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being extradited to the US. That's it from me. Now it is time for | :00:04. | :00:14. | |
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My guest today is perhaps the UK's most controversial police officer. | :00:15. | :00:20. | |
A commander in London's Metropolitan Police and a convicted | :00:20. | :00:25. | |
criminal. Ali Dizaei was born in Iran. He studied law in London and | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
became a high flying spokesman for ethnic minority police officers in | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
their London force dogged by accusations of racism. Ali Dizaei | :00:34. | :00:40. | |
portrays himself as a victim. The courts decided he was a rogue cop. | :00:40. | :00:50. | |
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What does his rise and fall say Ali Dizaei, welcome to HARDtalk. | :01:14. | :01:20. | |
Good to be here. You were an ambitious and successful career | :01:20. | :01:23. | |
policeman and he might use it as a convicted criminal. How hard is | :01:23. | :01:32. | |
that for you to accept? It is hard. All my life for the last 27 years, | :01:32. | :01:40. | |
I have given my service to the Queen and the country. Three | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
skulduggery and other things, I have managed to get myself | :01:43. | :01:50. | |
convicted. Miscarriage of justice is nothing new in the United | :01:50. | :01:55. | |
Kingdom. They were all convicted very much like me. Ten years' | :01:55. | :02:00. | |
imprisonment, they ended up being apologised to by the British Prime | :02:01. | :02:06. | |
Minister. Is that how you see yourself? You will eventually get | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
an apology from the people at the very top. Last year exactly this | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
time it happened. I was convicted, I was sent to prison, I was | :02:15. | :02:20. | |
vilified and demonised by the tabloid press, extraordinary. I am | :02:20. | :02:25. | |
not the only high-profile civil servant been convicted and then 16- | :02:25. | :02:31. | |
month later, the Court of Appeal and the Justice of Appeal said my | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
conviction was actually unsafe. Remarkably, I was retried again on | :02:35. | :02:40. | |
the words of a convicted fraudster or - or we can say this because he | :02:40. | :02:43. | |
has been convicted since the last trial - and I have been convicted | :02:43. | :02:50. | |
again. That is the point. As you characterised correctly, you had a | :02:50. | :02:54. | |
trial, at you were sentenced to four years, you served 15 months in | :02:54. | :03:00. | |
prison. But was then overturned. There was a retrial and then you | :03:00. | :03:05. | |
were a retrial by a jury of your Peers. By the Court of Appeal. The | :03:05. | :03:12. | |
wonderful thing about this country, we have democratic values and a | :03:13. | :03:19. | |
good Criminal Justice System. to the top. These are serious | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
charges you have been convicted of. Misconduct of just as, for averting | :03:24. | :03:31. | |
the Court of Justice. -- perverting. In the second try, the jury had the | :03:31. | :03:37. | |
key prosecution against you had credibility issues, as you said. It | :03:37. | :03:41. | |
is proving he fording that we claim some benefits, he lied about his | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
personal details. In the end, the jury heard your evidence and his | :03:45. | :03:50. | |
evidence and they decided to to be too fussed about is pretty damning. | :03:50. | :04:00. | |
:04:00. | :04:02. | ||
On the surface, I yes. We can talk about this and people talking out | :04:02. | :04:06. | |
it -- about it being the most heinous crime. I arrested a man | :04:06. | :04:12. | |
outside a cafe. There was no injury, and nobody was killed. There was no | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
loss of life to property. I arrested a bogus an asylum seeker | :04:17. | :04:25. | |
who is now a benefactor and I was sent to prison. You abused your | :04:25. | :04:31. | |
authority. Yes, and the jury found that. But clearly, the jury did not | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
know because the judge did not commit the jury to know that this | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
man is also under investigation for very serious other criminal | :04:40. | :04:45. | |
offences in this country against other British citizens. The Crown | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
Prosecution Service, through all their legal play, managed to | :04:49. | :04:52. | |
convince the judge that that information should be kept away | :04:52. | :05:00. | |
