I Think There's Something Wrong With Your Intelligence, Andy...

Hampshire Constabulary mounted a massive operation over two weekends in June after the unauthorised racing, attended by more than 450 individuals, shut the back road near Micheldever over the May bank holiday weekend.

Excellent! A police force actually doing something! 

Now, a senior councillor has questioned whether Hampshire Constabulary should have prioritised other operations, including cracking down on child exploitation and county lines drug dealing.

Err, those things don't tend to advertise themselves as happening at specific times and places, Andy... 

Cllr Andy McCormick, Labour leader on Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, said that "there must have been something that went wrong" with the force's intelligence.

Clearly, you aren't displaying much yourself: 

Over the first weekend of the operation, two sulky traps were seized and three individuals were subject to section 35 dispersal orders, with no racing or associated criminality taking place.

Additionally, police cracked down on unrelated driving offences, including one drug driver, three drink drivers, one "motorist dealt with for drugs offences" and five uninsured driver.

Anyone else would consider this a great result. 

But on the second weekend, no arrests, dispersals or seizures took place.

Anyone else would consider this a great result too! But not Andy: 

Speaking to The Gazette, Cllr McCormick said: "That is a hell of a lot of resources with not a lot to show for it.

"They must have made a judgement call and thought it was a bigger thing than it was. I don't know if their intelligence was off or if they cancelled at the last minute.

"Taking over a public road at the last minute is quite a big deal so I can understand why they wanted to dedicate the resource they did.

"I am tempted to say that there must have been something that went wrong with the intelligence at the last minute. There is more to it."

No, actually, there really isn't. I can understand why you'd think so, but this is actually what we want and expect the police to do. And the results we want from them. 

H/T: Ian J via email 

Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones…

…but letters will really hurt me *sob*:

The prime minister was among dozens of people across the UK who were targeted by a poison pen letter writer.

And this is news?

Gordon Brown's Fife constituency office received a letter in April, while others were sent to mosques, hospitals, universities and private homes.

Much of the hate mail, mostly posted from Hampshire, includes references to "repatriation" and "exit Europe".

That’s what constitutes ‘hate’ now..? Wanting to get out of Europe?

They have also been received in Derbyshire, Merseyside, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire.

These forces had initially been conducting separate investigations until Hampshire Police set up Operation Heron in January 2009 to co-ordinate the search.

There’s a manhunt going on for a poison pen crank?

I’m sure it’s not nice to have a letter full of obscenities, perhaps written in green ink, delivered to your door, but seriously! Don’t the police have better things to do?

One of the letters was sent to Somers Park Primary School in Portsmouth.

Head teacher Janet Fleming said: "The content of the letter was sickening.

"But I would want to assure parents that this is a perfectly safe environment for their children to be in and that all the steps necessary to keep children safe were in place and still are in place.

"I am concerned that the person who sent it is not mentally stable. The language is appalling."

Oh, good grief! Have we lost all sense of proportion in this country?

Just throw it away, love. Unless it contains a direct threat to your children, or perhaps a severed body part, it’s just a crank.

By now, you must know (the police would have told you) that he or she has written to all sorts of people. So why the ‘CODE RED! CODE RED!’ response? Do you think it will reassure the parents?

Det Insp Donna Goff, of Hampshire Constabulary, said: "Many of the letters people have found extremely distressing.

"Many people have felt extremely victimised by the letters."

By receiving one letter, no matter how obscene?

People need to get a grip…

The letters do not target a particular race, culture or religious group but are all pro-English, investigators said.

Ah, I see where this is going…

The inquiry will feature on the BBC1's Crimewatch programme on Tuesday night when officers will appeal for assistance in tracing the culprit.

What are they going to do? Ask the audience if they know anyone who is too ‘pro-English’?

Al-Jahom concurs on the pointlessness of this manhunt, and has an example of the letters from the Beeb too.

Must Be A Day With A ‘Y’ In It…

A Metropolitan Police officer failed to disclose he had been dismissed from another force 21 years ago and barred from joining a third in the latest vetting scandal.

Really, a day when the Met Police doesn’t disgrace itself must surely be coming, but that day is not yet here. 

PC Richard Fieldhouse served for around three years until his lies were uncovered in December 2022. Fieldhouse quit Hampshire Constabulary while under investigation in 2005 for breaches of “honesty and integrity” relating to his handling of a wanted suspect, a gross misconduct panel heard.

In April 2007, he applied to join Surrey Police. However, as part of its background checks Hampshire revealed Fieldhouse had once falsified a statement and been found guilty in his absence.His assessment day in Guildford, Surrey was cancelled and the force subsequently blocked him.

Gosh, what's a wanna-be crooked cop to do? Reader, you guessed it!  

