On Saturday, 29 November 1969, The Times ran a story headed, “London policemen in bribe allegations. Tapes reveal planted evidence.” The article alleged that three South London detectives had taken bribes, given false evidence in exchange for money and had “allowed a criminal to pursue his activities”
This story would, eventually, engender three major inquiries into corruption in the Metropolitan Police, producing in turn five major trials of London detectives. These revelations of deep rooted corruption forever tainted the myth of the incorruptible London bobby and a tradition of detective work that reached back to Victorian times, a tradition based on the tolerance, almost encouragement, of close intimacy between detectives and criminals was almost totally destroyed. Nearly 400 detectives left the Met in disgrace and hundreds more returned to uniform. The period became known as “The Fall of Scotland Yard” and the effects of that crash still reverberate today.
The Times journalists, Gary Lloyd and Julian Mounter, had secretly tape-recorded a small-time South London criminal and three detectives in conversations that left no doubt as to the extent of corruption that existed among sections of the Met’s Criminal Investigation Department. The conversations between Detective Sergeant John Symonds and the criminal featured the now infamous
‘… don’t forget always to let me know straight away if you need anything because I know people everywhere. Because I’m in a little firm in a firm. Don’t matter where, anywhere in London I can get on the phone to someone I know I can trust, that talks the same as me. And if he’s not the right person that can do it, he’ll know the person that can. All right?’
It was this ‘Firm in a Firm’ phrase which gave the Times allegations its horrific impact. It implied that there was a whole network of ‘bent’ detectives on the take, who were prepared to do favours to any criminal who could be induced to pay for them. The Times feared that the allegations would be brushed under the carpet if they went straight to the Yard with them, so publication was seen as the only way of ensuring the story came out into the open. The material the newspaper had, including some thirty hours of tape recordings, was duly handed over at Scotland Yard. ‘A little firm in a firm’ was taken as the headline for the Times leader which stated, that the allegations constituted
“The most serious charge that has been brought against the Criminal Investigation Branch of the Metropolitan Police for some years…. It is important in justice to the Metropolitan Police, and in particular to the plain-clothes branch, that the most stringent inquiry should now be made.”
The Metropolitan Police of 1969-1972 was a police force riven by internal power-struggles between its most senior officers and a deep mistrust between the uniform branch and the detectives of the Criminal Investigation Department. Created in 1879 (The Met’s earlier Detective Branch had been disbanded for corruption) the CID enjoyed prestige, had a separate system of promotion, higher rates of pay and its own command structure.
At its apex was the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) at Scotland Yard. Under him were four Area CID commanders also based at the Yard. Under them were twenty three detective chief superintendents, one in each district, controlling a total of 2300 detectives with another 1,000 detectives based in the Yard’s specialist squads answerable to the ACC through their own commanders. The CID operated with no outside control as a force within a force with all the loyalties and codes of a closed, elite body.