Good grief

Non-crime hate incidents to be scrapped in favour of common sense

Police chiefs will reportedly seek to scrap non-crime hate incidents in plans they will present to the Home Secretary next month.

NCHIs are no longer “fit for purpose”, police leaders have decided, after warnings that recording them undermines freedom of speech and diverts officers away from fighting crime.

Where does the common sense come from?   

From a checklist is the reply, but we knew that before we asked.

Instead, officers would be issued with a “common sense” checklist to go through before they take any action, to prevent police from intervening in online spats or offensive comments.

Good grief.

Police Cars

 

Getaway Car

 

Weed Farmers

Innocent neighbours at risk as gangs use rented houses and flats for cannabis farms

The gangs often use crude methods to bypass electricity meters to avoid paying for the high levels of energy the farms require, creating an increased fire risk.

Rival gangs also carry out raids on each other's farms - a practice known as 'taxing' - carrying out "significant violence" to anyone who gets in their way, police say.

Greater Manchester Police detected 402 cannabis farms between May 2024 and April 2025, and Sky News was given access to an operation by its officers at a semi-detached house in a quiet suburban street in Wythenshawe.

Bypassing electricity meters suggests weed farmers don't share Ed Miliband's enormous confidence in the value of solar panels. 

As we are told that Greater Manchester Police detected 402 cannabis farms in a year, it would not stagger the imagination if not all of those neighbours were innocent. Some were probably quite relaxed about it.

Very Brexity things

Retired police officer arrested over ‘thought crime’ tweet

A retired special constable was arrested and detained over a social media post warning about the threat of anti-Semitism in Britain, The Telegraph can reveal.

Julian Foulkes, from Gillingham in Kent, was handcuffed at his home by six officers from Kent Police – the force he had served for a decade – after challenging a supporter of pro-Palestinian marches on X.

Police body-worn camera footage captured officers scrutinising the 71-year-old’s collection of books by authors such as Douglas Murray, a Telegraph contributor, and issues of The Spectator, pointing to what they described as “very Brexity things”.

It's not April 1st, I just checked. 

Crackdown

Hundreds of barbershops targeted by police in crackdown on money laundering and modern slavery

Hundreds of barbershops have been targeted by police in a three-week crackdown on money laundering and modern slavery.

Officers visited 265 cash-intensive premises across England and Wales, including nail salons and vape shops, with 10 shops shut down and further closures expected, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

Not an invisible problem apparently. One of the comments -

Kelvin Michael
I'm gobsmacked. I thought all those barbers, unhygenic food shops, vape shops, car washes and nail bars in my local high street were there because of meeting retail demand. I also thought the 'cash only' signs on the windows was a protest against our increasingly cashless society. Well I never. Anyway I expect they will all close down now, let me look. No, still there.

Copycat

British counter-terror police on alert over copycat attack after New Orleans tragedy

British counter-terror police have urged vigilance over the threat of copycat incidents after the attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people celebrating New Year.


Meanwhile, copycat stabbings seem to have become a facet of UK city life.

Officer Roscoe

Robot police dog shot multiple times credited with avoiding bloodshed

A robotic dog is being thanked by state police in Massachusetts for helping avert a tragedy involving a person barricaded in a home.

The robotic dog named Roscoe was part of the Massachusetts State Police Bomb Squad and deployed on March 6 in a Barnstable house after police were fired upon. Police sent in two other robots often used for bomb disposal into the house to find the suspect along with the robotic dog.

Controlled remotely by state troopers, it first checked the two main floors before finding someone in the basement. The person, armed with a rifle, twice knocked over the robotic dog before shooting it three times and disabling its communication.

Watch crime

Paul Thorpe was a luxury watch dealer. Here he explains how mainstream media are happy to report luxury watch thefts from celebrities but not the background to those thefts.

The word 'potential' doesn't hide much from anyone

Post Office scandal: Met Police investigate 'potential fraud offences'

Neil Hudgell, a lawyer who acts for claimants, told the BBC that some of those seeking advice were former sub-postmasters who were prosecuted by the Post Office.

The Met Police said the potential offences could have been related to "monies recovered from sub-postmasters as a result of prosecutions or civil actions".

The force has already been looking into potential offences of perjury and perverting the course of justice in relation to investigations and prosecutions carried out by the Post Office.

Nicking Junk

Shoplifter: Police need to stop people like me

A persistent shoplifter has said the police need to do more to stop people like her stealing from businesses.

She said shoplifting was easy, and even the clothes she had on were stolen.

Amy, not her real name, is a shoplifter. She says she has to steal from shops in Nottingham because her partner has an addiction, which leaves her with no money.

The mind-numbing tedium of having to deal with people like Amy - it's easy enough to imagine. Strewth - I'd rather go after people on social media.


Back in Nottingham, a young couple invited the BBC to look into the back of their car to see their "graft bag".

A man who identifies himself as "Jordan" tells us: "I robbed £400 worth of cosmetics this morning."

His girlfriend, Rose, who is in her 20s, flips down the sun visor above the steering wheel and looks in the mirror. She pulls out a pink tub of Soap & Glory Body Butter and begins rubbing it into her face.

"I robbed this," she says. "I'd rather pay for it, really. But it's too much, I can't afford to pay for it. So you have no other option.

"You rob it or that's it, you can't have it. "

Falsely Fingered

Weeks in jail after false claim man bit someone's finger off in Normanton

He was falsely accused of attacking someone in the street

A Derby man spent four weeks in jail after falsely being accused of biting a man’s finger off during an assault. Benjamin Wilson called the police to say the end of one of his middle fingers had been bitten off by the man during an attack in Normanton.

