Dealing with death and destruction every day, it is oft said that a policeman’s lot is not a happy one.

I know many. And I know their humour. It is usually the very darkest hue of black. But most will tell you that this is a coping mechanism, and without this release, some of the things they deal with would worry them to the grave.

This sharing of humour took on a new dimension in recent years with the advent of the mobile telephone chat group, which enables members to share photographs and the like.

Sadly the Metropolitan Police, the biggest force in the country, has faced the toughest reputational challenge in its history because of the actions of a worryingly large number of its officers. Magnifying this has been the chat group where sickening images have frequently been shared between members.

Among these images have been photographs of crime scenes with murder victims’ bodies in the shot. Disparaging comments have been made about those who lost their lives – their appearance, their gender, their colour. Even in death, even after their murder, their dignity was abused.

It’s too easy to use the killer’s name but forget the victim. We do this all the time.

We all know the name Peter Tobin, but how many of his many victims’ names do people remember well enough to use? So I won’t use his name, rather hers.

Sarah Everard. She was abducted, raped and murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer for whatever reason. Such was the desperate nature of his crime, the killer quite rightly received a whole life sentence.

The case opened the floodgates and suddenly we were hearing lurid details of other cases of appalling behaviour by serving Metropolitan Police officers. These included sexual offences against members of the public and other officers and accusations of racial abuse, violence, homophobic behaviour and misogyny.

So widespread and heinous were the nature and extent of the allegations, nearly 100 officers have had to be taken off front line anti-terror and organised crimefighting duties to investigate the most serious allegations against their own colleagues.

Dozens of serving officers have been dismissed so far this year as investigations open and others reopen into previous allegations.

Given the bestialities of the subject matter that many of their number have to deal with - not that it is any kind of excuse, nor indeed a mitigating circumstance - I can kind of understand, if not forgive, the locus from where the behaviour of members might arise, and give such dreadful problems to an organisation like the Metropolitan Police.

But the CBI?