Police Commissioners should be like Caesar’s Wife
Gaius Julius Caesar’s second wife was Pompeia (a grand daughter of Sulla who almost killed Caesar). During the Festival of Bona Dea a rascal called Publius Clodius Pulcher sneaked in disguised as a woman. There was no evidence that anything inappropriate happened between Pompeia and Clodius but Caesar divorced her on the grounds that Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.
This was somewhat ironic as Caesar himself was a noted womaniser (think Charlie Sheen levels), and in fact took great delight on cuckolding many of his Senatorial colleagues (partly explaining their dislike of him).
The role of Commissioner (and Deputy) of Police should be seen as similar to Caesar’s wife. They should and must be above suspicion.
In the rest of the article, I compare the current scandal to the ousting of Commissioner Doone in 2000, and also whether the affair by itself (if consensual and not related to work) should be a factor in suitability to be Commissioner. I note:
An uncontested fact is that as a 40 year old Superintendent he had an affair with a 20 year old woman. Now we do have to be careful not be demand perfection or be the moral police. Many people have affairs, even senior executives. If the Government Statistician had an affair with a 20 year old pool boy, I don’t think it would be relevant to her job, so long as she delivers a good census etc.
But the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners of Police are different. I think there is a moral or integrity aspect to the roles. The roles are so special, they get appointed by the Prime Minister. We should not expect perfection, but the affair is a factor that the Public Service Commission panels for Deputy Commissioner and Commissioner should have been aware of. The Police hierarchy went out of their way to make sure they were not informed. It shouldn’t have been a veto, but should be a factor. An affair can lead to blackmail etc, so again it is relevant to these roles.
The focus to date has been on the many failings by the entire senior hierarchy of the Police (Commissioner, two Deputy Commissioners, two Assistant Commissioners). Tomorrow I’m going to highlight the officers who did behave well, and did do the right thing. So basically it will be detailing who were the good cops and who were the bad cops in this exercise – and who appointed the bad cops.