This morning's Telegraph carries a genuinely shocking story about mother and daughter Monica and Janet McIntosh who have were arrested and detained for seven hours for the very worst of cruel and depraved crimes: feeding pidgeons.
Now don't get us wrong - the BBW team loath pidgeons, or "flying rats" as we have been known to call them - but to detain an 76-year-old lady and her daughter for seven hours under suspicion of commiting a public nuisance offence and to later seize her house keys, bank statements and cheque books is nothing short of outrageous. If the lady in question was, as the article suggests, annoying neighbours with her behaviour, would it not have been more proportionate for the Police to have had a quiet word asking her to desist?
You can view the whole article here.
The bully-boy tactics deployed by Cumbria County Constabulary closely mirror those used against Vanessa Kelly, a Sandwell lady who was handed a fixed penalty notice of £75 for feeling ducks in her local park. Thankfully, the fine was cancelled following the intervention of Big Brother Watch. Similar such cases were also seen in Sandwell, where a woman was fined for dropping a tissue while running for the bus and a resident threatened with prosecution unless she removed a "welcome" plaque from her garden gnomes.
When will they leave us alone?
There seems to be an increasing tendency for the Police to arrest anyone complained of before carrying out any investigation. In relation to trivial complaints, this is stupid but it doesn't seem to bother the Police. They don't seem to understand how traumatic the arrest process is for the ordinary person. The taking away of someone's liberty used to be of such importance.
Posted by: Andrew | 04/05/2011 at 01:22 PM
There seems to be an increasing tendency for the Police to arrest anyone complained of before carrying out any investigation. In relation to trivial complaints, this is stupid but it doesn't seem to bother the Police. They don't seem to understand how traumatic the arrest process is for the ordinary person. The taking away of someone's liberty used to be of such importance.
Posted by: Andrew | 04/05/2011 at 01:22 PM
@Andrew
The police aren't interested in understanding. They are interested in obtaining DNA to put on their database. They also improve their statistics by solving easy "crimes" like this.
Posted by: Winston Smith | 04/05/2011 at 03:47 PM
Next headline Cumbria Police stake out the local pet shop, and quiz anybody who buys bird seed, then get forensics in to check for cannabis seeds in the Trill. the mind boggles.
Posted by: BillyBloggs | 04/05/2011 at 09:25 PM
The Police will arrest anyone on the most trivial of reasons and use any pretext to search and seize their property. This is COMMON PRACTICE and is happening on a daily basis. People really need to wake up and stop watching those stupid "cops and robbers" TV programmes, which a are nothing but propaganda and PR for the Police. These over-payed, molly-coddled pampered bullies really need put in the place. I would start will slashing their pay and the removal of their allowance i.e. how many people know that the Police get their house decorated and furnished TWICE a year at taxpayers expenses and multitude of other discounts in shops etc. It really is a gravy train; it is time that the public are told what suckers they are being played for
Posted by: Juliet Bravo | 08/05/2011 at 12:23 PM