand that quite well.
Starting point is 00:40:49 But why nothing is done, I think it's because the politics are so complex on that level. I think the police needs rebuking from scratch. Not today, tomorrow. before it's too late. It has to be solely based on the Pellian principles. And that's that. That's that.
Starting point is 00:41:19 Nothing else, nothing more. Which are what? Well, for example, you know, treat everyone equally. I mean, I treat everyone equally. You know, honesty, integrity, the rule of law, be impartial. That's very, very important. I think impartiality has gone a little bit downhill
Starting point is 00:41:45 because officers like this document I saw in this document I told you. I saw in one of the trainings, you know, saying that treating everyone equally can lead to... An equal outcome. Inequal outcome. Yes. Impartiality is very, very, very important. Very important. just work according to the law, bring courtesy back, bring discretion back. I think officers have been taking a lot of discretion away from them.
Starting point is 00:42:20 And that's a big problem. You know, I think you should exercise more discretion, of course, based on your impartial approach. If someone steals a sandwich because someone has nothing to eat, of course, you're going to give them that discretion. and you're going to treat them differently if someone just uses a sandwich because they can't be bothered, you know, to pay. In that sense, I understand, yes, maybe your treatment according to the particular circumstances might be different, but discretion has gone, you know, discretion is over.
Starting point is 00:42:57 And I have been through situations like that, which discretion I thought to myself could be implemented, but it wasn't. And I don't know why. And this thing about equal treatment leads to an equal outcomes. You're hinting at something that's been a huge discussion in Britain, which is what people talk about is two-tier policing. Yes. And what they're talking about is a mixture of things.
Starting point is 00:43:22 It's not just about, you know, racial disparities and things like that, but it's, you know, the way that protesters against lockdown were treated versus BLM protesters and other things of that nature, where the public see that similar behavior results in very different treatment. And then we hear from people like you about guidance. We hear from other people about guidance around the treatment of different racial groups. We see cases like the Henry Novak case, for example, where police officers arrive at a scene immediately are effectively misled by the races of the people involved as to who's the perpetrator,
Starting point is 00:43:59 who's the victim. And overall, a lot of people now have this picture. that the police have been trained effectively at this point not to treat people equally. Is this true? Is this an exaggeration? What are your thoughts on it? When in one of the lectures in university, I think it was just a little bit after BLM around that time.
Starting point is 00:44:27 2002, I think, 2012. Well, I'm not very, very sure. I don't really remember. The very same lecture, that said, you know, all guys don't shoot the messenger. Ask a question from all of us. Guys, what do you think about Black Lives Matter? And a very lovely, very good-hearted girl in our class.
Starting point is 00:44:48 You said, well, all lives matter. I swear to God, Constantine, that's exactly what you said. Oh, can you say that? And I'm thinking, can you not see the goodness in this, you know, a young woman's voice. It was crazy. It was quite a thing. Woo, can you say that?
Starting point is 00:45:12 And that, who can you say that, makes you think, am I right to say that? That whole lives matter, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Am I right? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I need to find within myself where maybe I have some type of a bias,
Starting point is 00:45:31 maybe something that I don't understand. And it makes young officers question themselves. You know, when a perfectly reasonable statement like, oh, life's matter, it's absolutely fine. Of course, black lives matter. All lives matter. Any lives matter. That woo was quite of a thing to say. Were you ever asked about, you know, what are your internal biases and things like this?
Starting point is 00:45:57 Thank you. I am going to say something now. They were very, very clever with this. They gave us a white piece of paper. Okay? And they say, guys, this is anonymous. You don't have to write your name. Just write down if you think you ever had some privileges.
