The Hooded Law
‘WHILE the foodists tell us that we are what we eat, the fashion police are telling us what to wear.
| ”And where are you going in such a hurry, wing commander” |
Few can claim Dale Carroll, a 16-year-old from Manchester with a criminal history that embraces throwing fireworks at cyclists, driving a car over the pavement and attempting to cut down a CTV lamppost with a chainsaw is an overgrown boy scout.
But we are struggling to work out how banning him from wearing a hooded top for five years is going to curb his anti-social instincts, as the Times reports?
Presumably, the idea is that Carroll will be easier to identify as he goes about the town if he wears nothing on his head, or else a large deerstalker, a shocking pink fedora or a bowler hat.
Of course, if the scamp really wants to evade detection and look like every other law breaker on the block, he should move to Derbyshire and dress up as a traffic cop.
Following the earlier news of how a Derbyshire officer walked free of a speeding charge after his cars black box recorder went missing, the Telegraph notes that that the case was the thin edge of a fat wedge.
Last year, 59 police cars were caught speeding in Derbyshire. All were marked cars. All were captured on speed cameras. And none had their blue lights flashing.
And in every single case, senior officers decided that the journey the police driver was making justified their breaking the law.
The officers were not hooning around, joy-riding, or setting a bad example. And neither were they responding to calls, since no driver called to say they were speeding in response to some suspicious activity.
Supt Royston Smith, head of the Derbyshire Polices criminal justice unit, explains thats some cars might have been caught on camera at the exact moment their blue lights were not visible.
Thats pretty fortunate for the diver. Especially since the paper tells us that the cars have two lights that flash in sequence, so that one is always visible.
But some of the cars have strobe lights, says Smith. And Smith says that in 14 cases that was what was happening. No questions, No doubt. Case closed.
And Smith says that officers do not need to put on their sirens and lights when attending emergencies, for fear of alerting criminals – or other motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.
But then it is all for the publics good…’
Posted: 27th, May 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
