Sir Norman Bettison, Wikipedia And Celebrity Policing
SIR Norman Bettison has been described as a “greedy, vain moron”. The Mail says Bettison is favourite to succeed Sir Ian Blair as head of the Met.
As such, he may be ideally suited to the job.
But Police Review magazine says the 52-year-old chief constable of West Yorkshire is unimpressed with his Wikipedia entry, which you have already seen.
The Mail reports that “image-conscious” Sir Norman has instructed staff to make sure his Wikipedia entry is not sabotaged.
A look at the page brings up the following message:
Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled until March 14, 2008 (UTC) due to vandalism.
Were you in the area? Did you see anything suspicious. Call Mr Bettison. Unfavourable reports may be treated in the strictest secrecy and edited.
That aforesaid appraisal of Sir Norman has been erased from his online biography. A user has deleted references to Sir Norman as “a pioneer of neighbourhood policing”, saying the article had become nothing more than a “PR piece written by the chief”.
Says an insider: “He called a meeting and said he was sick and tired of people changing his Wikipedia page. He insisted staff regularly log on to see if the entry has been changed - and make sure the words he wants are put back on as soon as possible.”
Sir Norman appears very interested in his image and keen to make the biography an autobiography.
Anorak would, accordingly, like to support Sir Norman’s appointment as Chief Constable of the Met, the UK’s premier celebrity police force.
Such an event would afford Sir Norman the chance to meet with other leading lights and discuss image issues, image rights and the media as he nicks his fellwo celebrities for drugs, drink and disorderly conduct…
Posted: 1st, March 2008 | In: Tabloids Comments (130) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
March 14th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Bettison makes me sick.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
The tragic death of Mike Todd, which has cast a light on all Mr Todd’s good work, really shows what a pointless idiot someone like Norman Bettison is.
March 10th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
He’s a sad old tw*t.
March 9th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
He’s mad as a hatter clearly - in the same league as Richard Brunstrom and James Anderton.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I don’t want to be age-ist - but isn’t this guy getting a little too old for the top jobs in policing? He has retired twice already. He also feels the need to keep his physical appearance looking young (appears to dye his hair, looking at pictures of him, and tops up his tan?) and manipulate his record [on Wikepedia] to cover up the many mistakes and controversies over a very long gaffe prone career already. This does not bode well for his priorities should the Met be foolish enough to employ him at this age and with these psychological weaknesses.
rel:dr:21.48
March 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
If Shannon Matthews is found dead (God forbid) how will Bettison be able to a) look himself in the mirror (something he evidently normally enjoys) or b) continue in his job?
rel aw1346
March 9th, 2008 at 12:57 am
I agree - a vain, egotistical disgrace to the police service with no regard whatsoever for the proper use of public funds clearly.
March 8th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
What a disgrace to the uniform. He gives all the decent cops doing a good job for the community a bad name, wasting money on his own inflated ego and self promotion behaviour.
March 8th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
There is no doubt that he’s the next Richard Brunstrom.
He is every bit as a van and egotistical as this has made him sound, but his genuine nastyness of character hasn’t quite come across in the press yet. Just wait until they re-examine his behavior around the Hillsborough disaster: it’ll make for an interesting competition for Met Commissioner.
As a West Yorkshire Police Sgt all I can say is you’re welcome to him and his vanity and greed London, but be warned, he will change forcibly your shift patterns to the point where your family and social life goes out the window.
March 8th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
This was so funny that I looked up a video of Norman Bettison, he has shaved the seventies tache but looks like he dyes his hair and uses sunbeds. When did coppers become as image concerned as a Yorkshire Danny La Rue?
March 8th, 2008 at 11:36 am
What a spectacular lack of common sense. He has obviously got where he is by being a nasty manipulative bully rather than a great leader and public servant. I hope they make him pay the costs of this foolishness back to the West Yorkshire council tax payers, of which I am one.
March 8th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Twining would not like to support this man’s rise to the Metropolitan Police. Why do we need a dictator? Shouldn’t we really be moving away from that type?
March 8th, 2008 at 9:30 am
The problem is it this this type of bully that people in charge favour to lead policing. This says alot about some in ACPO. Why did his staff refuse to do this? Because he leads by bullying in my opinion of course and he tries to firghten people. He only believes in what he believes and woe be tide if you stand against him, allegedly.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
There’s no way this sort of buffoon should be commissioner of police for London. He has been messing around on the internet whilst crime rockets in west yorkshire. Says a lot about his conviction for the job. So much for protecting the public, more like protect his ego whilst missing girl Shannon Matthew’s family wonder what the hell his force is doing for them.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
such a clown - I hope he is not representative of chief constables generally. whoever decribed him as a greedy vain moron clearly knows him - probably one of his own officers.
