Tuesday 1 June 2010

How Many Policeman Does It Take....

...to arrest a 62 year old man on a mobility scooter?

Don't bother wracking your brains for a punchline. It isn't a joke (well, not that sort, anyway):
Riding home on his mobility scooter at less than 4 mph, Eamonn Donohoe wasn't going anywhere in a hurry and didn't appear to be a menace to pedestrians.

But when the drunken Irishman ignored a policeman's attempt to flag him down, the local constabulary decided to take no chances.

As Mr Donohoe, 62, was trundling along the pavement near his sheltered bungalow he found himself surrounded by eight police officers and three marked vehicles.
Oh, boy! 'Polce Stop: Chesterfield' must be high on some late-night TV executive producers list...
One patrol car mounted the kerb to block his way and after failing a roadside breath test the disabled grandfather was locked in police cells for 12 hours, fingerprinted, photographed and had a DNA swab taken.
I suspect the offence here was less 'driving while drunk' and more 'not obeying the police immediately'. If he had stopped, I wonder if he'd have got off with a caution?

Or is Chesterfield a crime-free paradise where there's nothing more serious going on? Well, the crime figures are mostly above the national averages, so I'll guess that's a 'no'.

Indeed, this isn't Mr Donohoe's first brush with the law, albeit on the other side last time:
...the bizarre episode has left the retired construction worker from Old Whittington, Chesterfield, feeling disillusioned with the forces of law and order.

He said:'I can’t believe how they treated me – anybody would think that I was a bank robber or a member of Al-Qaeda.

'The police are always saying they’re short of resources, and then go and employ eight officers arresting someone like me. It’s completely mad, and a total waste of public money.

'When someone broke into my home and stole my TV and my video two years ago the police didn’t turn up for three days, and yet they can drop everything for something as daft as this. There’s no wonder the police get it in the neck.'
Indeed, Mr Donohoe. Hard to disagree.

Particularly when you read stuff like this, from Pavlov's Cat. It comes as no surprise to see that it's West Midland Police yet again, either.

5 comments:

Bucko said...

I bloggod on this aswell. According to the Sun, he lost his licence, even though he doesnt need one to drive his buggy.
WTF?

Mark Wadsworth said...

I'm not surprised. Ten or fifteen years ago an irish woman was being extremely abusive (but not violent) in what was my local pub, in the end about six policemen turned up in three squad cars to take her away.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

You have to go in in force to arrest these hooligans; otherwise, a donnybrook may be the result.

JohnRS said...

Roll on elected Police Comissioners.

Laura Norder isn't in safe hands at the moment. Someone who is directly accountable to the public needs to be giving the orders rather than the current senior political plod.

JuliaM said...

"According to the Sun, he lost his licence..."

Good grief! How is that even legal?

"Roll on elected Police Comissioners."

I think they will take a while. And even then, it's going to tyake a while for them to root out this sort of mentality.

Always assuming that that sort of mentality isn't A-OK with the electorate, of course...