The Metropolis

On Hogan-Howe being the goddamned Batman

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 14 September, 2011 16:26

Fun and games already for Bernard “Hulk” Hogan-Howe. The Standard ran a hagiographic story yesterday claiming London’s new top cop was in fact a comic book crime fighting hero:

New Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe chased and caught two suspected bike thieves weeks before being given the top job at the Met….Mr Hogan-Howe was leaving City Hall after meeting Mayor Boris Johnson a month ago when he saw two boys aged about 16 on bicycles with a third bike and felt sure they had stolen it. A City Hall source said: “He was with a local police officer and said, ‘Let’s get them.’”

All credit to Dave Hill for spotting that this fanciful claim was in fact a load of old cobblers. The Telegraph’s Tim Walker has an anonymous response from Scotland Yard:

“What actually happened was that he was out on patrol with a sergeant when he saw a couple of kids on bikes,” says my source. “He asked the sergeant to go over and have a word with them to check whether the bikes were stolen. The sergeant carried out some checks and established that they weren’t. That’s all there was to it. There was no chase and no thieves.

And top marks to The Telegraph for refusing to name The Standard in that post, referring to it only as “a London free-sheet”. Ouch!

Anyway good luck to Hulk, who appears blameless in this affair. Let’s give the bloke a chance.

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