Sue Fish, a former cop, reveals senior policemen indecently assaulted her while she was a young officer in Women: How Safe Are We? Tonight.
Following the killing of Sarah Everard, ex chief constable Sue is opening up about vile behaviour she faced earlier in her career.
Who is former chief constable Sue Fish?
The retired cop pioneered the first misogyny legislation in the UK during her time as the head of the Nottinghamshire force.
Journalist Julie Etchingham asks Sue, during an interview on ITV Tonight, if she would report misogyny to the police.
Sue says she would, although it would depend on the nature of the offence.
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She says: “Two of my particularly unpleasant experiences as a police officer were both [when I was] subject of… technically indecent assaults, both of them, and I didn’t report one at all, and I did the second one.”
Julia asks if they were physical assaults and Sue explains: “Unwanted touching would be probably the best way of describing it.”
Sue goes on to say she didn’t report the first assault as she felt more “vulnerable” and there weren’t any witnesses.
What does Sue say about the indecent assaults?
She says on the programme: “I was a lot younger, felt a lot more vulnerable… There were no witnesses, it was a senior officer. He was very well liked, very well regarded – who was going to believe me?”
Sue explains that the second time it happened, although she was older, she was “very much the junior officer”.
Indecent assaults, both of them, and I didn’t report one at all.
The man was from another force and was “very, very senior”, Sue says.
After she reported it, she felt bosses made it clear to him his behaviour was inappropriate – although he didn’t lose his job.
Sue says: “It wasn’t particularly nice being on the receiving end… and it’s not nice telling it again, to be honest. Yeah, it’s hard.”
Ex cop address ‘toxic’ minority in police forces
Elsewhere, Sue addresses the current situation in police forces around the UK and says she thinks there is still a “toxic” minority.
“There are so many good people in policing, male and female, [but] there is still what I hope is a minority… that’s absolutely toxic,” she says.
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She also says she thinks such assaults still happen “despite the best endeavours of the leadership of the service”.
Sue says she hopes the tragic events of the past few weeks will “serve as a wake-up call to policing”.
She tells Julie: “It’s really important to women. And if we want women as half our population to have confidence in their police service, the police service needs to listen and to respond accordingly.”
VID
– Women: How Safe Are We? Tonight airs on ITV at 7.30pm on Thursday (April 7)
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