If cops are skint, why are they nicking folk for slap ‘n’ tickle?

LAST month Chief Constable Steve Ashman, of Northumbria Police, complained that the force’s financial settlement left them facing cuts to balance the books.

Chief Constable Ashman is not the only top cop to have warned that the government’s attempts to rein in public spending have brought us to a lawless abyss.

So, if the cops are so stretched, why the buggering f** k are the Dibble nicking folk enjoying a bit of slap and tickle in the middle of nowhere at the dead of night?

I ask the question after a couple got their collars felt when they were caught engaged in naughties at St Mary’s Lighthouse, in Whitley Bay – on Chief Constable Ashman’s very own patch.

Hayley Affleck and Alan Gartside were passionate in the front of a Peugeot when the filth rolled up.

But the officers did not deliver a stern “pull your knickers on and f** k off” – cost to the public purse: precisely f** k all.

Affleck and Gartside were arrested and taken to the local cop shop where, we are told, Affleck’s bra was found in her handbag. Talk about a smoking gun. Gartside accepted a police caution for “outraging public decency”, though I struggle to see what was “public” exactly.

It was midnight on the North Sea coast. In January. They deserved a medal for bravery, not a police caution.

Affleck refused to accept a caution and so was dragged in front of the beak.

PC Helen Bell and her colleague PC Jenny Carr told how they had been on mobile patrol at around midnight on January 21 last year when they drove into the car park at St Mary’s and spotted the car.

Giving evidence at the trial, PC Carr said: “I turned to my colleague and said, ‘ Are they having sex?’

“I said that out of shock, really, disbelief at what I was witnessing.”

If you’re a cop in Whitley Bay and you’re shocked at a bit of in- car nookie, I suggest you’re in the wrong job, luv.

At the end of a three- hour trial Affleck, who denied outraging public decency, was convicted, fined £ 300 and ordered to pay £ 650 costs. Plus a £ 30 “victim” surcharge. What f** king victim?

When the cops are going round nicking couples for having a bit of a thrutch, we should respond to their bosses’ pleas of poverty with two words:

F** K OFF!