from the jury and that what ahead in their appeal. We will not go | :05:00. | :05:04. | |
down that track. What is interesting that you are the most | :05:04. | :05:09. | |
senior police officer to be sent to prison in a generation. You have | :05:09. | :05:14. | |
been evicted by two different injuries of your appears. Would you | :05:14. | :05:23. | |
accept your police career is absolutely over? -- two juries of | :05:23. | :05:32. | |
copiers. Not necessarily. Last year I was right. I remain absolutely | :05:32. | :05:37. | |
convinced that I would challenge this conviction and I will win and | :05:37. | :05:42. | |
be able to demonstrate that I have been a subject of miscarriage of | :05:42. | :05:46. | |
justice, very much like those names I mentioned earlier on. There are | :05:46. | :05:51. | |
some bizarre twists to this story. Are you electronically tagged at | :05:51. | :05:57. | |
the moment? Yes. Right now as you sit before me, you are wearing some | :05:57. | :06:03. | |
sort of electronic bracelet? Yes, I do. If that is supposed to | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
undermine my confidence and my integrity, it does not. I take | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
inspiration in the words of Shakespeare, who says they tied me | :06:12. | :06:21. | |
to their stakes, I cannot fly high. Battles in Macbeth. -- that was in. | :06:21. | :06:29. | |
It is a credibility issue. I do not know why you insist you can retain | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
credibility as a senior Metropolitan Police officer. Why | :06:32. | :06:37. | |
don't you resign from the police force? That is the easiest thing | :06:37. | :06:43. | |
you can do. But when you are innocent, you do not do that. Look | :06:43. | :06:48. | |
at my four colleagues, Sir Paul Stephenson. Every time there is | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
allegations, allegations of misconduct, the easiest thing you | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
can do is through the town in and say I have done nothing wrong, go | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
and smoke cigars and get your pension. It is damaging the Match, | :07:01. | :07:07. | |
isn't it? You are a damaging the police force. The Independent | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
Police Complaints Commission chicken-and-egg Hardwick, he said | :07:10. | :07:20. | |
:07:20. | :07:22. | ||
the greatest threat to the police force is criminals in uniform. -- | :07:22. | :07:30. | |
nick Hardwick. We have challenged their integrity over racism and | :07:30. | :07:36. | |
they way they deal with people of colour in many cases. It was his | :07:36. | :07:41. | |
opportunity to put the boot in. I will not lose much sleep over that | :07:41. | :07:46. | |
nonsense. I have an ongoing appeal and you only have to walk with me | :07:46. | :07:50. | |
through the streets of London. It is not a higher echelons of the | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
matter of the tabloid press who should be judged whether I should | :07:54. | :08:00. | |
remain a police officer. Let us go to some boroughs that have reduced | :08:00. | :08:05. | |
it crime by 30% and increased public confidence. They will come | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
to me and shake my head and say you should stay in the police force | :08:08. | :08:18. | |
because we need policemen like you. So we don't suffer from their races | :08:18. | :08:23. | |
and that we suffer now forced to have you introduce the idea of race | :08:23. | :08:33. | |
:08:33. | :08:37. | ||
is an entire police force. We will come back to that. -- racism. You | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
spent 15 months in prison. Having spent a career locking people up, | :08:41. | :08:47. | |
you were locked up yourself. What is that like? It was like living | :08:47. | :08:53. | |
hell. Like putting a high-profile police officer imprisoned. Nobody | :08:53. | :09:01. | |
was... Hang on. Let us not go over the case again. You were in a | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
position of great authority. You were a senior police officer. You | :09:05. | :09:10. | |
abused the offers, you had to pay the price and that meant serving | :09:10. | :09:17. | |
time in prison. One month solitary confinement? If you had not been in | :09:17. | :09:22. | |
there, you might have faced a real violence. Not really. They put me | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
in solitary confinement to teach me a lesson and to teach other | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
advocates of equality... With all due respect, they probably | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
