POLICING’S MUCH EASIER WITHOUT PEOPLE
IT is interesting that Chief Superintendent Ivor Marshall should suggest police stations are becoming less essential to the public as more officers attend people’s homes and set up bases in cafés and community centres.
A relative recently visited his local police station in Fife to hand in a camera he found in the street. But the station was considered so inessential it was closed for lunch – 15 minutes before a notice on the door said lunchtime began.
It also advised visitors to dial 999 for emergencies or otherwise 101. My relative did so and found himself in a queue. He was still in it several minutes later, when he had to ring off to get in his car to attend a funeral.
Not until two days later did he have another chance to revisit the police station where, this time, he was met by an officer who wanted to know why he had not handed in the lost property earlier. ‘Och, well,’ said she on hearing his explanation, ‘whoever’s lost it will probably be away from the town by now.’
My relative thought he was doing his public duty but clearly he was being a pest. Why on earth could he not have phoned or emailed the police and then been confined to his house all day while he waited for an officer to attend? Alternatively, couldn’t he have spent his day driving round the local community centres and cafés in search of a mobile police base?
But what does this joker do? He goes to his local police station.
Citizens, eh? You get the feeling policing would be so much easier without them.