No justice in the world! (From Stourbridge News)

No justice in the world!

1:19pm Thursday 26th November 2009

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I READ a report in the local evening press where five men failed to get their records for minor offences committed in their youth, many years ago, deleted from police computer data records.

I can emphasise with them in one respect, because of an occurrence that happened to me about five years ago, and which remains a bone of contention even now.

I was about 68 years old at the time, I had recently taken ownership of a young adult dog who, unbekown to me, had an attitude problem.

It surfaced one morning, when she slipped through the gate and ‘nipped’ a chap (a police officers description, not mine).

By the time I had chastised the dog and put her back through the gate he had disappeared from the estate and , naturally, I surmised that he hadn’t been hurt too badly.

But he had reported the incident to the police.

A couple of days later, two other officers came, chatted about the incident, and then told me I was to attend the police station in a further two days time and there I would be interviewed and possibly issued with a caution.

The interview at the station was conducted by three officers, would you believe (presumably at that time there was no manpower shortages or financial restraints).

It was pretty much an exercise in the art of fait accompli as far as they were concerned.

The first question they asked was if I owned the dog. The second put to me was that, as the owner, would I agree that I was responsible for my dog’s actions.

Needless to say, since my dog wasn’t present and she could hardly incriminate herself if she was - then I had to admit that I was.

That was it, I was guilty. Job well done. I wasn’t prepared for what came next, however.

I felt that I would get little more than the old style rap on the knuckle type of warning telling me not to let it happen again.

I was swiftly disillusioned.

I was taken into the charge room where I was officially cautioned, swabbed, fingerprinted, a mug shot taken and to cap it all my personal details were entered onto the police DNA databases.

For a nip on the bum by my dog, and the fact that an old bloke like me was not fast enough to stop her, surely this is taking the offence to the extreme.

And watching the TV police documentary programmes screened over the years hasn’t helped heal my festering grievance.

They frequently show someone who has a small amount of drugs on their person or in the car and who is simply sent on his way.

Motorists stopped for speeding are given a telling off.

Drunks, louts, those fighting and persons using abusive language in town and city centres are told to move on.

Where is the justice in that?

Yet here I am, with a record.

It would appear that it was my bad luck to come up against over zealous officers or the need of Stourbridge Police Station to improve performance figures for the month. How sad is that?

The chief constable of the West Midlands was one of the three appealing against the information tribunal ruling in favour of the five men.

I have no doubt that he is pleased with the outcome and that it vindicates his stance that the integrity and protocol of the force should not be compromised.

I don’t think for a moment that, should a cutting of my letter cross his desk, he would take the time to consider my comments and tell me the reasons why I was placed on the database whilst the euphoria of my victory still prevails.

I would like to think, however, that there is someone in the force hierarchy who would be prepared to give me a logical explanation as to why it was deemed to be in public interest that a man, in his late sixties, incriminated for a minor dog infringement, should warrant inclusion on criminal DNA databases.

Name and address supplied

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