'I'll burn your house down with your family inside' - senior cop told officer in police pension row, tribunal hears

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Almost 10,000 cops across the country were victimised and discriminated against by the police 'union' in a row over pension arrangements, a tribunal has found.

A challenge was led by PC Lee Broadbent, who in February stepped down from his role as chairman of the Greater Manchester branch of the Police Federation - which is supposed to represent rank-and-file cops - just a year into the job as the simmering row, which began in 2015, reached boiling point.

Junior officers were said to have been threatened by older cops, who accused them of 'damaging their pensions' - after they launched a challenge to changes which would see younger members of the workforce thousands of pounds worse off in retirement. Join our WhatsApp Top Stories and Breaking News group by clicking this link The tribunal heard that one inspector told a younger police officer: "If anything happens to my pension because of you, I will burn your house down with your family inside." PC Broadbent told the hearing The Police Federation had a pattern of 'treating members like mushrooms - namely, kept in the dark and fed manure.' The tribunal found in favour of PC Broadbent and the other officers who were treated as the 'enemy within' by the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW), after they launched a challenge to changes to pensions which discriminated against younger cops.

In 2019, the government accepted that following a Supreme Court ruling, its proposed 2015 changes to public service pensions discriminated against younger workers - after a challenge was brought by firefighters, judges and also police.