protected you. You have told stories of how you work assaulted | :09:34. | :09:39. | |
while mixing with prisoners at one point. You were smeared with | :09:39. | :09:46. | |
excrement. It was not a coincidence. My offence, in any objective view, | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
was an offence which made a should have gone to an open prison | :09:50. | :09:55. | |
straight away. I was not put in a open prison. I was put in solitary | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
confinement in a Victorian prison and then I was put in a close | :09:59. | :10:03. | |
condition prison without any proper assessment and as a result, I was | :10:03. | :10:08. | |
very badly assaulted. It was a living hell. The answer to your | :10:08. | :10:14. | |
question. I never lost my hope in clearing my name and I did it. And | :10:14. | :10:19. | |
I would do it again. What went wrong, Ali Dizaei? Everyone thinks | :10:19. | :10:26. | |
about your career trajectory, you came to the UK as an Iranian, you | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
obviously studied here. You were very successful in your early years | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
in the police force. You became as superintended in the Metropolitan | :10:36. | :10:42. | |
Police. You were tipped for high office. For great things. At what | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
point do you think things went wrong? When I refused to be house- | :10:47. | :10:53. | |
trained by my employ not want to me to be talking about | :10:53. | :11:01. | |
the racism I a witness. They said if I kept quiet, you will be a | :11:02. | :11:07. | |
higher officer. But my position... Look at my history. One thing that | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
lurks in the background and rarely gets referred to is how I actually | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
delivered of performance in the streets of London, in terms of | :11:16. | :11:22. | |
detection of crime and public covered its. As soon as I raised my | :11:22. | :11:30. | |
head above everyone and said I will not stand dead, that is when I | :11:30. | :11:38. | |
became targeted. �12 million. My employer has spent in the last ten | :11:38. | :11:43. | |
years trying to prosecute or discipline may. �12 million. | :11:43. | :11:48. | |
problem with this is for a long time, your race, your car, the fact | :11:48. | :11:54. | |
that you are from a minority, did not impact your career. -- your | :11:54. | :12:02. | |
colour. He won on a fast track. Your career began to fall in to | :12:02. | :12:05. | |
trouble. There were allegations spreading that your lifestyle and | :12:06. | :12:11. | |
will conduct was not that expected of a senior officer. My employer | :12:11. | :12:18. | |
put me under intrinsic surveillance for two years. Tapped my telephone | :12:18. | :12:23. | |
calls. It decided that perhaps I should not be going to a night club | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
of their choice, I should be going down to a local pub. That is the | :12:27. | :12:31. | |
gist of the allegations. Why do you think they spent so much money and | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
time investigating you? It was because they had real fears about | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
your conduct and Europe use of Office was a bat was not clearly | :12:40. | :12:44. | |
justified. In every court other than the last one, that was tested | :12:44. | :12:48. | |
before the judges and they found that conduct was completely and | :12:48. | :12:58. | |
:12:58. | :12:58. | ||
utterly unlawful. Andy Hayman, of you said this. He was recently | :12:58. | :13:03. | |
involved in investigations. He said you were at control, a violent | :13:03. | :13:08. | |
bully and liar who abused his position of trust. That is not the | :13:08. | :13:13. | |
same Andy Hayman that you called a dodgy person, did you? If it was, | :13:13. | :13:17. | |
of the hypocrisy is breathtaking. do not know what that has to do | :13:17. | :13:22. | |
with it. He spent a lot of time looking at your behaviour and he | :13:22. | :13:27. | |
concluded that. That operation was masterminded by Andy Hayman and it | :13:27. | :13:32. | |
was found by the Morris inquiry to be a disproportionate, highly | :13:32. | :13:37. | |
irrational investigation which was fuelled by raises them. How could | :13:37. | :13:47. | |
:13:47. | :13:49. | ||
anyone possibly believe what Andy Hayman has to say? -- racism. | :13:49. | :13:54. | |
speak speak out about what you said was | :13:54. | :13:58. | |
racist within the Metropolitan Police. Not just the Metropolitan | :13:58. | :14:04. | |
Police. I have challenged misuse of race in many public sector | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
