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Police apologise for 'inappropriate' Tweet

By Amy Taylor
March 11, 2013

POLICE in Aldershot have defended the importance of social media for officers after apologising for an ‘inappropriate’ message sent out on Twitter.

The tweet, sent on February 28 from the @AldershotPolice account, began: “Female arrested yesterday in town centre for theft of meat products and public order offences, then spat at an officer.”

It was followed by a sexual reference.

The nature of the message provoked a flurry of responses from people following the account. One tweet, from @amethystspirit, aka Catherine Farmbrough, said: “Come on you can do better hashtag than that!! Tut tut...”

Another, from Paul Adam (@pauladam1984) added: “Shouldn’t you get a fine for that??#OneRuleForOneAndOneRuleForAnother”.

A second message was sent out by police soon afterwards, apologising to ‘anyone who was offended by our last tweet’ – causing other site users to respond more positively.

Paul Camm, known as @MrCamm, said “people need to lighten up a bit”, while Mandy Morgan (@_Mandy_Morgan_) replied “well, I found it funny”.

The social networking website is used by police teams in both Aldershot and Farnborough to communicate more directly with members of the public, and to provide information about ongoing appeals.

The @AldershotPolice account is available to all officers who wish to use it, and is manned by different people at different times of the day, depending on their schedules. It has been praised in the past for putting a more personal touch on local policing, and safer neighbourhoods inspector Jon Turton said it was of ‘real value’ to the force.

“Social media is a fantastic way for our officers and staff to interact and engage with their local communities and allows us to display a more human side to policing,” said Mr Turton. “We have had some real successes in our use of Facebook and Twitter to circulate witness appeals, CCTV images, requests for information about missing people and updates on ongoing incidents and it adds real value to our ability to communicate directly with the public.

“By encouraging our officers and staff to use these communications channels, we expect them to behave on social media sites in the same way as they would in any interaction with a member of the public and adhere to the professional standards required.”

A police spokesman added that officers were encouraged to use the account, but they were advised not to give out more information to the public than they would in person.

Mr Turton said the officer who had sent the controversial tweet had been spoken to and reminded of the guidelines for using social media sites.

“On this occasion, the message about the woman arrested for shoplifting was inappropriate; we apologised for any offence it caused and removed it from our account.

“The officers involved were also dealt with internally.”

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Most recent user comments 3 of 3

I was bought up to respect the police and if my parents were ever told that I did otherwise the punishment I would have received from them would have been ten times worse than any policeman could issue. My children have been bought up with the same ethos and they know my punishment will be far worse than any a court could issue. That is the difference between good parenting and bad - teaching your children to respect the police, the law and authority.

sleeping beauty
11/03/2013 at 21:51

I think we need to keep this in context, these are regular men and women doing a tough job and a sense of humour is a must. They have apologised for any offence caused and the officers involved taken aside and spoken to, end of case.

AldershotMan
11/03/2013 at 20:13

I have seen a lot of the comments from the police on the site quoted and find it hard to believe that it was not written by children, its all so mixed up and silly.