Keep your distance
Irreverent jottings from Staff Officer Stitchley.
Once upon a time, those found ambling about wearing face masks, scarves and rubber gloves would have been arrested on the spot. Now these precautions are considered pretty much essential, and we may soon face being arrested for not wearing them.
The legislation once available to the police to curb such outrages included The Riot Act, The Town Police Clauses Act (where adopted), The Prevention of Crime Act, The Offences Against The Person Act and The Vagrancy Act.
Most of these statutes have been erased, or they have fallen out of use. It has even been claimed that the Common Law offence of being ‘Drunk And Refusing To Fight’, often the last resort for officers seeking to arrest the uncooperative, is now unlikely to result in a successful prosecution. It is more likely to prompt a complaint. These archaic offences, if reintroduced, would prove invaluable in these troubled times.
As things stand, officers find themselves improvising as they seek to enforce self-isolation or fine offenders up to £10,000, or three months in prison. A homeless man has made things easier for the Isle Of Man Constabulary by handing himself in at police headquarters in Douglas after spending all his disposable funds on getting there.
He has avoided prosecution for failing to self-isolate for 14 days because, as a police spokesman announced, it was “in the best interests of everyone”. This means the authorities realised that the homeless man was unlikely to come up with £10,000 to pay a fine, while isolating him in prison would prove both difficult and expensive. To their eternal credit they seem to have lodged him somewhere considered suitable, although the island has now began to report the presence of the virus. We must hope that these events are not connected.
A Lancashire Constabulary police officer has been suspended after he was filmed threatening to “make something up” in order to lock up a young man in connection with the purchase of a quad bike. He is also accused of not keeping his two-metre distance, although it is difficult to detain someone from around 6ft away without Tasering or shooting them. Although quad bikes were only invented recently, Driving A Carriage Furiously, under the Offences Against The Persons Act 1861, should surely have been considered, even in the absence of horses.
As if this was not enough the Metropolitan Police Service has admitted that it wrongly convicted a 21-year-old man under coronavirus laws, and his £60 penalty had been cancelled. He had been arrested outside a leisure centre and also charged with the possession of Class B drugs and “going equipped to steal”, so he was probably dangerous enough without being a ‘potentially infectious person’. These incidents have provoked widespread concerns. Among some of us. Or maybe among some of them.
None of these things would have happened if people did what they were told in times of crisis. Human rights groups will no doubt be concerned by the impact of the virus on criminals in general, and domestic burglars in particular, who find their work made all the more difficult by the absence of empty houses. We can await moves to have them furloughed, although they may struggle to produce the requisite paperwork.
Civil Rights activists will also be concerned that those who persistently breach isolation requirements may end up in jail, where the authorities have ensured that spaces are available by pushing convicted burglars out into what was already a difficult market. So be careful… and stay safe!
Yours,
Stitch
stitchley@policeprofessional.com
@SOStitchley
