WHAT DO YOU GET IF YOU REDUCE STREET CRIME BY 35%, BURGLARIES BY MORE

LORD Waheed Ali was Britain's first openly gay peer. A former managing director of Carlton Television, he is the co-owner of Planet 24, creators of The Big Breakfast.

COMMANDER Brian Paddick must have felt like he had entered the world of soap opera. This storyline had all the making of a great soap. Take one gay super cop, an allegation of drug abuse and of course sprinkle in a bit of sex.

There cannot be many public servants who have suffered the fate of Brian Paddick, whose only crime seems to be a naivety in his personal life.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case you cannot help but feel sympathetic for his plight.

He has reduced street crime by 35 per cent, cut burglaries by more than eight per cent, increased the number of arrests for Class A drugs. And what does he get? A pay rise? Promotion? No, he's suspended from his job pending investigation of his private life.

There are three questions that come out of this affair. Firstly, is he a good policeman? Secondly, did he do anything that was a breach of the law or a breach of police regulations for which there are no mitigating circumstances? And thirdly, if he was straight would he be treated any differently?

Being gay is not a crime. However being gay and in the public eye is a very difficult thing to balance.

On the one hand you have to exemplify the highest moral standards, while on the other hand you have to live your own life. Whilst it is not illegal to go to saunas, to have sex with a number of partners or indeed to have unconventional relationships, to be seen to do so warrants treatment akin to committing a criminal act.

I for one believe that if Brian Paddick had sex in a sauna, slept with 100 men or had gone through a gay marriage ceremony - all of which he denies - it should play no part in a judgment of whether or not he is an effective police officer.

By all accounts Brian Paddick seems to be the kind of police officer that this country needs. He is creative, innovative and gets results. He is a tremendously effective officer and the latest crime figures for Lambeth show his approach is paying dividends. He has a good relationship with the local community, and from my own experience Lambeth is not an easy place to achieve that, and a brilliant working relationship with his officers.

Provided he does not break the law and does not bring the police force into disrepute, his private life should be exactly that - private.

This leads me to ask the question of did Brian Paddick knowingly try to deceive fellow officers about his partner and the fact that he was on police bail? I do not know the answer to this. What I do know is that over the last 100 years many gay men have been put in this position time and time again, whether to disclose information about their partner - thus revealing the fact that they are gay and in doing so opening themselves up to the risk of ridicule, intimidation and in some cases violence.

We should not judge Brian Paddick for not disclosing his partner was on police bail - judge him for the bravery of being an openly gay police officer.

If we want to recruit more police officers from a diverse range of communities then Brian Paddick deserves our support. The trail blazers of our societies deserve a special place and I hope that the police establishment is wise enough to find a suitable reprimand that does not ignore the breach of guidelines but takes into account the mitigating circumstances.

Ask yourself one question: if Brian Paddick was straight and his girlfriend had made similar accusations would he have been treated any differently? I suspect the answer to this question is both yes and no.

Yes, I believe the Press would have been less interested and less judgemental about his private life and the sensationalism and moral outrage would have been less evident.

But I do not believe that the police complaints procedure would apply any differently to him whether he was straight or gay.

Over the last decade we, as a society, have moved a long way forward in accepting the gay community but there is still a lot of prejudice yet to overcome. It is important that individuals like Brian Paddick continue to make progress in our British institutions because unless he succeeds in the police force, we will lose the important trust that we as individual citizens have in those people who protect and serve our society.

So tolerance should be our watchword over the coming weeks. Tolerance not just for a gay police officer because he could just as well have been a black police officer or a senior woman officer.

Homophobia is an unpleasant thing. I remember the debate we had last year about the reduction in the age of consent. I remember in particular a letter I received from a 16-year-old young man who was on the verge of suicide because he was so frightened of being discovered as a gay. Our society should not make anybody feel ashamed of who or what they are. Whatever your views are of Brian Paddick, the police force or homophobia, we should discuss them with tolerance and without fear and intimidation.

Justice is a very precious thing and to one who keeps us safe at night I wish him the best over the coming weeks. Kiss and tell stories should be seen for what they are - good Sunday reading, but they should not be the basis to judge the lives of our public servants.

We are very lucky to have in Sir John Stevens a brilliant police commissioner who is bringing back pride to policing in London. I believe that we should support him and his team in their efforts to resolve the Brian Paddick case.

So, I hope that when the dust dies down we will be able to welcome Brian Paddick back to his duties, and who knows, may be in the years to come, it may be Commissioner Paddick.

Copyright 2002 MGN LTD
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