DOMINIC LAWSON: Even I find it hard to trust our police when they will not face up to their mistakes By Dominic Lawson There are times one would rather not be proved right. When back in September 2012 the then Government Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell insisted that he had been traduced by the police, who claimed he had called them "plebs" in an altercation at the gates of Downing Street, I wrote: "I leave it to readers to decide if they would regard the log of a policeman involved in an argument with a member of the public as invariably the gospel truth." I had misgivings about writing those words, suggesting as they did that the police's account of the encounter with Mitchell was not credible. Accusations: In September 2012, it was claimed Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell called police officers 'plebs' outside the gates of Downing Street I have never had an unpleasant personal encounter with the constabulary, far from it: twice a year I play in a chess match against the Metropolitan Police, and a more sporting group of calculating detectives you will not find. Yet in the real-life battles between the police and their perceived enemies, matters are not fought so honestly. In recent years we have learned the true extent of the tampering with witness statements in the Hillsborough stadium tragedy; the way the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was smeared in police briefings as a drug addict after he was wrongly identified as a terrorist and shot (while the police made attempts to obstruct the Independent Police Complaints Commission's investigations); and the case of Ian Tomlinson, who died after being assaulted during the G20 protests by an officer with a record of thuggery - the police claimed fictitiously that they had been assaulted by a hail of missiles while trying to save Tomlinson's life. In none of these cases were the police bent on ending the lives of innocent men: that is not the charge. The common characteristic is that when blunders have been committed, there has been a co-ordinated cover-up to protect the reputation of the police, involving lies if necessary. Guilty: Police officer Keith Wallis has admitted falsely claiming to have witnessed the now infamous 'plebgate' incident It is stupid as well as morally wrong, because when the facts are finally established, the police's reputation is much more tarnished than it would have been by frank admission of error. Last week, on the opening morning of a trial for misconduct relating to the Andrew Mitchell affair, PC Keith Wallis confessed that an email he had sent confirming the Downing Street police officer's account of the altercation with the minister was fraudulent. It was this email which had convinced David Cameron to ask Mitchell to resign: as the wronged ex-Cabinet Minister recalls: "When the PM was shown the email, he found it both compelling and decisive. He phoned me to say I'd have to go. A former police officer on BBC2"s Newsnight last week dismissed the role of PC Wallis as "an isolated incident" - which had this viewer laughing in incredulity. We already know how three officials of the Police Federation (essentially the force's trade union) gave a false account of a meeting with Mitchell, after which they called on him to resign (as if it were any business of policemen to tell ministers to quit). Only because Mitchell's wife warned "after what happened in London make sure you tape it," the Conservative MP surreptitiously recorded the meeting: and the transcript revealed the extraordinary gulf between what the officers said transpired - Mitchell had continued to obfuscate - and what was actually said - Mitchell gave a full account of what happened at Downing Street. Yet at the weekend we learned that these three policemen have refused to co-operate with the continuing Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) inquiry into what went on. It is a further embarrassment for the Metropolitan police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who has already seen his initial contemptuous treatment of Mitchell, and knee-jerk defence of all the officers involved, proved lamentably ill-judged; as ill-judged as the Labour leader Ed Miliband's refusal to apologise for his own decision to embrace the Police Federation's malicious hounding of a convenient Tory class enemy. The novelist Robert Harris - a Labour man, as it happens - observed: "The Opposition effectively acted as the parliamentary wing of the Police Federation" and concluded that if a fitting-up "can happen in the heart of Whitehall, to a senior government minister, then most assuredly it can happen to anyone of us, anywhere." "Anywhere" includes the streets of Tottenham, where Mark Duggan met his end. The inquest jury last week found that he had been lawfully killed; in other words, that the officer who fired on him had genuinely believed that Duggan - a gangster - presented a mortal threat. Footage: Mr Mitchell at the gate where he clashed with the officer while attempting to leave on his bicycle I think it was the correct verdict and that the scenes both inside the courtroom - jurors were threatened - and outside, were disgraceful. Yet once again, the police's own earlier behaviour in defending their reputation was also questionable. On the evening of the shooting the Met told the IPCC that Duggan had fired at officers before being killed, information which in turn was made public to journalists. Yet Duggan had not done so - the gun (found in a sock 20 ft away) had not even been prepared for firing; and an expert witness said the angle at which the fatal bullet had entered Duggan's body indicated he had not been pointing his gun in a threatening manner at the time, as alleged by the officer who had shot him. It is not for armchair detectives like me to question the split-second decisions by officers in intensely dangerous operations dealing with members of street gangs who themselves wreak terror on their victims. But in the wake of the accumulation of cover-ups and conspiracies in recent years - and the Mail itself led the way in righting wrongs committed in the police investigation of the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence - it is hardly surprising if we groan inwardly at some of the revelations that emerged during the Duggan inquest, and think: why can't you admit that you made mistakes? Verdict: Last week, a jury found that Mark Duggan, whose death sparked the riots across England in 2011, was lawfully killed by police It would be wrong and unfair to identify the police as a whole with the worst elements in the Police Federation, an organisation which, to quote the former chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Committee Chris Mullin, "has a long track record of intimidating ministers, journalists and anyone else who gets in its way." I would rather draw attention to the words of Will Riches, chairman of the Constables" Central Committee, who last year admitted, in respect of the Mitchell affair: "Our integrity has been called into question and reputational damage done ... the actions of a few can have catastrophic ramifications for the many. Trust in the police service as a whole has been called into question. For all our sakes, the police must regain that trust - or be made to do so. The head of a "green finance" firm, Matthew Ames, faces fraud charges for allegedly running a Ponzi scheme, in which money raised from new investors is used to pay dividends to older ones, with nothing actually invested in the advertised "carbon credits." It is claimed that a total of £1.6 million was shuffled about in this way. Mr Ames has denied fraud and a jury will decide. But who will stand trial for the billions of pounds that are being frittered away on real taxpayer-funded "green energy"? The problem is not that wind and solar schemes are a blot on the landscape, but that they will impoverish us all by driving energy bills to unprecedented levels. It is a bigger rip-off even than the Ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff - and he got 150 years. I keep reading that the 59-year-old French President Francois Hollande "has shown very bad judgment" in conducting an affair with the actress Julie Gayet. Having accordingly spent time studying photographs of the 41-year-old Gayet - and even the odd video clip - I can't understand this reaction: it seems to me that M. Hollande has shown very good judgment. If there was a lack of taste on the President's part, it lay in his decision to travel to his assignations with his head encased in a large black helmet (right). Perhaps it was part of some elaborate erotic game which only the French would understand; but it made Hollande look ridiculous and certainly unpresidential. If this carapace was merely for the purpose of disguising the identity of Gayet's nocturnal visitor, it failed. The French magazine Closer had noticed that the chap in the helmet was wearing the same shoes as worn by the French President the day before on a state visit to Saudi Arabia - and on countless other occasions, too. According to Closer, the President "has only one pair of shoes." I warm to him more and more.