A man was arrested after police tried to stop travellers taking part in illegal horse racing down the A127.I love the phrasing there – ‘tried to stop…’.
Can we take it they weren’t all that successful?
Three horses and traps were seen racing along the eastbound carriageway of the A127 between Great Warley and West Horndon junctions shortly after 7am on Sunday morning.So, three racers with one, maybe two people in each, 20 vehicles (minimum of 2 people in each), that makes at least 46 people involved.
About 20 vehicles followed the horses, several completely blocking the carriageways, hard shoulder, a cycle track and the pavement.
And only one arrest…?
Inspector Stephen Pearce of Chigwell Road Policing Unit said that there had been an increase in this kind of incident and several races had been held along that stretch of road since the start of the year.No kidding…
He said: "We believe the people involved have absolutely no regard for the safety of other road users."
But then, why should they have, if one arrest is the only consequence of endangering their animals and inconveniencing other road users, while making thousands betting on the outcome of the race, according to one of the comments left at the ‘Echo’ website. A nice little day out!
A man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of obstructing police, dangerous driving and having an offensive weapon and is being questioned by police.No doubt the usual excuses will be proffered for the lack of enforcement action – not enough resources, not a priority, the need to tread softly with this ‘minority group’, etc.
Perhaps the long-suffering Essex residents should get together a convoy of about 20 vehicles and drive slowly down the A127 next Sunday morning with protest banners. See how long, and what response, that generates in the traffic cops…
7 comments:
All very well, but what 'bout their 'uman rights' then, eh?
Julia, Julia, Julia…..
If there were 46 of them there you can bet your bottom dollar that dozens more would have appeared out of the woodwork had police tried to properly uphold the law. They would have easily doubled their numbers within 20 mins. Given that it would take at least two officers per crook we are now needing well over two hundred officers to deal with this one event as officers would also be required to deal with the vehicles of those arrested. This would be a major operation and force WOULD have been necessary.
I doubt Essex Police would have even a hundred and fifty officers on duty in its response teams at any one time. At 7 am on a Sunday morning they would still have to deal with the fallout of the usual Saturday night nonsense. I seriously doubt it would have been within the capacity of Essex Police to deploy thirty officers from across the whole force to any incident.
This would have left the officers on the ground with the horrible task of having to persuade and beg some semblance of compliance from the traveling family criminal networks. The Do-As-You-Likeys do as they like and they know it.
After the sh*tstorm over an officer slapping then batoning a rioting woman, every officer above the rank of Inspector (who have all had backbone extractions on promotion) would be physically sick at the prospect of having to use force against members of a visible ethnic minority and who could blame them.
Anon makes a good point.
One of my UKIP chums explained to me once that back in the day (i.e. twenty plus years ago) the police would only move against gypsies on the basis of two-officers-per-gypsy, with full riot gear, armed officers etc.
"If there were 46 of them there you can bet your bottom dollar that dozens more would have appeared out of the woodwork had police tried to properly uphold the law."I don't doubt it.
And it appears the protesting Tamils in Westminster have reached the same conclusion...
"...every officer above the rank of Inspector (who have all had backbone extractions on promotion) would be physically sick at the prospect of having to use force against members of a visible ethnic minority.."
Unless they have committed the new crime of 'going equipped to serve ackee and saltfish to a minor', of course... ;)
it's their culture, innit ?
Having helped to serve papers on our travelling friends in the past I can safely say it is nothing short of a miracle to get away from any interaction unscathed.
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