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Anorak News | Beat It

Beat It

by | 19th, January 2006

‘“SHOULD we put more bobbies back on the beat?” asks the Express in its phone poll.

To put the question in context, know that it appears embedded in a piece on how beat officers cut crime in one dilapidated part on Manchester by 40%.

It’s a tricky question. And while villains pick up their stolen mobile phones and dial the “No” number, the Mail tells us that not all cops want to go out.

“I’m not coming out,” says the headline above the story of what happened when Ian and Sandra Robinson tackled four youths they spotted kicking the wing mirrors off their car.

The couple confronted the car breakers, who responded by laughing and sauntering away. So Sandra and Ian got into their car and gave chase. They soon caught the wrongdoers, trapping them outside a police station in Holyhead, Anglesey, North Wales.

It seemed like a stroke of luck. They knocked on the door of the station. They rang the bell. They pressed the buzzer. And for fifteen minutes they waited for the long arm of the law to reach out and haul the youths inside.

But nothing. “We were desperately trying to get into the station and kept ringing and ringing the buzzer,” says Mr Robinson.

Eventually, the door opened. An officer beckoned Mrs Robinson inside. This left Mr Robinson outside to deal with what he calls “three angry and desperate yobs”. Understandably, he released his grip on their hoods and let them go.

A spokesman for the police says in the Express (“Hero battles thugs as police refuse to help”) that the officer was on his own, his colleges having been despatched to an incident in a nearby town.

And he couldn’t just open the door to just anyone – not in this day and age. Not with all the crime that goes on…’



Posted: 19th, January 2006 | In: Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink