Julie Maynard was returning from a trip to Calais with 12-year-old Joshua when she was stopped and questioned about her relationship with her son.
When she insisted that he was her child, she was questioned for several hours and told: "It is obvious he has nothing to do with you".
Miss Maynard, a legal advocate from Ware in Hertfordshire, was taken to a separate detention room - leaving her son in distress - before eventually being released.
Ms Maynard's son is mixed-race, which she believes sparked the initial suspicion. Best of all, when she challenged this, the response was, well, a little less than ideal:
When she asked if she would be asked the same question if her son was white, she claimed that the officer replied: "Are you accusing me of being a racist?"
The family was then surrounded by 10 police officers, detained under the Terrorism Act and told to get out of their car.
Well, well, well, the 'Terrorism Act' again. What was that about it only being used in extreme circumstances and not for trivial matters? Not that child-trafficking is trivial, of course, but what would this family have been detained under
before this Act came into play...?
She described the episode as an "unpleasant and frightening experience" and has now received compensation and an apology from Kent Police for their "lack of tact". The female detective constable handling the case was transferred to other duties.
Something 'non-customer facing', we can only hope...
Once it's on statute, it can be used quite broadly unless very specific exceptions and exclusions are incorporated into the legislation, which they usually aren't.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I always thought "diverse" was a Welsh poet...