Whose side is the BBC on?! The Kaba Panorama is a disgrace! - Kelvin MacKenzie
BBC Panorama covered the Chris Kaba case
Kelvin MacKenzie is the former editor of the Sun newspaper
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I do wonder whose side the BBC are on. Refusing to call Hamas terrorists although our government and the US government does (two beacons of democracy in a dark world) is one example. Last night there was another when Panorama broadcast a totally unbalance documentary on the killing of the drugs gangster Chris Kaba by a police officer.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, but what angered me was the constant focus on the fact that Kaba, probably for the first time in years, wasn’t armed. But he was using his Audi Q8 as a battering ram to break out of a police roadblock. And cars are killers in the wrong hands.
That Audi weighs 2,100 kgs (just over two tonnes) and if Kaba, a career criminal, is trying to smash his way to freedom you can imagine the danger the police officers felt at the time.
I think we can all agree a car being driven by a violent gang member like Kaba can kill officers. And they have done. Perhaps I could cast your mind back five years ago to the death of police constable Andrew Harper.
Constable Harper had responded to reports of a quad bike theft. He came across a gang of young thick (they were described by the judge as ‘’unintelligent’’) thieves. Tragically as Harper, 28, chased them he stepped in to the loop of a tow rope which was railing behind the thieves’ vehicle.
The vehicle roared off and the poor officer was dragged a mile to his death. Those thugs got between 13-16 years. Not enough in my view. There was no remorse and, if I remember correctly, they even smirked while in the dock.
But the Panorama producers didn’t focus on the danger the officers were in, but the fact that Kaba wasn’t armed. I agree with Matt Cane, General Secretary of the Metropolitan Police Federation when he said; ‘’ Police officers should not have their livelihoods and their liberty put at risk for performing what was his lawful and appropriate function.
‘’ The continued use of the word unarmed remains scandalous when we consider how many colleagues have lost their lives because of vehicles. Cars in the hands of dangerous criminals are very much weapons.’’
It was only two weeks ago Sgt. Martyn Blake was cleared by a jury (it literally took a couple of hours) after a nightmare two years of suspension and where he had to live at a secret address as it was reported associates of Kaba’s gang had placed a £10,000 bounty on his head.
All the doco will do is put the killing back in the headlines and potentially lead to some violent madman think they can make a name for themselves by pursuing officer Blake.
I like a tweet put out by Peter Bleksley, a former undercover officer and a man I’ve known for three decades which asked a pertinent question of the BBC; “Was it an oversight or a deliberate omission to fail to mention that there was firearms residue on Kaba’s sleeve at the time he was shot, and that he was also in possession of a balaclava?’’
The reality is that the BBC was not on the officer’s side, was not on the jury’s side but wanted to paint a picture of an ‘’innocent’’ man being shot dead by the law. It was crap and should never have been put to air.
Kaba’s parents made an appearance on the doco and were making the argument that the police should not have killed their son.
The BBC is subscription TV where you go to jail or face a fine if you don’t pay the licence fee. Panoramas like this make the argument of being forced to pay even harder.
