Never Explain, Never Apologise…

All he did was donate three bin bags full of his children’s unwanted clothes to his local charity shop. 

…

 The dad-of-three’s good deed ended in a nightmare when he was wrongly accused of breaking into a charity shop in Portswood.

Wrongly accused by whom..?

The drama unfolded late on Thursday night when the 26- year-old’s front door was knocked on as he and his partner were heading to bed. Concerned with who could be banging on his door so late, he went to the window and was shocked to see two police officers on his doorstep.

Worried that they may not be who they claimed to be, he asked them to put their badges through the letterbox but when they refused he said he wouldn’t open the door unless they calmed down as his young children were asleep upstairs.

Now, there’s some comment under the story that he should have accepted their identity at face value. Were his concerns well-founded? Yes, indeed they were, imposters aren’t unknown.

Mr Horne claims the police then threatened to break the door down, with one starting to kick the door and another reappearing with a door enforcer.

For a charity shop burglary? It’s a little on the nose, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not as if he was being accused of grooming schoolkids or anything…

Oh, wait, they don’t come to your door in the dead of night for that either now, do they?

When he opened the door he says he was handcuffed and told he was under arrest on suspicion of burglary, before being taken to a police cell. Dazed and confused by what was happening, it was only during his hour-long interview that he started piecing together what he was being accused of.

He claims officers told him they were investigating a burglary at the Help the Aged shop, in Portswood Road, overnight on August 11, and that his fingerprints were found on a black bin liner.

Which he’d delivered his donations in. And, as he clearly had a criminal history, his prints being on file, the police put two & two together. And got five.

It wasn’t long after explaining this that Mr Horne said he was released at around 2am, with no further action, but he received no apology from police.

Of course he didn’t. That would be to admit that they were precipitate, and might go against them in any future complaint. It’s standard public sector procedure.

“This could have all been avoided if they had checked with the shop’s donation register first, because they would have seen that I had signed a form relating to my donation. “To come to my door like they did, at that time of night, is in my opinion, disgraceful.”

I’d have to agree. The police, of course, will say that they do this to ensure the suspected crim is home (although, shouldn’t they be out burgling?).

But surely they’ve had enough time in this case to eliminate staff and genuine donors dabs?