'Ello 'ello 'ello, what do we 'ave 'ere then?

Meet Sir Hugh Orde, former chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Now he's head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which sounds like a public body but is actually a rich private company with privileged access to government and policing.


Now that's bad enough. But naughty Hugh has been wandering the TV studios dressed like this:

Perhaps someone should have a quiet word. Impersonating a police officer - by, for instance, getting the Met to run up a fake uniform reminiscent of their own senior brass, then sticking an ACPO badge on it - is a criminal offence:

Section 90 Police Act 1996 (Archbold 22-62) creates several offences relating to the impersonation of police officers or the possession of articles of police uniform, namely:

• impersonating a police officer (including a special constable);

• making a statement or doing any act calculated falsely to suggest membership of a police force;

• wearing a police uniform calculated to deceive;

• possessing an article of police uniform.

Hugh is touring the studios in a deceitful uniform in pursuit of the Met Commissioner's job. That looks like an offence:

Where the impersonation involves a threat to the safety of any person, or to property, or is done with a view to financial gain, then a prosecution should follow.