Starting point is 00:46:15 And I took that piece of paper and I wrote that I'm Bulgarian. My ancestors were four and a half century under the Ottoman Empire. Some of the savagories have been well documented from journalists, from France to Russia and the United States, I have more privileges and I gave it to them. I don't know what happened with that piece of paper, but it was the most bizarre thing that I've ever encountered in my life. What do you think was the point of that exercise? Did you get a sense of what they're trying to achieve by the conversation about BLM,
Starting point is 00:46:49 by the conversation about privilege? What is it that they wanted you to learn? I think this is my opinion. I might be wrong, but I think giving someone this piece of paper, asking that that question is solely reading the room to what extent some of the people here might think they might have some privileges. And if someone has put a privilege or something like that, we need to address it. We need to train them, you know. Maybe we need to train people that haven't put that they have any privileges, you know. Maybe they cannot see it that you have a
Starting point is 00:47:26 privilege and you can't recognize it. You know, that's what I think. I think it's way more sinister than that, without speaking in depth of what exactly you mean someone has a privilege. I mean, this is a conversation that we can have here for hours on end. It's quite extraordinary to introduce that out of the blue on a white piece of paper and just give it to front line police officers who need to go back to the street and, you know, tackle criminals, you know, and wrestle with them on the floor. what privileges are you talking about Jesus Christ? Yeah. It's so extraordinary. I guess what I'm getting at, trying to understand, not getting it,
Starting point is 00:48:07 I'm trying to understand is what the truth is about the idea that police officers have been trained now for some years to treat different people differently. Is this something that you see or saw whether on the front line or in your training or anything? And I'm open to the possibility that maybe it's exaggerated. or maybe it's not true, but I'm really trying to understand what your perspective is on it. Well, this document was obviously introduced to some police forces. The question which was introduced to us, that definitely was in Augusta,
Starting point is 00:48:41 the Metropolitan Police. I think when you introduce fundamentally such incredibly difficult topics without very much explaining them, you're putting a seed of questioning, the person start questioning themselves, do everything I know and do actually might be biased? It's confusing them. If you suspect, let's say for the sake of argument,
Starting point is 00:49:17 that someone may be biased or have some inclination towards treating different people differently, maybe people that look like him just for the sake of argument. You may have a training. I mean, the training is already there. The police fundamentals, like I said, they're already there. Transparency, honestly, in honesty, you know, impartiality. You don't need to make these young people questioning themselves all the time
Starting point is 00:49:48 because eventually they will be confused. And eventually, when you confuse sometimes in a situation, which requires your immediate professional attention, as in the case of may he rest in peace, this young man, Henry Nova, may lead to tragic outcomes. And that thing with, I don't think so, mate, makes my blood boil. To begin with, nobody should ever speak to a member of the public regardless of the circumstances.
Starting point is 00:50:20 Even if you're a suspect, even if I know you're the bad guy, hey, mate, don't approach people like that. Eventually, maybe you get someone and speaking to them for five, ten minutes. Maybe then you can, you know, slide it in. Hey, thank you, mate. Thank you very much. But in the beginning, as I said, you represent the office of a constable. You need to be immaculate, in my opinion, of speaking to these people.
Starting point is 00:50:43 I always approach even the suspects, even the suspects. You know, hey, tomorrow is a better day. I'm not here only because of them, of the person that call. me. I'm here because of you as well. Let me see how can I help you out? I never approach anyone. A mate, listen to me, mate. That's extraordinary. I've seen that. It only escalate things. And in the case of Henry Novak, why they haven't given, why they didn't attend to him medically, it's seriously beyond me. Fundamentally, the most important thing of people. Policing is preserve life.
Starting point is 00:51:27 Even if I know, this guy's a victim, you know, this guy, he is the perpetrator, you know, I just saw him shooting that fellow over there, but that fella is being attended already. And in the process of me detaining him, I knock him out so badly that he doesn't want to come back to, you know, to life. You need to immediately attend to him, no matter what he have done. If there's so, if there's deranged men on the street, stabbing people, And in the process of you detaining him, you shot him in the leg or you shot him in the chest, you know, immediately you need to attend to them as well. You need to preserve their life by all means necessary. They should have stripped him, and I'm sorry to say, naked immediately and see if he's bleeding, not just roll him over and put in handcuffs.
Starting point is 00:52:12 This is, you know, I can't watch this video. I watch it a few times and I can't anymore because it makes me truly, truly, truly, truly sad. Truly sad for this 18-year-old young man. It's just the most egregious thing I've ever seen in my life. When you buy seafood, what do you worry about most? Nutrition, sustainability, taste? I've asked all of those questions. This is why Wild Alaskan Company caught my attention.