organisations. -- issues of race. wonder why so many other people, | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
including black police officers, do not take seriously the idea that | :14:14. | :14:19. | |
you have always been this crusader for the rights of particularly | :14:19. | :14:24. | |
black police officers? That is quite interesting because I was | :14:24. | :14:29. | |
elected, not appointed, I was elected through a ballot by the | :14:29. | :14:33. | |
National Black Police Association executive of 15,000 members. That | :14:33. | :14:36. | |
is their President. If you are going to quote to me one officer | :14:36. | :14:42. | |
who, because of his Angus a interest, has spoken publicly, that | :14:42. | :14:48. | |
is hardly a scientific way to judge how I did. We are talking about the | :14:48. | :14:54. | |
founder and the first to achieve. He sued the Metropolitan Police... | :14:54. | :14:58. | |
He said you used race as a fig-leaf to cover your room going. That is | :14:58. | :15:03. | |
very common, in terms of putting that to people who fight for | :15:03. | :15:09. | |
equality. Often the tabloid press... This is not about anybody. This is | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
the man who founded the by police. He was one of the disgruntled | :15:14. | :15:19. | |
members of the Black Police Association who incidentally sued | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
the Metropolitan Police for race discrimination and won considerable | :15:22. | :15:27. | |
damages. You are not a member of that association any more? We call | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
them and they said you were not a member. As for our as I'm | :15:31. | :15:36. | |
concerned... You would like to be in it but you and not in it they | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
expelled year. Unless I am dismissed from the police service, | :15:40. | :15:50. | |
:15:50. | :15:54. | ||
You have always said you were targeted by the powers at the very | :15:54. | :16:00. | |
top of the Met because of your stand against racism inside the Met. | :16:00. | :16:06. | |
This is dismissed by the people at the top off the Met today, and also | :16:06. | :16:12. | |
by a number of other people who care deeply about race relations | :16:12. | :16:18. | |
inside the M aye. I think he'll are cherry-picking a conversation with | :16:18. | :16:28. | |
:16:28. | :16:29. | ||
one person. It is not to do with a genuine belief that we should have | :16:29. | :16:35. | |
a positive strategy against racism in this country. If what I had done | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
was so much of a fig-leaf, I would not have been commended by Jack | :16:39. | :16:49. | |
:16:49. | :16:51. | ||
Straw. My employer as far as race was concerned said I was | :16:51. | :16:57. | |
exceptional in delivering race Just to get this straight in my | :16:57. | :17:06. | |
head. You are saying that the people you work within the Met from | :17:06. | :17:13. | |
2002 now are guilty of, spreading the cancer of racism. And at the | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
same time you tell me you are desperately eager to go back into | :17:17. | :17:27. | |
:17:27. | :17:28. | ||
this police force. Two these people cancer of racism. If this was a | :17:28. | :17:33. | |
problem in the BBC, would you just throw the towel in and walk away? | :17:33. | :17:39. | |
No, you love your job. I love my job. I am good at what they do. I | :17:39. | :17:45. | |
catch criminals, detect crime and increase public confidence. I have | :17:45. | :17:51. | |
been commended for delivering fine police work. Why shouldn't I want | :17:51. | :17:56. | |
to go back to their job? Because you are a criminal. When you talk | :17:56. | :18:01. | |
about catching criminals, it is difficult when you are a convicted | :18:01. | :18:09. | |
criminal. I accept that, but I will clear my name. I have already clear | :18:09. | :18:15. | |
did once before. All of this hinges on whether I clear my name. I will. | :18:15. | :18:21. | |
I have done it once and I will do it again. Racism spreading like a | :18:21. | :18:28. | |
cancer - let's look at the facts. The Met has had a difficult time | :18:28. | :18:35. | |
with allegations of racism and the murder of Stephen Lawrence, which | :18:35. | :18:45. | |
:18:45. | :18:47. | ||
talked about institutional racism within the MPS. The number of black | :18:47. | :18:54. | |
police officers in London has risen from 3% to 10%, approximately. The | :18:54. | :19:00. | |
current Commissioner said that racism and racists will not be and | :19:00. | :19:05. | |
are not tolerated in his police force. Those sentiments have been | :19:05. | :19:11. | |