Undeterred, Fieldhouse sought to join the Met in February 2019 after declaring a driving job. Although admitting to working for Hampshire and being rejected by Surrey, he simply answered “no” to a question on his application form that asked whether he had previously been admonished or subject to discipline matters by any previous employer, regulatory or professional body. 

He successfully became a constable in London four months later.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey

Commander Stephen Clayman, who chaired the hearing, said: “Honesty is a fundamental requirement of any police officer."

How about competence? It seems that would be more useful, especially in your HR department. 

It is not known when he resigned from the Met, but on January 27 the ex-officer disengaged with the process and no longer wanted a Police Federation representative. Had Fieldhouse not quit, he would have been dismissed without notice for discreditable conduct. He will be placed on the College of Policing barred list.

So, are we to assume from that, that he wasn’t on it before. What does one have to do?

This Explains A Few Things About The Hampshire Farce...

A police officer has been given the green light to take his force to an employment tribunal for discrimination after he was ordered not to bring his dog to work.

No Reader, not his police dog.

Detective Sergeant Mathew Parker told bosses he needed his ‘psychiatric assistance’ pet Koda with him to help with his autism and other mental conditions.

Which in any sane world you'd imagine would be a bit of a barrier to being employed as a police officer in the first place. But we are well through the looking glass now. And this is the Hampshire Police farce, after all...

But when he brought the animal in without permission, he was sent away by a detective inspector who told him to come back without the animal, an employment tribunal heard.DS Parker sued Hampshire Police for disability discrimination, claiming that three other staff members had been allowed to bring assistance dogs to work.

Good grief, it's like a uniformed insane asylum... 

The tribunal held in Southampton, Hampshire, heard that DS Parker has worked for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary since 2004.The experienced officer suffers from autism, ADHD, PTSD, depression and anxiety, the hearing was told. At the time he made his claim he worked in the force’s digital investigations team.

Was he mad before he started work, or did it send him mad? 

H/T: BettyBoo via Twitter 

Another Test For The Hants PCC?

Dozens of travellers have set up camp on a village green ahead of the Wickham Horse Fair.

A group of around 20 caravans appeared at Shedfield Common near Wickham yesterday afternoon. Residents said the travellers ripped up wooden posts in order to gain access to the field.

Ooh, let me guess, the cops on the ground will claim there's no evidence the travellers did it? Well, what will you do now, Donna?

Officers attended the encampment at around 4.45pm to "assess" the situation and said they are working we (sic) the landowner to find a suitable solution.

Will that include booting them off by force? Checking every caravan and car is taxed and MOT'd? Checking the welfare of every animal and ensuring all horses are numbered? 

After organisers reached an agreement with the Hampshire Constabulary, a ‘small symbolic event’ was authorised to take place last year in lieu of the cancellation.

However, residents and business owners were left frustrated as scores of travellers and their horses descended on the Hampshire village - forcing police to close multiple roads.

So, you reach an agreement, one side then blatently disregards it and....you try and reach another? What's the definition of insanity again? 

Despite the disruption, the fair has received the go-ahead for a full return, with organisers confirming it will take place on Friday, May 20 this year.

Watch this space! 

H/T: i.r.jackson via email

Remember When The Law Was Applied Equally And Without Favour?

Posters saying "[redacted]" have sparked a police hate crime investigation. They were found on lampposts in two roads in Basingstoke and near Basingstoke College of Technology.

Hampshire Constabulary was alerted to the posters by a resident on Thursday and said they are being treated as a hate crime.

What did these posters say? "No blacks, no Irish, no dogs?" Or "Only women have vaginas"? 

No. They said "It's OK to be white". So we must conclude from this that the police in this country - certainly those in Hampshire who have form for this - don't think it is OK to be white...

They will, of course, say that that's not true and their hands are tied, and thanks to the ludicrous legislative burden they work under, they have to respond if someone makes a complaint. So, has someone?

Resident Priya Brown said: "These tactics are divisive and they have no place in today's world. They're tactics that are used to divide deliberately by neo-Nazi groups and white supremacy groups. It started in the US but we have seen it here in the UK."

So does that mean that posters and statues proclaiming 'Black lives matter' are now fair game for a complaint on the same basis? Do you think police would be forced to investigate if a complaint was made about them?

If you say 'Yes', then would you like to buy this? 

A spokesperson for the police force said they were liaising with local community groups as part of the investigation.

Will any of those be majority white community groups, I wonder? 

The Witchfinder General Will Always Find Witches...

'I will be appealing this decision, which I feel is wholly disproportionate to what I did, especially in relation to other much more serious recent offences in Hampshire where police officers were not dismissed.

'I also have serious reservations about how this case has been handled by Hampshire Constabulary as it has taken almost two years to come to a conclusion.

