From The Metro:
A grandfather was arrested in a dawn raid and held in a police cell for six hours - for swearing once in front of a council official. Thomas Catcheside was woken at home by officers, marched to his bedroom - where his wife was still asleep - and ordered to get changed before being driven away in a police van.
The 67-year-old, who admits using the f-word in a row with the official, had his fingerprints and a DNA swab taken*, before being issued with an £80 fixed-penalty notice and released. 'I was frightened and angry. It was so heavy-handed,' said the former lorry driver.
His arrest followed a dispute a few days earlier over 'dangerously slippery' stairs in his communal block of flats in Cambridge. The grandfather-of-five, who is chairman of his local residents' group, has been campaigning for three years for safety improvements to the staircase. But when an official stopped him from following him downstairs to listen to a phone call to a supervisor, Mr Catcheside snapped: "Don't you tell me what I can and can't do in my own f***ing place."
A Cambridgeshire police spokeswoman said: 'We were responding to reports of an assault.'
1. As I've said before, one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism is that the punishment is inversely proportional to the offence, until ultimately any and every form of behaviour can be punished ("ThoughtCrime") on the say-so of a council official, police office or CPSO. "Fixed penalty notices" take us yet further down this slippery slope, as Simon Jenkins explained in yesterday's Evening Standard.
2. There is a separate offence of "wasting police time". Shouldn't the officers concerned be punished for wasting their own time?
* Which they can now retain for six years.
Quick update
6 hours ago
14 comments:
Has anyone officially complained?
I'm curious as to what constitutes assault in this case. Presumably it's swearing. But does it then count as assault because it was a council worker or can anyone have someone done on the same basis? If that's the case I'm in trouble..
I'd also have thought that the council worker preventing the chap from following him downstairs was more likely to be classed as assault.
Might as well have thumped the little fuck. It doesn't cost any more, after all.
"There is a separate offence of "wasting police time". Shouldn't the officers concerned be punished for wasting their own time?"
Do the council officer for that too...
The penalty for obstructing a council official in their duties is death by hanging
The penalty for wasting a council officials time is death by beheading.
Should the man be head off or hung up first?
Well, we must leave something for the courts to decide.
BQ, I oppose the death penalty, but logic says he'd have to be hung first, or else he'll just slip straight through the noose.
There is swearing (which most of us do from time to time) and swearing "at" someone. But the distinction seems to be lost here. Saying: "...in my own f***king place" just shows someone is upset or lost their temper. Something like "you f***king little tosser" is rather different and could understood as aggressive. It is also more premeditated; not something that just "slips" out in an unguarded moment.
Neither should be seen as assault in my mind, but it's very worrying that the former is also seen as assult.
As much as anything else in this sorry saga I was surprised by the time of day (0530) that Plod turned up to arrest him. I'd class that as deliberately upping the ante on the harassment and intimidation front.
He's a 67 year old retired bloke, not an armed drug dealer. At least they don't seem to have sledgehammered the door. No wonder people who trust the Police are becoming a rarity.
AC1, yes, but he hasn't been heard from since.
BTS, Bruce, agreed. This does not sound like 'assault' to me.
BFOD, agreed.
JM, good idea.
FT, they did the 05.30 stunt for added impact (see 1984 - they always arrest you in the night), plus they get paid overtime for that.
they get paid overtime for that
D'ohhhhh - of course. Simple incentives again.
I know the 0400 knock on the door thing, but somehow in my ignorance had always associated it with the most serious crimes and crims, and otherwise with the methods of the Stasi. Not a simple complaint made by a simple Council worker to simple Plod. A complaint that in a saner time would have been dealt with by an equally simple "do fuck off and get a life, there's a good twat".
Bruce,
"There is swearing (which most of us do from time to time) and swearing "at" someone. But the distinction seems to be lost here. Saying: "...in my own f***king place" just shows someone is upset or lost their temper. Something like "you f***king little tosser" is rather different and could understood as aggressive. It is also more premeditated; not something that just "slips" out in an unguarded moment."
It's just a nasty way for the state to get people. Apparantly, staff on government call centres are told that they can put the phone down if someone swears. So they do, because then it improves their call stats.
A while back, some high-up wonk at the council swore at me over the phone. Come to think about it, that's happened a few times! I must just annoy them for some reason?
Anyway, can you imagine what would have happened if I'd phoned the police to report the offence? Do you think they'd have raided the council offices and dragged the offender off to the nick. No? Me neither.
More likely I'd have had a copper telling me to f*** off before hanging up the phone or they'd have sent Tubbs and Crocket round to my gaff to liberally apply a baseball bat.
As the man once warned; "All men are equal, but some men are more equal than others."
These people are truly out of control now. Seriously, I'm not saying this in jest. We've arrived at the point where its sensible to avoid contact with officialdom at all costs.
OC, yet more perverse incentives.
JP, that reminds me, ten years ago I left my passport in a photocopier and the shopkeer handed it to a passing copper. I went to the station to fill in all the forms and they said they'd ring me when it turned up and that I wasn't to pester them.
Fair enough, I waited three weeks and then rang them anyway. They told me that as I hadn't come to collect it they had burned it (a likely tale) and offered to give me an incident number in case I needed it for the insurance.
I told the officer to "F*** off" and slammed the 'phone down (to the amazement of a colleague who was listening). I wouldn't dare do that now.
Winston Churchill: "One of the most important signs of the existence of a democracy is that when there is a knock at the door at 5 in the morning, one is completely certain that it is the milkman."
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