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Starting point is 00:54:00 Yes, indeed. And I think a lot of people don't want to be firearms officers anymore because they go, well, if I do my duty and I shoot someone who is posing either a threat to me or a threat to the public or both, I'm the one who's going to get arrested here. Yes, Francis, absolutely. I don't think like that. I don't care. And I don't care in a way of, I understand that things bigger than me. I truly believe that just as for all,
Starting point is 00:54:35 it's bigger than the preservation of my own life, even sometimes maybe my own freedom. I wanted to join Amresponse, knowing this might be the case. But I am prepared to face the consequences. And I was ready to face the consequences because I knew deep down inside of me, I will be so well prepared, so well prepared. I will train myself every single day, not only in my physical ability to do something, my tactics, my firearm tactics, my communications,
Starting point is 00:55:12 even if it's only in my head, my knowledge of the legislations. So if that time comes one day, face it as a man who believes has reached that level of professionalism. And whatever may happen after that, I don't care because they're bigger things than me. I can't just say to myself, oh, you know, something, I don't want to do this. You know, I just want to have a family and, you know, maybe someone else can do it. No, no, no, no, no. Francis, it's necessary. Someone has to do it and I was prepared to do it. But I understand that, Dimitar, but there are people who are going, look, if I do my duty and I'm going to get punished for it, then why would I do that job?
Starting point is 00:55:54 Well, look at the Chris Kabber case. Yes. Look at the, I mean, you're the guy who wanted to be a firearms officer. I'm not, Francis isn't. But this is a situation where someone who's committed firearms offenses, is using his car to try and ram police officers, an armed police officer shoots him. And there's a big, there's a big media hoopla about this. And the guy's, the officer who shoots him, is tried for murder.
Starting point is 00:56:23 Yes, he's tried for murder. I think... It's grotesque. It is grotesque. This country was famous once, maybe one day again, for probably having the best justice system in the world. Very rigorous, very open, you know. We all put in the same, you know, level, and we all be, you know, judged accordingly. So open scrutiny is very, very welcome, you know, very, very welcome.
Starting point is 00:56:51 Though the portrayal of what happened there, in my opinion, was indeed actually taking away from an impartial, honest process. But it was a little bit one way. This officer is a murderer. Seriously? What do you know about air-a-v training? What do you know about receiving an information about a vehicle which was linked to arm the fences? Someone tried to ram you with their own car, maybe having a gun because that's information you have. Maybe they're trying to ram with you with the car, but maybe next time there was a gun.
Starting point is 00:57:33 You don't know that. You know that that vehicle is linked with guns and not only that he's trying to ram me with his car. What do you think is the best solution in that split second? the police officer in question has made that decision. And I think the decision was based on self-defense and defense of others. Because I was walking in North London and this chap came up to me and he said, I love trigonometry. I want to let you know that I'm a police officer. There's a lot of police officers that watch the show.
Starting point is 00:58:09 And one of the things a lot of the people in the force believe is that neither senior leadership nor the politicians have our backs. There's an incentive like that, yeah, quite, quite strong within the metropolitan police. But it's true, isn't it? Like, I mean, of course, they clearly don't have their backs because if they did in this situation, the guy would get a medal, not a murder trial. Right? They could be, they could, they can receive an award for exemplary work.
Starting point is 00:58:38 Yes, that can that can be the case most definitely or they were acquitted. I think quite, quite fast. So there's some hope still, though... It should never have gone to trial. Never. Maybe for... I think I'm not defending them, by all means necessary, the people who took him to trial.
Starting point is 00:59:01 Maybe for the sake of that seeking that ultimate justice, it was, you know, this officer was put through, indeed, a horrific, I think, you know, trial, you know, and that's, I can only imagine what he has been through, but it was not that much about the trial. It seemed to me to be a witchcraft. Like they were trying to convince him.
Starting point is 00:59:26 I think that's the problem. It's not questioning, oh, let's see exactly what happened, what you have done, could you have done anything better, all these questions they're asking you. I think it was a witch hunt. Which hunt? Yes, that's what I think. That was the problem, yes.