'Myself and my legal team also felt it was not appropriate the Chief Constable chaired the hearing following her recent involvement in those more serious misconduct offences. However, this objection was dismissed.'

And who is the Chief Constable? Why, none other than Olivia Pinkney! Yes, her.

Video Evidence..? Nah, Still Not Interested...

A charity volunteer whose car was filmed being hit by an Amazon delivery van has called on the retail giant to pay for the repairs.

Steven Taylor said his Toyota Estima has not been able to start since the crash in Basingstoke on 7 February.

He said the driver did not report hitting his car, which he usually uses to make deliveries and drop-offs for family support charity The Safe.

Good think he had film! It'll be especially delicious if he bought the security camera on Amazon! 

The company has given him the phone number for its claims team but Mr Taylor said his calls were repeatedly diverted to voicemail.

"We can't just keep everyone waiting whilst they go through some weird hoop-jumping... at the moment I can't do deliveries for the charity," said Mr Taylor.

"It's infuriating that somebody could smash into a car and then just drive off without doing anything - and then leave someone else with hundreds of pounds worth of damage."

But wait! Isn't it a crime to cause an accident and then drive away? 

A Hampshire Constabulary spokeswoman said: "The car sustained minor damage in the incident.

"Our collision assessment team has reviewed the report and did not deem it proportionate for further investigation."

Oh, Apparently not one they care to bother with. What a shame for Mr Taylor that he wasn't sent a nasty letter instead... 

H/T: PeeWee via email

Let’s Hope This Really Was A Waste Of Time & Money….

A spokesman for the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Taxpayers would question whether this exercise is good value for money.

“They want their police officers to be well trained, but this is clearly taking those officers away from their duties for an event which is unlikely ever to happen in Britain.

Hmmm, well, that’s certainly true.

But perhaps the TPA should bear in mind that earthquakes aren’t the only event that can cause building collapse, as MacHeath points out…

“At a time when the police are facing massive budget cuts they need to use the resources they have wisely.” Sergeant Colin White, a crime scene manager with Hampshire Constabulary, worked on disaster victim identification at Fort Widley, near Portsmouth.

Except as it turns out, this is not wholly a UK exercise.

Nor is it wholly UK-funded:

This week’s EU-funded project, code-named Exercise Orion, simulated emergency services rescuing people caught up in the disaster. In one “real life event”, up to 600 casualties were rescued from fictional town of “Widley”, Hants.

Let’s hope those skills don’t need to be put into practice, and we can all carry on moaning about ‘earthquake training’, eh?

These 'Freak Accidents' Seem To Happen A Lot...

...and always to the same type of person. How queer!

Mrs Roy - who owns ELEVEN dogs - revealed that Mika has since been put down.

She said: "What needed to be done has been done and I can't do anything more.

"No amount of apology is going to bring that dog back.

"It's just a freak accident and there's nothing anyone can do about it, or will do about it, because it's nature."

For someone who claims to revere nature, she hasn't half spent a lot of money on not looking as nature intended...

Eleven dogs and a fortune on tattoos - she must have a very well-paying job, eh?

What are the people charged with protecting the public against morons like these doing?

Hampshire Constabulary confirmed a ‘number of enquiries’ were made at the time of the attack involving Dior on August 3.

A Portsmouth City Council spokeswoman added: "There was a joint visit to [Ms Roy's] property by the police, kennels staff and RSPCA where all the dogs were assessed and checked for microchips and work to resolve the situation is ongoing."

Ah. I think that's code for 'sod all'.

Traitors To Their Country

Protesters clashed with police and flares were set off as cross-Channel migrants arrived in Hampshire on RNLI boats. Police made 12 arrests for a range of offences including assaulting an officer following a protest in Gosport on Sunday night.

Demonstrators had gathered in the town amid reports that authorities were preparing for the arrival of a boat. The dinghy was being shadowed by French rescue vessels until it was met by the RNLI boats in English waters, according to ship tracking data.

Given the government knows exactly what they are importing it's hard to see why they treat the demonstrators like this.

A Government spokesperson said: “The Border Security Command works around the clock to protect our border. We have established contingency plans to make sure we can securely disembark, check and process all small boat arrivals.

Strange interpretation of ‘protecting the border’, that!

“Migrants will be transported to short term holding facilities in Kent where they will be processed as normal and undergo stringent health, security and biometric checks.”

Given they routinely discard all ID just what are you checking them against? And true migrants come on planes with visas - call a spade a spade, these are illegal immigrants!

On Sunday, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary said it had deployed officers to Gosport to “support our partners in the event of an emergency at sea”.

Who are 'yout partners'? It's not the general public, is it? The emergency is on land!