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Police are now too illiberal
• REGULARLY for the past five months there have been reports of residents being subjected to very humiliating procedures and abominable treatment at the hands of badly trained and illiberal police officers.
It is generally recognised that there are three things wrong with the Metropolitan Police. Sir Ian Blair. An organisation is only as good as the man at the top.
There may also be serious disadvantages for taxpayers in areas where the Asbo culture is applied very thoroughly in that real crime is ignored.
For example, in Camden it can be deemed a criminal offence under the Protection from Harassment Act (1997) to be seen by a police officer looking at a building if crossing the road and waiting for the traffic to pass.
Yet when police were tipped off about a planned shooting at a gig at Turnmills nightclub in Clerkenwell in 2003, they parked an empty squad car outside the venue as a warning and deployed just two unarmed officers nearby, but the murder happened as predicted. From January 2006, Tony Blair gave police powers of arrest for anything. This was to enable a DNA database to be compiled.
Therefore those who have the misfortune of living in Asbo hotspots are more likely to be treated as suspects particularly when they are alone in the street at night.
JAMES REDMOND
Mornington Court, NW1 |
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