WhiteTruckMan:
A couple of things.Raising money from fines. Police have a direct interest in this. Speeding fines do indeed go direct to central government. But police have a mechanism to circumvent this, and siphon funds directly into their own pockets. It’s called the speed awareness course.
Ministers slam brakes on costly speed awareness courses
£35 a pop? Potentially £200mil going directly into police coffers? Can anyone define conflict of interest for me?
Police busy with terrorism. I too was once busy with terrorism, having served in NI. Me and some of my former colleagues (yes, we do keep in touch) always have the fear that some little oik in a back office who wasnt even an ache in their dads balls when we were being bombed/shot at will decide to come after us for stuff we did for queen and country decades ago. Any front line police thinking they are protecting us now, better look over your shoulder, and keep doing it for the rest of your life. Because unless you have one of those little get out of jail free letters so handily dished out to some proper scum, you will never be safe from future authorities. Better hope there isnt a future Phil Shiner already starting to pick up a law book! And for what the current so called authorities are doing -of which the police are a small part of-persecuting pensioners, some with alzheimers, for what they did decades ago under conditions and stresses that some bobby can have no real concept of, well, mere words alone cannot adequately express the anger, frustration and contempt that I and my pals feel.
Police really do go after the low hanging fruit first. Anything with the prospect of a quick conviction will always be pursued at the expense of more difficult crimes. This is why burglary victims have to check second hand shops and ebay themselves. And go chasing after any cctv footage. So when someone finds their stuff they have the choice of going back to the police, only for police to act too slowly to recover property/arrest villains/turn over to clown prosecution services who decide prosecution is no in the public interest, or they can sort the matter out themselves, and run the very serious risk of being arrested themselves. I’ve never believed police have conviction targets. But can any police officer look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that they are not regarded more favourably by their superiors if they have a higher number of convictions?
Find yourself under attack? Someone trying to break into your trailer in the middle of the night? Might as well call ghostbusters for all the good police will do. Dare to fight back and defend yourself and your property? Well thats you in the frame straight away. Low hanging fruit.
Of course, if you are white, male, christian and straight you are fair game. Live in a caravan, with a horse tied to the back? do what the [zb] you like, from setting up shop on school playing fields to fly tipping vast amounts. All police will do is have a pcso, maybe with a pc, walking the perimeter and ignoring the illegality going on right in front of them. But funnily enough were I to take next years holiday in a caravan and park in a local park then police would be all over me like a cheap suit. Again, low hanging fruit.
And if you are a member of a minority, you are all but untouchable. Just ask the children of Rotherham or Rochdale how much they trust the police. Or the people of Hillsborough.
I could go on a lot more. In fact I looked back at what I had written, and deleted a lot. The point is, ordinary decent people are sick to death with the trendy policing we have to put up with by graduate entry police who couldn’t pour pizz out of a bucket even if the instructions were on the bottom. The public are NOT treated fairly and evenly. Justice does NOT work for all, only those who can afford the most expensive lawyers. Just ask anyone who has ever paid for Mr Loophole the lawyer who specialises in getting people off speeding tickets.
I’m not going to say things were better in the ‘old days’. They werent. It was merely a different flavour of brown stuff. Policing was always done in part by fear. Fear of getting caught. Fear of being punished. But now, thanks to a liberal agenda driven criminal justice system those fears have largely gone away in the criminal classes. The only fear remaining is in the minds of the ordinary people. Fear of the criminals on one side, and the authorities on the other. Because both will prey on ordinary people going about their daily life with impunity.
(Rant meter dialled down a bit.)
Good post dude. I too did my time in NI as part of “Maggies Army” and I too await the inevitable knock at the door so your post resonates with me.