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…
May 8th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
God how you morons go on, if you could do half the job Bettison has to do, with poncing politicians, whingeing time serving coppers, and a public that have as much moral backbone as a jellyfish we should think ourselves fortunate that he didnt retire when he could have and took over WYP when it was in trouble.
One day the British public will get the police service it deserves. Then you will be glad of the Norman Bettisons of this world
April 24th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I’ve had a response to my foi request - totally unhelpful
http://www.bradfordvision.co.uk/node/13172
April 10th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Believe it or not, Bettison’s PR people and lackeys continue to try and rewrite his page - as recently as 31st March 08 a W Yorks press person tried to remove all reference to the wikipedia story. Talk about having more ego than common sense.
April 10th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Progess (lack of) Report
It seems that while a huge team is available to polish Sir Norm’s ego that there is only one person to deal with FOI requests and she’s just got back from hols so no joy yet.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:56 am
I really feel for the Officers of WYP, having to put up with this fool. His new shift pattern is clearly not working, the bobbies cannot cope with the volume of calls coming in due to the lack of numbers of response officers available, yet the NPT and PCSOs are claiming its wonderful. (because they dont work nights).
Lets just hope that Ian Blair does retire soon…..