by Dominic Adler, UnHerd
Surrey Police’s investigation of an alleged rape in Epsom, a commuter town to the south of London, provides a masterclass in how not to manage a 21st-century information vacuum. Reports of a gang rape, in a churchyard near a local nightclub, led to rumours that the suspects were immigrants or asylum seekers. Inevitably, allegations emerged that police officers were suppressing details. Surrey’s lethargic comms response then invited comparisons to Merseyside Police’s much-criticised reaction to the 2024 disorder in Southport. As tensions mounted, there were a series of protests in Epsom this week. The police response was to deploy officers in riot gear, leading to allegations of two-tier policing. Why, critics asked, didn’t the police deal with pro-Palestine protesters as robustly?
On Friday, Surrey Police announced, somewhat ambiguously, that “to date, we have not found any evidence of the offence as reported but the investigation is ongoing.” The force did, however, rule out the involvement of asylum seekers. By then, online narratives had already been established and unevidenced information passed off as fact. Operational decisions made by Surrey might well have been procedurally appropriate, but in such a politically febrile environment any “failure to explain” augurs trouble.
The Epsom affair reflects a wider collapse of public trust in the police, especially around issues such as race. The white majority outside of the UK’s larger cities now responds to official police sources in much the same way as black and other minority communities did in Eighties Toxteth or Tottenham. Most people also view the police as a hegemon, not a patchwork of 43 forces of different sizes and policing styles. Surrey’s failures, then, are seen as the UK’s, a development which will not be lost on other chief constables this weekend.