Starting point is 00:59:41 Right. But this is kind of what I'm getting at is you say, you know, in the interest of absolute justice, but as you know better than I, just as this justice is a nuanced thing. There are different people. If you hound a police, an armed police officer in the way that he was hounded both in the media, by politicians, by activists, and you put him on trial for murder when he's clearly not only done the right thing, but done the courageous thing in very difficult circumstances, that's not justice, that's injustice. And this is something that a lot of people feel has now happened in the country where the rights are using inverted commas of people listening of perpetrators of crime, which is what Chris Carber was. He was a criminal. Yes. Are placed far and above the interests of the ordinary person who is the victim of those crimes. Or in this case of the police officer whose job it is to stop criminals like Chris Carver doing what they do? I think to some extent there might be some ideologues within the system, the police, the, the courts, which indeed may perpetuate some ideologies and therefore affect the process of justice. Now, why we have people like that in such position of power, positions of power, is beyond me.
Starting point is 01:01:14 I don't know how they're selected. I don't know how they think. I don't know if they can't see for themselves that this is actually not transparent. I say that word quite often. This actually is leaning one way rather the other. let's not forget that the courts are there for one thing and one thing only to be absolutely honest and clear about the picture. Their job is not to try to find someone guilty or not guilty, but to find out what is the truth and you here come very, very correct. Unfortunately, I think
Starting point is 01:01:56 we are living in a situation in a world in which truth can be interpreted. very differently according to the people, you know, people in power. And that worries me a lot because if we're going to have an ideologues making decisions, what is wrong and what is right, then we're on a very, very slippery slope of, and I think we're very, very close to a point of no return with some insanities going on in London and in England to begin with. Because we're talking about ideologues setting policy. Yes.
Starting point is 01:02:31 I mean, there's a lot of problems with that. But one of the major problems is ideologues see the world through their lens. It's an ideology. And with policing, you can't have ideology. You have to have reality. Absolutely, yes. And so you look at something like stop and search, and people are going, oh, we need to get rid of stop and search.
Starting point is 01:02:53 Now, again, I've never policed a day in my life. But to me, that seems lunacy. It is particularly... It is lunacy. It is absolutely crazy. Why is it? I would tell you, stop and search is very, very controversial because according to statistics, black kids maybe stopped a little bit more than anyone else.
Starting point is 01:03:21 Okay. I've done a few stop and searches, and I would tell you something, specifically when I was in S&T, safe and neighbor. Who's team. Most of the stop and search were searches were in relation to drugs, you know, if you can find some drugs on them, you know, drug paraphernalia. Because these kids, they go into inside properties, you know, on the staircase and they smoke weed and they listen to loud music. Well, guess who is calling us there? It's the black lady next door who had enough of them. Guess who called us again? The black gentleman who told me, I can't deal with this kid.
Starting point is 01:04:01 anymore. Not only they're getting, you know, a high on my, in front of my apartment, on the staircase, last time one of them pissed in an elevator. The people who are calling me to do the stop and search and go and attend, most of the time were black themselves. There were black, lovely people living in these buildings who had enough of kids running up and down smoking weed and causing havoc, you know, stealing your bikes and like this guy said, you know, pissing in the elevator. So the stop and search is not exactly as people think. Most of the time, it's other black folks calling on, you know, these kids,
Starting point is 01:04:40 some of the stop and searches in Soco, for example. Soho is very famous for getting your phone snatched, your watch snatched. If there's a hot crime spot and, you are dressed in a, you know, black Nike, you know, track suit with a mask on. Of course, that's not enough for anyone to stop and search. Maybe just the way you want to dress, you know. But when you're running away from the police and you tried to hide yourself away from the police, and before that there was an intelligent source described someone like you,
Starting point is 01:05:28 feeding that description of just robbed the phone 20 minutes ago, you might be indeed get stopped and search, not because you might be guilty, but you may fit very, very well. The description of that person found in that exact location in which 20 minutes ago someone got the phone snatched, you know, and you really, really look like that person. If you have nothing to hide, that's absolutely. It's absolutely fine. You can stop and search me. You know, if you've got a description of an Eastern European guy, you know, looking like me snatching phones, you know, I want to be stopped and search as soon as possible because I want to eliminate myself. I want the bad guy actually to be found. So stop and search most of the time, in my opinion, looking at my colleagues as well, it's very, very well researched. It's not done for the sake of stopping and searching people. That is not true. That is not true. Actually, the stop and searches which have been conducted are very, very professional, you know, very courteous. They take that time, they explain everything in detail, they're willing to give you a record of the stop and search if you think it was not right for you to go and say, you know, I don't think that was right, you know. I don't think that officer stopped me for the right reason.
