Police ‘Watergate’

I put up a post recently which seemed fairly much to slip under the radar: Police Erase Complaint. Perhaps because I put it up without comment. It was, however, quite serious, for two reasons. Policing Complaints held a complaint against Cape Town's detective head Col. S.S. Reddy. I complained of gross violation of procedure -- which Col. Reddy should have known himself -- it had been addressed to him. Then there followed a "Watergate" -- with someone entering Policing Complaints and removing the complaint from the system -- when Policing Complaints was closed for the weekend. Of course, it might not have been a break-in (Watergate) -- just someone who had the keys and access to the system. Unusually, there is firm evidence that this happened. Policing Complaints received an "unobtrusive check" which tracked the deletion, on terminal RFC822 -- called an MDN (see the post above). But this is serious for another reason, too. Policing Complaints act as a safety check on the police. If they can be neutralised like this, then there may be no check. The police may be able to act autonomously. OBSERVATION: I don't wish to imply that Col. Reddy ordered the removal of the complaint. However, it is easy to see how one might suspect it. The police should have addressed this immediately -- whether to exonerate Col. Reddy, or not. And then there is the question as to why this happened at all. I have said many times that all is not well.