Britain 2014 (Part 2)

As an ex Police Officer, I am ashamed and horrified at the actions of the Police in the manner in which they act on (spurious?)complaints. Yesterday the South Yorkshire Police pounced on the home of Cliff Richards when it must have been known he was not even in the country. In addition, the BBC were warned in advance so that they were able to arrange full coverage of the visit. The Police have denied informing the BBC, which is surely disingenuous considering only they would know when they were going to call.

The principal question must be why they even contemplated visiting with a warrant. An unknown man of 44 years now claims he was improperly assaulted by Cliff Richards in 1985 at a Billy Graham Crusade. Those Crusades had counsellors all over the stadium, surely it would be obvious to him he could have resolved the matter then by telling one of them. Instead he has brought discredit on the Crusade as well as Richards, and we will now no doubt hear how traumatised he has been by this alleged act. I wonder what could possibly have inspired him to speak out now?

However, great criticism can be made against the Police, using now familiar tactics worth of any totalitarian State. When someone makes a complaint the Police could be expected to ask for evidence to substantiate it. The next move would be to interview the suspect and decide the merit of the complaint. If it is a case of one word against another without any further evidence, no further action would normally have been taken in the days when Police acted within the bounds of integrity and the law. When the Police were expert in arresting criminals, rather than street preachers.

We have seen a collection of well known men in the entertainment world arrested and had their names published in the press, only to subsequently told there would no action taken. In other words there were really no grounds for arresting them in the first place.

As in those cases as well as this, there could be no justification for rushing to search a person’s home without some evidence, especially when the person was not present and had to learn of the search from the press. The police are just trawling for evidence and hope to find something they can use to create a suspicion.

The sight of police men And women rifling through a man’s possession and being filmed by a BBC photographer on a roving helicopter was revolting and only brings shame on all Police. If Theresa May really wants to improve the Police she should take action to halt such practices as we have witnessed.