The Big Smoke

There has been some speculation in recent weeks that Boris would like to open Scotland Yard’s infamous Black Museum to the public. My instant reaction was that this is a terrible idea. Having visited the museum - read the article here - I have to say that the Crime Museum (as it is officially known) is one of the most depressing places I have ever been, a horrifying commemoration of some of humanity’s worst crimes. Feature continues

I will never forget the moment when the Curator, as he insisted on being called, pointed to the first item on display – a large battered and stained cooking pot – and said casually ‘that belonged to Dennis Nilsen'.

It’s easy enough to read about serial killers, but when you see the actual casserole dish in which a man has cooked butchered bodies before disposing of them – well, it would make a strong man blanche. Many have fainted. There is nothing to be gained from seeing this sort of stuff, trust me.

The complications with the Black Museum run deeper than that, and here’s where my opinion of Boris’s idea began to change. The museum’s constituency is the police, not the public, and so is used to foster the sort of bunker mentality that epitomises the Met (example: there are trays of seemingly harmless objects that are actually concealed weapons and have been used against the police. The message is simple: the public cannot be trusted).

Given recent events, perhaps it’s time this attitude was allowed to change. The museum would need a radical overhaul because in its current form it would repel more of the public than it would impress, and a change in format (the museum is used as a training school for young coppers) might help bring about a necessary change in the culture of London policing.

It is also true that a Met Police Museum is long overdue – there were plans to open one on Bow Street that sadly never went ahead, and the Met has a huge storage space full of interesting bits and bobs in south-east London – and this would be an excellent way for the Met to improve its increasingly fractious relationship with the London public. PR has never been a Met strong point, but if there was a venue where the police could demonstrate their historic value to the public, attitudes towards them might soften and the public start to appreciate what a difficult job it is they do.

So perhaps this idea isn’t as bad as it seemed at first.

But please, leave the cooking pot at Scotland Yard.