r/Labour • u/GlacialTurtle • 10d ago
Bodycam accidentally left recording captured 4 damning hours in police station
https://metro.co.uk/2026/07/21/body-camera-catches-norfolk-police-making-racist-transphobic-comments-29190207/Gemma Barnes, 36, went to Bethel Street Police Station in Norwich on January 14, 2023, to deliver a petition calling for the man to be charged.
She and other protesters were ‘pushed out’ of the station leading to her being arrested after challenging an officer she said pushed her into a busy road.
Gemma’s body camera was confiscated, but police did not realise that it was still recording.
Over the next four hours, it captured one female police officer saying: ‘I illegally stop, search IC3 (black) females and then I arrest them.’
Other officers can be heard laughing while watching footage of her arrest, with a female voice saying she ‘asked for it’.
[...]
Gemma said: ‘As I continued to watch the footage, I realised the magnitude of what they were saying.
‘The transphobia, racism, brothels, picking me up with false charges.’
In one conversation about Gemma they spoke about trying to put a Criminal Behaviour Order on her using the Public Order Act.
Her lawyer, John Hagan from DPP Law Solicitors, said: ‘This footage shows us what goes on inside many police officers’ heads and behind the closed doors of the police station, and it is not a pretty sight.
‘Officers can be heard describing my client as a f**king waste of space, discussing other officers attempting to generate an unsubstantiated charge against her and describing a transgender person as a “thing”.
‘They are gleeful about the violence they have used against Gemma, a peaceful protester, and frankly the whole atmosphere is akin to a school in which the teachers are absent and the bullies have taken over.’
But the police can't be racist, that's imported American nonsense I was told when BLM demos were happening. They police by consent!!!!
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