Starting point is 01:06:43 And that never happens because most of the time the intelligence sources are quite spot on. And it's not just crimes, it's also preventing crimes. Yes. But if you've got the report that somebody is carrying a knife, you could be saving something. You could be saving someone's life. Absolutely, yes. And knives are, how can I put it, much more prevalent that people think.
Starting point is 01:07:11 A lot of people carry knives. However, they tend to hide them sometimes, near them, if they're in a particular area. They might not carry the knife with them all the time. But if another gang comes, they know where the knife is and they can run and get it. So a lot of people might be
Starting point is 01:07:31 found not carrying a knife but they might have knives somewhere close to them or within some of their friends which haven't been stopped and such. A knife, it's an epidemic. It's a really epidemic and it's extremely dangerous.
Starting point is 01:07:47 Yes, I agree with you. And they have ways around it. You know, they know what to do. They really, really do. People who actually carry knives, they're quite well. educated on the topic if that makes sense. They really do know what.
Starting point is 01:07:59 What does that mean, Dimitar? Well, like I said, they might hide the knife, they might hide the drugs, they might not have it on them. So, let's say, 20 minutes ago, you saw someone matching my description, pulling, you know, having a knife, you know, just putting a knife in my, in my pockets, okay?
Starting point is 01:08:17 And however, in these 20 minutes that until the police come and found me, you know, I'm in my area, you know, and let's say I'm doing something. dodgy there, you know, but I know, I don't want to carry the knife with me. You know, I'm going to be here, let's say, for the next half an hour. I might leave the knife somewhere close by. And on my way out of this area, I can just pick it up with me. So you have that information. You come, you stop and search me, but the knife is not on me because I've stashed it somewhere.
Starting point is 01:08:46 That's it. And now you've committed a point, whatever the term would be, a pointless or a fruitless or a baseless stop and search, and you are now... Yeah. Negative. Negative. Yeah, it's negative. Yeah. And why is there an epidemic of knife crime in London? Because of how volatile the city is. The city is... I will give you an example,
Starting point is 01:09:08 which I think fits the characteristics of London quite well. I'm from Eastern Europe. I say that to all my friends, Eastern European friends, across the seas, my English friends, pick an Eastern European country. Pick any Eastern European country. Pick any city in any European country, any street, any day, any time.
Starting point is 01:09:31 I will walk there on my own. No worries. I would never, ever do the same in London in some areas. Never. I'm going to get jumped. I won't. I am genuinely scared. I'll do that everywhere else in Eastern Europe.
Starting point is 01:09:48 Lovely, with pleasure. Here I won't do the same thing. I go back home sometimes and I say to it. to, you know, people in Bulgaria, it's a province in European country, how dangerous London is. And they look at me in disbelief and in absolute disbelief.
Starting point is 01:10:05 I said, well, yeah, oh yeah, fights, your watch gone, people getting stopped almost on daily basis. I think I'm not very, very sure. 40% of all mobile snatches in continental Europe, I think, are conducted in London. I'm not very, very, very sure,
Starting point is 01:10:23 but it's something extraordinary like that. Dean, can you check that with Venisei? It's what we use to fact-check things while we're continuing conversation. Yeah, please. I'm interested. Is it true that 40% of phone snatching in Europe is in London? Just check that. Thank you.
