The police need a ‘call it out’ culture to prevent crimes like those that David Carrick committed against women - Dr Alan Billings

It raised a sickening question: was what has been revealed happening elsewhere? Was it something systemic, even cultural?

As you may know, our Chief Constable, Lauren Poultney, is the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for counter-corruption. This is even more reason why we must be absolutely sure that what has been revealed in London is not happening here.

I have been heartened by what the Chief Constable has written to police staff and officers in South Yorkshire. In a recent message to them, she began by accepting that the challenge to policing was not just about the actions of one officer. It was ‘the systematic failure of the Met to deal with the officer at the earliest opportunity, and other subsequent opportunities’.

She went on to make it clear that ‘where we see wrongdoing, we will take action and we will support those who do’. ‘I don’t want one criminal officer to represent me as a police officer, and equally I don’t want the failings of one force to represent a service. It’s on each and everyone of us to ensure it doesn’t.’

The Chief Constable then explained why it was so important to establish a ‘call it out’ culture. This was not about being disloyal to friends but about ‘public safety at the highest level’. She rightly said that public trust and confidence will be nurtured if the police are seen to be people who call out wrongdoing and deal with it.

This is not easy. It takes courage and determination to call out someone who is part of your team or support network. But what kind of support network is it if it is not supporting you in upholding the values and high standards that all officers should aspire to and which the public demands.

Every police force is currently looking at its vetting procedures and whether anything in the past has been missed. I dare say some bad behaviour, some criminal behaviour, will be found, not least in London. But it must be done.

When I first became Police and Crime Commissioner, trust and confidence in the police had been badly damaged in South Yorkshire because of what had happened locally – the Hillsborough inquest verdicts and the Jay Report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham.

Andy Burnham, who was then the Shadow Home Secretary, said the police here were ‘rotten to the core’ – the same words now being used following the Carrick revelations. It took a lot of time and energy by the police here to throw off those accusations. It would be a tragedy if national issues should now impact trust and confidence here after all that effort. I believe the force here is doing everything it can to ensure this does not happen.

A shortened version of the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire’s latest blog post.