The person alleged to have carried it out was arrested, charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm and remanded into custody. But, while the investigation continued, it became apparent that Wilson had lost the tip of the digit by another means, possibly by trapping it in a door.

Dixon of Dock Green never had to deal with incidents of this type. It's another side to policing, having to deal with such people. 

Middle class folk gluing themselves to busy roads must make a pleasant change. Worth spinning out for as long as possible - I know I would.

They have to catch them first

‘Seize and crush’ e-scooters, policing chief tells officers

Matthew Scott, police and crime commissioner for Kent, fears people will see the vehicles as “effectively decriminalised” in the wake of a pilot scheme in the county that finished last November, as they continue to be ridden illegally.

The number of people seriously injured by or when using e-scooters has almost doubled over the last year, up from 228 in 2021’s figures to 429 in 2022.

These things are pretty nippy so it isn't obvious how police officers are expected to seize them. Riders can easily zoom off down footpaths where pursuing police vehicles can't follow. 

With so many injuries reported, we might expect the trials to be abandoned, but apparently not. Infallible planners involved I suppose.


There are 30 government trials in place across England. Local authorities in England have been given the option to continue trials until the end of May 2024, with the scooters involved maintaining a 12.5mph speed limit.

Easily picked but good enough

 

A surprisingly simple mechanism I thought. Maybe films which show them being picked with a paperclip aren't too far from reality. Lacking relevant experience, I don't know if the UK version is similar.

Hiding in the bushes

 

Inviting Contempt

We buzzed off to a local shopping centre this morning, because Mrs H needed something for our New Year break. A foul morning it was too. Cold, grey and murky with heavy rain as a bonus and hardly light by 9am.

Driving conditions on the A38 were as poor as expected, but as usual some drivers seem to think they will be fine if they ignore the reduced visibility and standing water on the road. No need to drop below their usual 80mph. It's not so much the speed, as an inability to alter driving habits to suit the conditions. Of course they could have been professional drivers with razor-sharp anticipation and the reflexes of a cat, but I suspect not. 

Crossing over the M1 on the way home, we noticed that traffic heading north was at a standstill. Another predictable accident of course. Mrs H checked the traffic news and it wasn’t the only M1 traffic accident either.

At times like this, it is easy enough to imagine how the broad mass of road users must be regarded with a degree of contempt by the police and the emergency services. We may criticise them, but there are times when official contempt for the generality of motorists is not difficult to understand.

Heavy v Light

Snow: Motorways shut amid treacherous conditions

 

Motorways have been closed after heavy snowfall caused a series of crashes and left drivers in treacherous conditions.

The M54 between junctions 3 and 2 in Shropshire was shut on Sunday, while major congestion was also reported on the M5 slip road to the M6.

The text below the police photo above says "Snowy conditions have shut the M54 carriageway." It would perhaps be more accurate to say "We have shut the M54 carriageway," but who does accuracy in such dramatic conditions? 

Drivers still have to be careful of course, but from the photo I'd say that's what we used to call light snow. Wouldn't stop us doing the school run for example - assuming the school hadn't closed anyway.

Always stretched to the limit

Jamie Whyte has an interesting CAPX piece on modern policing.

Why the police have no interest in fighting crime

What’s happened to the police? Why do they dance the macarena and prance around in red high heel shoes when they cannot be bothered to pursue burglars or arrest looters? Why, in other words, are the police doing such a bad job?

It’s because society has changed in ways that make their job more difficult. That’s the conclusion arrived at by Sir Michael Barber, formerly Tony Blair’s Chief Advisor on Delivery, whose Strategic Review of Policing in England and Wales was published earlier this year.

He is perfectly wrong. The police are doing badly because society has changed in a way that makes their job easier.

Whyte goes on to propose an entertaining imaginary scenario which could be applied to many other areas as well as policing. The whole piece is worth reading as a contrarian view of both the police and the public sector generally.

To understand, ask another question: do the police welcome a declining crime rate? The answer may seem to be an obvious yes. After all, fighting crime is their job. And, if you were to ask any chief constable, he would surely claim to seek nothing more passionately than a society free from the scourge of crime.

But it is an implausible idea. Imagine a new drug reduced the inclination to commit crime by 75% and that, discovering it to be free of side-effects, the Government added it to the water supply. This could only strike a police chief as a catastrophe. With crime falling, the demand for policing would also fall, followed by the budgets of police forces and the salaries of police officers.

Therefore it’s in the force’s own interest for crime to persist. Ideally, they should be ‘stretched to the limit’. So, we could expect the police to respond to the emergence of a less criminal population by applying themselves to things that look like police work but which do not prevent crime.

Almost unenforceable

'Rule of Six' almost unenforceable because of two-household concession, say police chiefs

Officers are taking a more 'permissive' approach than in lockdown as more people receive their Covid vaccine and infection levels flatline.

Time to do a quick check on who cares about that...

er...

umm...

seems to be nobody at all...

Not in the spirit of lockdown.

Two women have described how they were surrounded by police, read their rights and fined £200 each after driving five miles to take a walk.

The women were also told the hot drinks they had brought along were not allowed as they were "classed as a picnic".

Guidance for the current lockdown says people can travel for exercise as long as it is in their "local area".

The police force involved, Derbyshire Police, said driving for exercise was "not in the spirit" of lockdown.

One of the would-be walkers, Jessica Allen, assumed "someone had been murdered" when she arrived at Foremark Reservoir on Wednesday afternoon.

The whole incident is certainly not in the spirit of something. Any kudos Boris acquired from Brexit seeps away day by day. Drip, drip, drip...