Sky News cuts off ex-Met Police chief after he says officers have ‘given up’ trying to stop young black men carrying weapons and accuses BLM of aiming to destabilise society

Sky News has been accused of shutting down a former Scotland Yard chief for claiming Black Lives Matter is deliberately stirring up a false anti-police narrative.

Ex-chief superintendent Kevin Hurley claimed senior figures in the movement were waging a ‘misinformation’ campaign to ‘destabilise and disrupt’ society.

He also suggested the ugly clashes in Brixton on Wednesday night were products of Afro-Caribbean single parenting and said constables had ‘given up’ enforcing the law on young black Britons for fear of jeopardising their careers.

 

Anchor Adam Boulton challenged Mr Hurley and suggested it was unhelpful to view the violence through the prism of race – before later cutting him off entirely when the former top brass was in full flow.

The abrupt end to the interview sparked accusations online that Sky News did not want to air ‘uncomfortable’ opinions, but this has been vehemently denied by Boulton who insisted he was constricted by rigid time slots.

Reacting to the violence in Brixton, Mr Hurley, who also served as Surrey’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said yesterday: ‘The only way you’re going to deal with this is with social intervention to get upstream and manage the problems that comes with single parenting, particularly among young African-Caribbean women.

‘And I’m talking about intervening and supporting women when the children are three to four years of age, to prevent them going down this route of rebelliousness and often offending.’

He added: ‘We’ve got into a vicious circle with police officers dealing with young black people, who always come to the perspective that the police are trying to suppress them.

‘And the police very quickly come to learn that dealing with young black people is quite frankly aggravation that puts their careers and mortgages at risk.

‘That’s the reason why so many black youth are killing each other in London, because the police have given up trying to stop them carrying knives and guns and killing each other.’

Boulton picked Mr Hurley up on his claims, and retorted: ‘Do you think it is really helpful at this time of heightened concern over Black Lives Matter to see this so clearly in racial terms.’

But the ex-police chief swatted away the anchor’s critcism and insisted that ‘this is not a BAME issue, this is an issue relating to people of West African heritage in terms of the relationship between the police and the public’.

He pressed on: ‘There’s an awful lot of misinformation going on about police killing black people in custody.

‘Last year 16 people died for various reasons in police custody – largely from drug overdoses – of those 16, only one was black.

‘Last year the police shot three people dead – only one was black. There is a narrative going on here, I think driven by people within the Black Lives Matter movement who want to destabalise and disrupt society.’

But as he went to start another sentence, Bolton suddenly interjected: ‘Ok we’re going to have to leave it there, thank you very much indeed,’ and the video feed to Mr Hurley was cut off.

The hasty wrapping up of the interview was seized upon by many on Twitter, who hit out at the presenter directly.

But Boulton slapped down his critics and tweeted: ‘I didn’t (cut him off). But we are subject to automatic cut-offs for ad breaks, half hours, top of the hour and even the weather.

‘We aim to give all guests the time to have their say and normally succeed.’

The presenter, who tweets in a personal capacity, also said: ‘There have been incidents of bad crowd behaviour by all sorts of people around the UK, not just those singled out by Kevin Hurley.’

Sky News declined to comment.

Some viewers took to Twitter to voice their outrage at Mr Hurley’s comments.

Luke Hubbard, whose profile says he is a PhD student and hate crime researcher, said: ‘This is absolute garbage from Kevin Hurley!’

Another Twitter user, Moya Lothian-Mclean, said that Mr Hurley had made ‘disgraceful, ignorant comments’.

Others, though, agreed with his views.

Twitter user Adrian Partridge said that Mr Hurley was ‘100% correct’ in his comments.

He added that ‘parents should take responsibility for raising their children’.

Others requested that Mr Hurley was given the opportunity to ‘finish his thoughts’.