Starting point is 01:10:39 And do you put that down to the problems of policing that you told us about, which is effectively if you don't have enough police, if you're losing good police officers, if the quality of the police officers declining, we know under the Theresa May's government, there were slashes to, or when she was Home Secretary rather, there was huge budget slashes and therefore you couldn't, you lost 10, I think, over 10,000 police officers. Is the reason London has become less safe and more, there's more crime because there's not enough good police officers?
Starting point is 01:11:09 I think it's partially because of that. And what else? Apathy. People don't care. People think that they can get away with everything. The social cohesion of so-called diversities are strength in London, in my opinion, is a fairy tale. I have never seen a city so beautiful with so much potential and yet so divided. I am really, really shocked to see that. I think a lot of these young kids, these gangs, they don't care. They have absolutely no connection.
Starting point is 01:11:49 to anyone and anything but the gangster lifestyle, because it seems so easy to get away with it. And yes, it seems so easy to get away with it because, like you said, you know, there's not enough police officers. The second part is, even there are some police officers, like Francis said, they look at that and they're thinking, probably they look like a sack of potatoes in uniform,
Starting point is 01:12:17 I, or Alderadam officer. They tried to determine, push them over, and get away with it. I think all those factors contribute to that. You know, it's interesting you say that you guys were talking about this. I saw, I was scrolling my Twitter yesterday. I saw this video of a guy posted this video saying, oh, the police in London don't fuck about it. And it's guys on bike snatching phones,
Starting point is 01:12:45 and then a police officer comes in and just smashes them off the bike. or they tackle them off the bike, or they ram them, not ram them with a car, but they sort of enclosed them. And I was like, oh, wow, this is, oh, have they changed policy? That's an AI. It was AI. I watched this as well yesterday. Yeah, yeah. I was like, oh, this is what we want.
Starting point is 01:13:02 Oh, oh, okay, it's AI. That was an AI, yes, yes, it is. Sort of tells the full story, doesn't it? It is, it is indeed exactly that it's apathy. They don't care. Police are not there to begin with. they don't look respectful enough to, a police officer should be,
Starting point is 01:13:21 especially frontline police officers should be, to some extent, possessing authority. So when I see to police officers coming from a police car, I want to think for myself, you know, something, man, I rather, I rather do, you know, what I gotta do. I don't want to mess with this guy.
Starting point is 01:13:37 Exactly, I don't want to get, you know, detain by these officers, you know, it's not going to be, and they obviously seems like they're going to detain me, you know, However, these officers are getting less and less and far between. And that's a tragedy. And the taxpayers are paying for that.
Starting point is 01:13:57 Dean, do you, were you able to look it up? So the UK as a whole accounts about 40% of... Okay. So the UK as a whole is 40% of all phone snatching in Europe. That's, I mean... That's insane. That's crazy. Oh, Constantine, it's beyond belief how bad it is. Can I ask a question?
Starting point is 01:14:16 Because this really, like, this is going to, this, as a Londoner, this boils my urine. You see these kids. You see them nicking phones. Yes. You see them cycling around. I don't see a police officer. I'm like, why don't you arrest this kid? I mean, it's not exactly a difficult crime to solve.
Starting point is 01:14:37 They don't have enough people, Francis. Like I said, specifically Westminster, which I used to work. You go from call to call to call to call. And to some extent, if you're experienced police officer and you are, let's say, on Oxford Street and very, very quickly need to go to, I don't know, just region street, it's not that far away. You know, somebody snatched your phone.
Starting point is 01:15:03 Let's be very, very precise. I snatch your phone. Until the victim finds someone to call the police, until the police ask you few questions. until a police unit is dispatched to come and see you, the fellow on a bike, it's in Lomba. In that electric bike, you know, he's in Lembert. And a lot of police officers, they know that.
Starting point is 01:15:28 Yes, of course, they're going to put the blue lights on and they're going to try to come and speak to the victim as soon as possible. That's absolutely fine. But deep down, they know the whole process. Until they get dispatch, until they come and see you, especially now Oxford Street will be, you know, made for pedestrians, Zalona, is that going to be a crime heaven?
