We are the angry mob...

In recent weeks I've read stories in the papers about various miscreants.

There've been tales of rampaging youths on rooftops vandalising property and causing criminal damage whilst being fed McDonalds by police officers too scared to act in case human rights are infringed.

I've seen articles about ordinary citizens being arrested for standing up to yobs and being advised not to confront them for their own safety.

I've read about the BNP starting off their own patrols in Wiltshire as a response to local people's concerns at the lack of police presence

All of this is depressingly familiar to most of you I'm sure and a damning indictment of the way this country has gone downhill in the last ten years. However, the opinion piece I've just read in a national newspaper has rankled with me enough to post this response (because of course all of the main politicians and newspaper editors read my blog! Ha).

The article states that 'a police officer is attacked every 20 minutes in Britain' and quotes the home office as saying that 'Assaults on those serving the public will not be tolerated'.

Now having read that, please imagine the following scenarios :-

Q. you're one of a pair of coppers (they go nowhere on their own) walking through a housing estate at night and a group of youths start rampaging down the street you're in, smashing car wing mirrors off, screaming and shouting and threatening violence to all and sundry.

What do you do?

A. You radio for back up obviously and have a tense couple of minutes standing off the said youths with your array of weaponry (Baton, CS Gas, Tazer etc.) your mates arrive promptly and you're a hero.

Now let's have that scenario again but this time you're not a pair of coppers, you're a couple of mates coming back from the pub. This time you're attacked as you remonstrate with the scrotes but manage to hold them off with some hastily acquired fence posts.

So do you think there'll be separate outcomes to those two scenes or will the bad guys get their comeuppance no matter what? Errm...I think we all know the answer to that one.

If the police aren't busy on an outreach course for young offenders or nicking people for blatantly putting their bins out on the wrong day then they may turn up, if they do you'll be arrested for assault on the poor kiddies and criminal damage to the fence. Once you go to court you'll end up paying compensation to the lads who were just about to use your head as a football and get some kind of community punishment (the only upside to this being that if you don't turn up no one will care anyway and nothing will happen).

If the police want public support then surely it works both ways, they have to start protecting the public again as they used to without just paying lip service to it and trying to hit targets. Otherwise I'm afraid that we'll all turn into passers by whenever an officer is being assaulted not wanting to get involved for fear of arrest ourselves.

One final thought - wouldn't it be nice if the original home office quote had been 'Assaults on the public will not be tolerated' ...after all we pay their wages.