2006-02-13
So the debate about whether the UK should have identity cards rumbles on. Personally I can’t get too excited about the whole issue: I can’t see that it’s going to have the remotest impact on crime and terrorism in particular. The bad lads will find a way of forging these things if they want to, and for all the cards are supposed to have fingerprints and retinal images stored on them that’s not exactly a problem for someone like Abul Hamza is it? Or my mother (on the retinas anyway). So given that I don’t see that there’s much of an infringement of civil liberties if those who object will be able to get round it then it starts to become something of a bonus if I only have one identity number to remember instead of one for the NHS, one for National Insurance, one for Tax, one for TV licence, one for driving licence…and so on.And it’s not all one way traffic – if the ne’er do wells will be able to get round the system I’m absolutely certain the Police will. They’ll pay just as much regard as they do at the moment to people’s rights – it’s not going to get much worse than being shot eighteen times through the head while being held down on a tube station for the ‘offence’ of living near a suspected terrorist and being forign-looking. A few months ago I told the story here of the Scottish man Harry Stanley – shot by the Police on suspicion of being an IRISH terrorist carrying a sawn-off shotgun when in fact all he had was c coffee-table leg. Surprise, surprise at the weekend the Police complaints commission finally decided that the Officers concerned needn’t face disciplinary proceedings and then had the audacity to suggest that maybe it would a good idea for the two policeman and the family to meet so that they could both understand what effect this tragedy had had on their lives. To which you have to think if the Policemen don’t yet have a concept of what it feels like to have your husband or father shot dead for no reason whatsoever by people who are not going to be answerable for their actions then they really shouldn’t be in the job. And as for the officers themselves – you can quite see the family being in their rights to say they don’t give a toss what stress they’ve gone through. Not interested, it’s not going to bring him back is it?
Why so anti-Police, Kevin? No reason really, to be honest. I was struck though by the contrast of two situations in which they are allowed to exercise discretion. You’ll have seen the demonstrations post Hamza and post the cartoons last week. ‘Protestors’ demonstrating, dressed as suicide bombers and carrying placards inviting their brethren to behead people in retaliation for lack of respect? And the Police used their discretion and decide I would just provoke a riot if they arrested any of these people. I’m not actually saying they were wrong to do that, but I contrast it with what happened to an eighteen year-old friend of my son Jack in the same week.
Steven his father and his brother travelled up to Dundee to watch a football match – they’re Edinburgh ex-patriots too and continue to support the Hearts (Google Heart of Midlothian FC for an extraordinary soap opera of a football team this season – doing exceptionally well in their league their Lithuanian banker owner decides to sack his manager and his chief executive replacing one with a convicted paedophile, the other with his son, and then starts interfering with team selection to the extent that he goes out and buys a whole new team in January…none of this concerns this story…I just threw it in).
So the family travelled up to Dundee the other night and stopped off at a chip-shop for fish and chips and a drink. Young Steven got a small bottle of Irn Bru (a wonderful Scottish drink of a splendidly sickly consistency – excellent hangover cure). A plastic bottle. Which he had just about finished as he reached the football ground. There is a law that says that no alchoholic drinks can be taken into football grounds but Irn Bru is just a soft fizzy drink. So he walks in with his Dad and little brother and they go to find their seats at which point two large Policemen grab hold of Steven and arrest him for possession of a bottle.
The situation is clearly ridiculous, but obviously he is only holding a small plastic bottle with a teaspoon of liquid in it. Expecting that it will be just taken off him he makes no protest, but is then marched out of the ground. His family imagine that he’s been ejected from the ground but find after the match that he’s been driven away by these two Policemen and a third who joins in the fun and has been locked in the cells for three hours. No one attempts to tell the family why the heavy handed treatment is necessary and seem very reluctant to let him go, but eventually he’s let out on bail to appear in court on Wednesday. The desk sergeant admits this is a situation where the arresting officers (who presumably got to stay in the Police Station instead of dealing with any real trouble at the game) could use their discretion.
Those in a position of power have to use it in a manner that will earn them respect. But too often they use it with, and accordingly attract, contempt.