Starting point is 01:15:48 That is going to be something else. Your phone is gone, so they know that. They know that, but I will say something a little bit controversial. Snatching phones is just a little part of actually what is going on in London. The robberies are something else. People being threatened with knives, beaten in front of their wives and partners. You know, like a few videos like that.
Starting point is 01:16:15 on social media, getting their, you know, watches away from them. The violence is escalating quite a lot. A lot of people are not afraid to stand in front of police officer and abuse them, sometimes even become physical with police officers. And I think that's very, very, very, very telling. Very, very, very telling. I have a colleague who in one of these protests, which used to happen every Saturday, got dragged in in the crowds.
Starting point is 01:16:48 I think they stole her helmets. I think they stole her button. And I think they broke her hip. I'm not very, very sure if she had a broken hip or not. And then they spat her off. Yeah, I mean, it's really, really bad. It's really, really bad. If something similar happens to 2011 in London,
Starting point is 01:17:07 I don't think we'll be able to cope. You're talking about the riots? Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Timit, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on. Thank you. We're going to go to questions from our supporters. I really thank you for coming on. I think it's really important for people like you to come forward to tell your story and to explain to people at the normal level of the person, the frontline police officer, and this will be true in the NHS. It'll be true in prison of service in many different areas.
Starting point is 01:17:34 What's actually going on? Because politicians talk about politics and media people talk about this at a political and media level. But just to hear your story from your experiences has been really valuable. So thank you for coming on. Before we get to questions from our supporters, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Before Dimitar answers a final question at the end of the interview, make sure to head over to triggerpod.com.uk, where you'll be able to see this. What does the public most misunderstand about being a police officer? Why is there two-tier policing? Is it now time for all police officers to be armed with guns?
Starting point is 01:18:12 What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? The very painful topic of introducing higher standards when it comes to recruitment. The very topic of few, I have to say it, I think to some extent the from line has been quite saturated by female offices. which are absolutely wonderful in what they do. But when it comes to volatility and being able to objectively restrain someone, I think they are not prepared to such level of violence. And they need a lot of backup sometimes. And because they need backup, most of the times,
Starting point is 01:19:18 they're taking away a unit that might be. be dealing with someone else. If we had more officers, that's absolutely fine. I want, and I wish everyone the best. I want everyone to expand in their work, but we are at such stage of low numbers that if we don't address the quality of policing, we might be indeed in the next few years seeing the total collapse of the police, in my opinion. And what do you think the answer to that is? Because when we had Chris Donaldson, who's a former police officer himself, and in fact, he worked his way up, I think.
Starting point is 01:20:01 He mentioned that, you know, we talked about the female aspect of this, that you bring up the physical strength of being able to deal with violence. And what he said is the thing is there's a flip side to this, which is where female officers can quite often diffuse the situation in a way that men are less likely to do, which I think, I suspect is probably partly true. So is it about having the right mix or partnering people in the right way or having more people? Or do you think it's just a question of people being put into positions for which they're not suitable?
Starting point is 01:20:34 I think DEI has introduced a few of these policies that we need a certain amount of that type of people, a certain amount of this type of people, which is absolutely crazy. that's insane because the moment you say, I need more Bulgarians, you know, give myself into example, you are taking away the opportunity of someone else that might be much better suited for that position, and that's true. And I disagree, actually, with that they're better in diffusing situations. Defusing situation needs courtesy and professionalism. That's the only thing that it needs. It doesn't matter where it comes from as long as the other person, can see that is genuine, regardless if it comes from me or you or some other lady,
Starting point is 01:21:26 it truly, truly doesn't matter. It has to be sincere. Courtesy is something that you cannot fake. Discretion is something that you cannot fake. Maybe some female officers may possess that more naturally, but then again what makes a person naturally more courteous? that we can't we can't take and choose
Starting point is 01:21:50 when it comes to the reality of frontline policing I rather have someone who is more physically capable of doing things and then work on their courtesy and discretion
Starting point is 01:22:03 than someone that has only courtesy and discretion but it's not working on the physical ability to do something because most criminals really don't much care how courteous you are, especially if they're guilty. They want to get away. They want to get away.