ventilated before. And the figures speak for themselves. No, they do | :19:11. | :19:20. | |
not. An analogy - the Metropolitan Police looks like a pint of | :19:20. | :19:28. | |
Guinness: Black at the bottom, white at the top. You can have many | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
police of colour in the streets of London and die support that. But it | :19:32. | :19:38. | |
in my lifetime in this country we will never see a black or Asian | :19:38. | :19:48. | |
:19:48. | :19:52. | ||
Commissioner. How do you know that? Commissioner. And look what | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
happened to him. He did not have the talent in the end to get | :19:57. | :20:03. | |
anywhere close to the top. I have worked with him and I certainly | :20:03. | :20:09. | |
think he had all the acumen and the credentials to be a Commissioner | :20:09. | :20:14. | |
and certainly a chief constable. He relentlessly applied to be a chief | :20:14. | :20:19. | |
constable in the Midlands and Greater Manchester. The police have | :20:19. | :20:26. | |
made a lot of the inroads in tackling racism. The problem we | :20:26. | :20:33. | |
have is the question of sticky floors. So, what about Mike Fuller, | :20:33. | :20:38. | |
the black chief of police in Kent. He got to the very top in his | :20:38. | :20:45. | |
County. We have been read uprooting people of colour into the police | :20:45. | :20:54. | |
force since 1960s. -- recruiting. And only one chief constable? We | :20:54. | :21:01. | |
have cities like Leicester with Super diversity and you are quoting | :21:01. | :21:08. | |
one black chief constable in 50 years of recruiting. That does not | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
stack up. We have no black chief constables, no assistant | :21:12. | :21:19. | |
commissioners in the Met, despite the fact that by 201560 % of people | :21:19. | :21:28. | |
in London will be from the ethnic minorities. -- by 2015, 60% of the | :21:28. | :21:34. | |
people. I wonder whether part of your mind is thinking: I have | :21:34. | :21:39. | |
betrayed the cause that I truly believe in. By ending up as a | :21:39. | :21:44. | |
convicted criminal when for so long I was the figurehead of the Black | :21:44. | :21:50. | |
Police Association. I have let a whole number of people down. That | :21:50. | :21:55. | |
is the same old chestnut which we started this conversation with, in | :21:55. | :22:03. | |
terms of the circular argument. actually yet this issue down. | :22:03. | :22:08. | |
tall. I am a victim of a miscarriage of justice. They | :22:08. | :22:15. | |
laughed at the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. Thank God we do | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
not have capital punishment or you may have hung them. And they turned | :22:20. | :22:26. | |
out to be totally innocent people. ICT comfortably telling you that I | :22:26. | :22:33. | |
am innocent and the victim are of a miscarriage of justice. You keep | :22:33. | :22:38. | |
talking about the rotten system which has convicted due. What about | :22:38. | :22:43. | |
Ali Dizaei himself? What have you learned about your failings and | :22:43. | :22:49. | |
weaknesses as a result of this? choose my words carefully. You | :22:49. | :22:53. | |
alluded to the fact that I was born in Iran and I came here as an | :22:53. | :22:59. | |
immigrant. I am heartily grateful as an immigrant it to be given the | :22:59. | :23:05. | |
opportunity to get where I am. When I talk about the system I am not | :23:05. | :23:10. | |
saying that it is all bad or corrupt. In any democratic society | :23:10. | :23:15. | |
you will have miscarriages of justice. Systems occasionally do | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
not work because when you are persecuted, when your employer | :23:20. | :23:25. | |
spends �12 million trying to put you in jail and finally succeeds, | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
you can comfortably say that something is not right. That does | :23:29. | :23:34. | |
not mean that the system of justice in Britain is totally flawed. | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
about your personal flaws? What have you learnt about herself in | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
the last couple of beers? I have never suggested that I can walk on | :23:43. | :23:50. | |
water. I am a human being with the same frailties as anybody else. If | :23:50. | :23:57. | |
I was to put you under intrusive surveillance and listen to your | :23:57. | :24:02. | |
telephone calls for a three-and-a- half years - 3,000 calls - I'm sure | :24:02. | :24:08. | |
I could cherry-pick bits of anyone's private life and feed it | :24:08. | :24:13. | |
to the daily press. I have had to sustain a media lynching for the | :24:13. | :24:22. |