I, like many Britons, have been shocked by the revelations of alleged cowardice on the part of Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Sir Craig Mackay during the Islamic terror attack on Westminster Bridge and the Palace of Westminster that have come out during the inquest into the incident. It was revealed at the inquest at the Central Criminal Court in London that Sir Craig, who was acting as temporary Met Commissioner at the time, locked himself in a police car with two other colleagues, whilst an Islamic savage, Khalid Masood, stabbed police constable Keith Palmer to death.

The excuse that Sir Keith made was that he and his colleagues had no protective equipment, no weapons and no radio with which to call for help. However, as the Ambush Predator blog pointed out the other day, there have been plenty of instances where civilians have waded in to dangerous situations and saved the day yet here we have a senior police officer who cowers in fear whilst one of his own officers is brutally murdered. Sir Craig whined to the inquest that he could not intervene as he was ‘only in shirt sleeves’ according to an account of the inquest in the left leaning newspaper The Independent.

The Independent said:

He recalled locking the doors of his chauffeur-driven car, where neither of the two other people inside had stab vests, any other equipment or a radio to communicate with officers about what was happening.

“A colleague in the car had clearly seen what had gone on as well, and I locked the door,” he added. “I’ve got no protective equipment, no radio … we were in a ministerial meeting and literally came out to that.”

From the car’s passenger seat Sir Craig described seeing “two determined stab wounds”, adding: “I could see PC Palmer moving backwards and him going down.”

Sir Craig, who is to retire in December, said: “The attacker had one of those looks where, if they get you in that look, they would be after you.

Let me ask you the reader a quick question or two. Firstly do you think that this expensively trained and well renumerated officer is a coward for acting in the manner that he did and secondly, is this a police officer who you could rely on to protect you if the need arose. Judging by the various comments out there on a diversity of online public forums, the answer to the first question is an emphatic ‘yes’ and the answer to the second is an equally emphatic ‘no’.

Whilst appreciating that this particular Islamic savage attack happened swiftly and may have caught Sir Craig off guard, that does not excuse him from criticism over his actions. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth to see and hear of senior officers such as Sir Craig who by necessity put their officers in danger, failing to show the courage that he should and would expect from his more junior officers. It could have been the case that the sight of one of their top brass wading in and doing some proper policing by tackling this savage with whatever item came to hand could have galvanised other officers and possibly members of the public, into fighting back against this murderous savage.

Sir Craig Mackay has become by his actions, or rather the lack of them, a figure of increasing derision and indeed disgust in the public eye. I would not be at all surprised to discover that there may be people out there who may be inclined to register their disgust at Sir Craig’s actions not just by commenting online or by writing polite letters of protest, but by sending Sir Craig a whole lot of white feathers to indicate displeasure at his cowardice.

Maybe it’s time for a rewrite of the old song ‘The Laughing Policeman’ and call it ‘the cowering policeman’ instead? After all we have a perfect example of a cowering police officer in the form of Sir Craig Mackay. It’s difficult to get over the impression that Sir Craig has given that he is not so much a police officer as a well upholstered waste of space. It’s officers like Sir Craig who invite justifiable derision from the public who are fed up with their police officers rarely turning out on burglary calls for example but who seem to find vast amounts of time and resources to hang round Twitter looking for ‘offensive’ opinions.

It’s sad really, despite all their faults, we used to have police officers we could mostly trust and mostly be proud of, but now all we have are officers such as Sir Craig who are fit for little more than waving the white flag of surrender in the face of serious crime and disorder. We will continue to be poorly served by our police forces until the likes of Sir Craig are replaced with those who will police all of us in an equitable and efficient way.