March 7th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
This man is not fit to wear the uniform if this is priority. What a dreadful waste of police time and money. He must have a vast ego - and be overly sensitive: surely not the people we want leading the police force. He should resign with whatever dignity he has left - before a criminal investigation starts.
Relaw1825
March 6th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
What a disgrace. Why didn’t Bettison’s staff refuse to do this? It is clearly wrong - they must’ve thought “greedy vain moron”.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Baht - good job! Keep us informed - I’m fascinated to see how much time and money was wasted. I’m going to write to the IPCC.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I have submitted this FOI request:
Freedom of Information Request
Thank you, your details were submitted successfully.
Please note:
Once we have received your application for information the process to provide you with a response can take up to 20 working days.
Web Ref:
WYP-FOI-216
Date:
04/03/2008 23:14:22
Name (Title, First Name, Surname):
Mr David Simpson
Address:
Postcode:
Email:
david@bradfordvision.co.uk
Home Telephone:
Mobile Telephone:
Details of Request:
I would like details of the staff resources spent attempting to turn a factual wikipedia entry into a hagiography of the Chief constable so that I can add that information to my blog entry concerning this crass stupidity.
No doubt he’ll send his armed officers out to taser me now (he uses his armed police to taser local mental cases rather than have someone talk to them)
March 4th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
He’s a disgrace to the police service.
March 4th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Certainly not jealousy - disgust is a better word.
How dare someone use public money to tart up their own image. Bettison is meant to be a public servant, not using people who should be protecting the public to airbrush his biography.
Shannon Matthew’s mother is unlikely to be feeling ‘jealous’ of Bettison tonight.
He should resign and pay back all money wasted on this stupid PR obsession of his.
March 4th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Don’t care what you all say, I knew Norman when he was a young copper and he was a good one at that. Do I suspect some jealosy creeping in somewhere
March 4th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Get him some face cream and a big mirror - and then appoint somebody else as police chief whole devote more time to finding that missing girl and doing something for the people of his police force area.
Greedy vain moron. They missed off ‘dereliction of duty’ on there, and ‘waste of taxpayers money, and ‘mis-using police time’. Let’s hope his new wikipedia page refelcts that.
No to Bettison for London!! Liverpool hated him and didn’t want him (do a net search), his current force have no confidence in him (one of the things he tried to delete from his page was a vote he lost by rank and file officers) so why should we take him?
Let him retire (again) and live on his six pensions or whatever he’s up to now.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:52 am
You can tell things have been going down hill in West Yorks since he was appointed.
Crime rate up, missing kids like Shannon Matthews being lost while Bettison preens himself in the mirror and rewrites his wikipedia page?
London you are welcome to this guy!!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:03 am
What a tw*t!
I wonder how he feels now knowing this is how he’ll be remembered?
His Police Authority should investigate - is he psychologically fit to hold down a senior job?
March 3rd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Mrs Bettison - your son turned out to be a greedy vain moron!! And a bit of a fascist - who tries to rewrite the truth in a free country?
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:55 pm
He must feel like a right plonker now - he looks like Boycey from Only Fools and Horses and has exposed himself to the world as a vain little ego and money obsessed man, who thinks of himself more than the public OR the public purse if it true he has used his staff and his own time to maniacally stub out things he doesn’t like on the internet.
What happened to Freedom of Expression, Cha Wala?
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Greedy? Vain? Moron? Exactly!
What kind of person is so vain that they want to have their image touched up everyday, where their view is the only acceptable one, and then spectacularly and foolishly draws attention to the fact they’re vain through the national press? Either Bettison should resign or sack his Press Officer.
Is there a police investigation into this waste of police time on frivilous ego massaging for a sad old man?
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
He’s absolutely useless as a police chief - please take him in London! I’ve never heard so many complaints about a chief constable before. It’s all front with him. Greedy, vain, arrogant, nasty, vindictive - if only his wikipedia page was unlocked….
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
West Yorkshire has some concern over this man’s propaganda campaigns. In his periodical ‘Your Kirklees’ he tells us that he is doing a great job because crime is falling. We are slowly giving up on reporting crime. Our only reward for hanging on the telephone for 10 minutes to perform this civic duty, is a crime number and little else. Sir Norman then manipulates these statistics for his own purpose. To be honest, I hope he gets the Met post and soon.