Police have to earn respect, says borough commander

Chief Superintendent Neil Basu said Barnet Police must get “back to basics” in their methods, returning to the values espoused by Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Met.

“I don't think the police have an automatic right to be respected,” he said, speaking in Colindale police station last Friday.

“Society is not as deferential to the authorities as it once was and we have to earn respect.

“The way we do that is through the way we act. The community seeing us doing our job is the most important thing.

“As our founding father Peel said, the public are the police and the police are the public.

“The police are nothing more than the public in uniforms with an extraordinary set of powers. I think we've lost sight of that.”

He said the job of the police is to find out what the public want, not to “come in as some standing army and give the public what we think they need”.

Appointed to the role of borough commander on June 29, CS Basu has seen some of the worst that London has to offer.

During his career within the Met he has investigated fraud, murder, kidnap and corrupt detectives.

He said: “My ambition is to make this the safest borough in London, and there's no reason why it can't be.

“The way we do that is by returning to some core values. Catching more criminals, convicting more criminals and ensuring that those who deserve to stay behind bars stay behind bars.”

Before becoming a police officer and delving into the world of murder and kidnap, CS Basu worked as both a chocolate salesman for Mars and as a corporate banker.

“It may not come as a great surprise that I was more popular as a chocolate salesman than I was as a banker,” he said.

He spoke with a fondness for the Met and the police service as a whole, saying he has never had a bad week in the job.

He said: “It's the most extraordinary profession and the more people who know about the reality of what we do, the better.”