Daft Old Duffer returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I’ve been pondering over Josh Harris’ letter of last week, in which he complained of being harassed by the police.
We’ve not heard their side of the story of course, so it’s difficult to take a balanced view. Except to observe that it seems to have been an unusually long and intense scrutiny of a vehicle which was plainly without fault. [On The Wight have asked the police several questions in relation to the incident, but haven’t had the answers back yet. Ed]
Could be harmless
We shouldn’t be too quick to assign some sinister motive however. The reason might be quite harmless, quite understandable.
It may be, for example, that the local Inspector grew tired of seeing his force of worthy stalwarts hanging around the station sipping tea, and ordered them to go out and do something.
It could be that the duty sergeant had received a rocket from on high over the dearth of incident sheets coming their way, and had told his gang to for goodness sake go out and get some crime reported.
The list goes on
Maybe they had been whinged at for the amount of petrol they used, merely cruising about all day.
Maybe the keys to their beloved hotted-up vehicles had been taken away and they’d been told to get the soles of their shiny boots a bit dusty for a change.
That would be enough to make any copper resent some bloke going past in a sports car.
After all, that was precisely what they themselves had joined the force to do. That plus the ineffable joy of haring through our town centres, sirens blaring and lights flashing, making all the plebs get out of the way.
Maybe there’s another reason
Or perhaps the explanation is altogether simpler. Perhaps they’d been issued with a quota of cars to take off the road before being allowed back in the warm. And perhaps they’d had the misfortune to pick an unusually quiet day.
Perhaps they had hoped Mr Harris would finally grow so exasperated by their fooling around he’d take a poke at them. ‘Unprovoked attack on an officer in the course of his duty’ would be a very satisfying result.
Or had they spotted him sitting in his car in a suspicious manner? Wearing a striped jersey, and with his car boot suspiciously closed? Or going the wrong way along a high road – suspiciously?
We’ll never know. But at least we can rest in the assurance that Councillor Pugh approves.