Starting point is 01:22:23 Of course, that does me have to pros them. Hey, mate. But they really don't care. They're thinking, I'm going to get out of this, what I'm going to do, what I'm going to say, you know. It's whole avalanche in their head. So to some extent, they might be right, but I wouldn't myself use that as a to just put more courteous people regardless of their sex. When we saw, I mean, with the Manchester airport confrontation, I mean, you feel sorry for the female police officers involved in that situation, who were badly injured. But as you said earlier, in an ideal situation,
Starting point is 01:23:04 those guys who punched police officers really should have been very hesitant to do so because of the stature and the presence of those police officers, and they would ideally be thinking, I don't want to punch these people, because that's going to end very badly for me. Yes, absolutely. And clearly that deterrent wasn't there, which is what you're saying. No, it wasn't. It wasn't.
Starting point is 01:23:23 And it's the somers and actually think it might be invitation. Of course. And I think we should address something else here as well, which, again, may sound controversial, but we live in a very, very, very, multicultural society. And I think perhaps we have to take into consideration that some cultural upbringing may have different views on women.
Starting point is 01:23:58 Yeah, I think we might. Yes, that is very, very, very important. Oh, I see you even more what you're saying. So when it comes to policing, the way somebody from a certain background might react to a female police officer is different. Yes, absolutely. I've seen that many, many times. I've seen that many, many times. I've been, I have done very many cell exits.
Starting point is 01:24:23 Cell exit is when someone is very, very angry and, you know, you need to detain them inside the cell. And, you know, there's a particular way of how you get away from them. And I've seen people being angry, being handled by female police officers, quite often and they come from most of the time particular backgrounds in North Africa and Southeast Asia most of the time. And I've experienced that myself. I have experienced people telling me, why are we English? You're like us, you're a foreigner, you're one of us. Quite a few times. Most of the times I think I'm Russian because of my family.
Starting point is 01:25:12 Yes. And they have been told me, why are with them, you know, why are with English? They never say the British. Yeah. They say the English. We think we are British. They think this is England.
Starting point is 01:25:27 It's quite interesting that we want to achieve something which is, you know, under the United Kingdom, we're all British, but they don't see the locals as British. they see them as English and to some extent I think the animosity is quite open and I'm very very very very sorry to say that but I have experience that myself I have seen it I've heard that many many times oh why you're helping them you know why join the police I crazy stuff like that you know from quite a few quite a few people and it's also as well let's be honest about that in this country you're taught never to hear a woman now some people do because they're not very nice people they're not good
Starting point is 01:26:08 people morally, but that is what you're taught in this country. There are other cultures, they don't really have an issue with it. Francis, the insanity of the city, this is my opinion, again, you know, I think it's an insanity what we have found ourselves to be in. Let me paint the picture. People in suits paid by taxpayers' money, going to the home office, okay? For months, thinking about what we're going to do and came out with leaflets saying, you need the other person to say yes, before you have sex, don't have sex with someone who is asleep. For the love of God, are we living in an age of total delusion? Yes.
Starting point is 01:27:03 This is crazy. You know, I said that to my sister and she thinks I am joking, you know. people outside of Britain think you people are totally nuts. And I mean that because I feel sorry for this crunch that has given so much to the world. And it doesn't really matter in my case where I have come from. Because where you come from, yes, indeed matters a lot. But essentially, what matters is your ideas, what you believe in, how you want to live your life. That's why I have chosen to live in Britain.
Starting point is 01:27:34 I don't consider myself British, maybe one day if I marry a British lady and we have have kid, maybe that kid will be British, but not me. I consider myself as a subject of this great place, and I want to help out. But I'm afraid to say that I think I'm in the minority. There's a lot of people who don't think that way whatsoever are openly hostile, and for the United Kingdom government to approve that, I think tells you everything you need to know of where we are heading. Absolutely. Dimitar, it's been an absolutely. pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Make sure to head over to our substack where you get to ask Dimitar your questions. This is, I believe, Broken Window series, one of the
Starting point is 01:28:21 best forms of crime prevention in the community. Why is low-level crime not cracked down on very hard so that you prevent crime escalating as we've seen no longer?

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