The Southern Daily Echo has a disturbing follow-up to a story Dylan covered earlier this month, about a mother who confiscated a cricket ball from youths who kept whacking it into her garden.
To recap: as a result of this sensible act she received three visits from the police. She was required to attend the police station; she was arrested; she had her fingerprints, photograph and a DNA sample taken; she was questioned during a detention lasting five hours. And for what? To establish that she wasn't a thief. Of course she wasn't stealing the ball - she was simply doing what householders throughout the ages have done when scamps have knocked a ball into their garden.
Thank goodness, the CPS saw sense and the charges were dropped. But the way in which this was revealed to Mrs Cole is telling, and troubling.
When the police visited her home to inform her that the case was being discontinued, they took a press officer with them. He had a pre-prepared statement in her name which they wanted her to sign, effectively clearing the police of any blame.
The police preparing statements for suspects is the stuff of East German show trials, not democratic Britain. They've worsened the problem caused by their own basic mistake and pathetic overreaction by trying to put words in this poor woman's mouth.
It's absurd that Mrs Cole was ever charged, let alone the victim of the bullying she received from the police - she should receive an apology and her DNA should be removed from the database forthwith.
But sadly this sort of authoritarian overreaction is quite common. What's new, and lamentable, is the statement. This is a rather sinister development.
By Alex Deane
SOURCE:BBW
