Leading article: Thuggery in uniform

CONSIDER two reports that appeared in Friday morning's newspapers. The first involved three British soldiers, stationed in Cyprus, who were sentenced to life imprisonment for killing Louise Jensen, a Danish tour guide, after they had abducted and raped her. The second involved a 32-year-old hairdresser who won record damages of pounds 220,000 against the Metropolitan Police for assault and wrongful arrest. What the two cases have in common, though separated by hundreds of miles, is a wilful refusal by those in authority to take responsibility. The armed forces and the police are the only bodies licensed by the British state to use force in pursuit of their duties. That licence rests on the understanding that they will exercise restraint and discipline. If they overstep the mark, their behaviour ought to be a matter for much greater concern than similar behaviour from a gang of football hooligans.

This is what the authorities fail to grasp. Commenting on last week's convictions, the deputy commander of the British forces in Cyprus, said: "These were three individuals on trial ... this was not a trial of their fine regiment, the Royal Green Jackets, nor the British Forces." He must know perfectly well that this is untrue. How had three men with such murderous propensities been recruited to the Army in the first place? Why had nothing been done about one of them who, a month before the murder, had scarred a British tourist for life with a beer-glass? Why are there not more restrictions on the behaviour of the 4,700-strong garrison in Cyprus? According to local people, and many of the soldiers themselves, heavy drinking is endemic. Violent clashes with civilians are frequent. Ms Jensen has not been the only fatality: five months after her death, a lance-corporal, driving with excess alcohol, killed two students. In 1994, members of the Royal Green Jackets punched, insulted and threw drinks over four women. When the women complained, a commander wrote that 650 men (average age, 22) "cannot be expected to survive two-and-a-half years in Cyprus without causing some trouble". So what price now the Army's reputation for discipline, which leads some to see conscription as a cure for violent and criminal youth?

The case involving the Metropolitan Police concerns on-duty rather than off-duty thuggery. But, again, it shows the instinct of such bodies, leaders and led, to close ranks rather than to try to restore public confidence. In July 1992, Kenneth Hsu refused to let a former tenant collect personal property from his south London flat because, he said, she owed rent. The police were called; he refused to admit them without a warrant. He was thrown in the back of a police van and then punched, kicked and racially abused by three constables. He was later treated at King's College Hospital for extensive bruising to his back and kidneys.

The chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation described the pounds 220,000 damages as "almost obscene". He fails to understand that they were meant to be. Only pounds 20,000 was awarded as compensation; the rest was exemplary damages, requested by Mr Hsu's barrister "to send a clear message to the commissioner that the public will no longer tolerate lying, bullying, perjury and racism by officers of the Metropolitan Police". Yet still authority remains defiant and refuses to discipline the officers involved.

Again, this was not an isolated incident. In the same court last week, pounds 64,000 was awarded against officers from the same station for similar behaviour. Scotland Yard has paid out pounds 20m in damages and legal costs in other such cases over the past decade. In 1994, the police won outright only 24 of 304 cases against them, yet no officers were prosecuted and only four disciplined.

The danger for both Army and police is that they become extensions of a "yob culture" that prevails in other areas of society, that young men see these careers as a way of indulging their violent fantasies legitimately. Media portrayals of the uniformed services - an aeon away from Dixon of Dock Green or Dad's Army - are of a harsh, macho world. Young men carry these distorted images with them into police or Army service. This is why it is so important that their commanders do not shrug off responsibility, remarking that there are always bad apples. Police officers and soldiers should observe higher standards than others; they will not do so until those in charge show that they expect such standards.