Cops are there to solve crime… not pursue vendettas against politicians like Damian Green and ex-PM Edward Heath

SOME readers might be appalled if Tory minister Damian Green watched porn on his office laptop. It could even become a sackable offence.

But the really sordid story is not the apparently seedy conduct of yet another politician. It is the worry that police are getting out of control.

Allegations against Mr Green were made in an unprecedented breach of faith by two bitter former officers bent on revenge.

It is the latest incident in what looks like a politically motivated vendetta by some police officers against senior public figures, most of them Conservatives.

They include ex-Prime Minister Ted Heath, long dead before baseless allegations of child sex abuse were made against him by a proven liar and jailed paedophile.

His “guilt” was pre-judged by Wiltshire police chiefs who spent £1million of scarce resources hunting for phantom clues before admitting there was not a shred of proof.

The Met then had to apologise to blameless war hero Field Marshal Lord Bramall, the widow of ex-Home Secretary Leon Brittan and ex-MP Harvey Proctor for swallowing the lies of a fantasist.

Even so, their reputations have been smeared for ever.

These witch-hunts, like the raid on Sir Cliff Richard’s home, are an unforgivable abuse of police power.

So what about the calculated attempt by ex-cops Bob Quick and co-conspirator Neil Lewis to destroy Damian Green, a democratically elected politician? Quick led the scandalous 2008 raid on Mr Green’s parliamentary office over alleged leaks from the Home Office. He seized the computers. Lewis found the porn.

Thousands of perfectly legal images were copied — against orders — and squirrelled away by Lewis for scurrilous future use.

Last week, almost ten years later, he broke cover, betrayed his oath of confidentiality and blabbed to the BBC.

Porn is controversial. Millions of people, both men and women, watch the stuff. Some, like award-winning Times columnist Caitlin Moran, are outspoken fans.

Attitudes change. Sexually permissive Labour icons Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt once backed a Paedophile Information Exchange campaign to drop the age of sexual consent to 14.

Jacqui Smith, Labour Home Secretary at the time of the shameful police raid on Green, actually claimed her husband’s porn habit on expenses.

How would Bob Quick and Neil Lewis like it if their hard drives were handed to computer experts and the contents broadcast live on Radio 4?

Their feud has nothing to do with porn. It dates back to 2014, when then Home Secretary Theresa May courageously blasted police for treating the public “with contempt” and threatened to smash their Mafia-style trade union.

She famously warned sullen Police Federation delegates to stop scaremongering and “crying wolf” over police cuts while sitting on a huge “slush fund” for senior members’ perks.

She was speaking for voters of all parties. But she was heard in sizzling silence, the capo kiss of death. Revenge, they say, is best served cold. Bob Quick has tried repeatedly to revive the computer “evidence”.

Now he has landed a direct hit, it risks backfiring.

The police force, respected for almost 200 years as “citizens in uniform”, relies on popular consent.
Many voters think it has stopped doing its job.

Police now arrogantly refuse to chase burglars or prosecute shoplifters. They turn a blind eye to drug peddling. Moped muggers run amok in our cities. Knife crime is rampant.

CCTV has replaced bobbies on the beat. Without photo-graphic evidence, preferably accompanied by a name, address and fingerprints, police don’t want to know.

Fewer victims now bother to report burglaries and robberies, so crime figures seem to fall.

To her credit, new Met chief Cressida Dick recognises the danger of this growing distrust.

She is demanding tougher action to protect citizens and a better relationship between the police and public.

Democracy is a fragile flower. It is a short step between a police force which has lost its moral compass and a bunch of goons acting under orders in a police state.