The shrine out rage is proof, if any were needed, that the Old Bill has lost the plot completely

What’s the difference between an abortion clinic in West London and a suburban garden fence a few miles south? answer: if you want to protest peacefully outside the abortion clinic you will be subject to a 100-metre exclusion zone and could be fined up to £1,000.

On the other hand, if you want to demonstrate your support for a worthless career criminal killed while he was committing an armed burglary at the home of a 78-year-old pensioner and his disabled wife, you’ll be afforded police protection.

In fact, anyone who attempts to remove a makeshift shrine to the dead burglar has been warned by a senior scotland Yard officer that they could be arrested.

Furthermore, deputy commissioner Craig Mackey has made it clear where his sympathies lie. In an interview yesterday, he described the death of villain henry Vincent as a ‘tragedy’ and said those local residents tearing down floral tributes to him should ‘ act respectfully’ or they will have their collars felt.

If you have ever suspected that the world has gone rip-roaring bonkers and the Old Bill have lost the plot completely, here is proof positive, as if any more is needed.

I won’t go into the details of the Ealing abortion clinic protest. I’ll leave that to tom Utley, on page 14.

What I want to concentrate on is the utter lunacy unfolding around the death of Vincent, in hither Green, about which I wrote last Friday.

Vincent, you may recall, was a member of a notorious crime family, who had featured on Kent Police’s ‘most wanted’ list.

together with an accomplice, and armed with a screwdriver, he broke into the home of Richard Osborn-Brooks and his wife, who suffers from dementia. During a scuffle, Vincent sustained stab wounds and subsequently died in hospital.

the police turned up and, outrageously, arrested Mr Osborn-Brooks on suspicion of murder. he was held for two nights before being told no charges would be brought against him, following a public outcry. and that should have been the end of the matter.

NO SUCH luck. Vincent’s friends and family soon started issuing dark threats about seeking revenge. Mr and Mrs OsbornBrooks had to be taken into protective custody and their home was boarded up.

shortly after, floral tributes began to appear on a garden fence overlooking the property.

If I’d been a bit quicker off the mark, I could have shot down there with a vanload of this column’s patented Portashrines, complete with petrol station flower arrangements, teddy bears and badly written, misspelled messages.

henry Vincent, who had served jail time for preying on vulnerable, elderly people, was hailed as a saint. he had a ‘heart of gold’ and was ‘too good to walk this earth’.

as columnist John Junor, late of this parish, used to remark: Pass the sick bag, alice.

Neighbours of Mr and Mrs Osborn-Brooks naturally took offence. the intention of this ludicrous shrine was clearly to intimidate. the locals retaliated by ripping down the flowers.

the Vincent fan club returned with fresh bouquets and tributes. Locals again trashed the shrine, including a man in a hi-viz (should that be hi-vigilante?) jacket.

and so this circle of insanity continued, under the watchful eye of police officers on horseback, and a sleepy suburban street was transformed into what some described as a ‘war zone’.

the Mail asked of the Vincent supporters: What kind of people are these? I’d go further: What kind of country have we become?

More to the point, why do the police think it is their job to side with criminals and their associates against their victims?

as if arresting Mr Osborn-Brooks in the first place wasn’t disgraceful enough, they are now defending his attacker’s friends and family who are menacing the good people of hither Green.

It culminated yesterday in deputy commissioner Mackey’s jaw-dropping interview, in which he warned residents: ‘If you do things where you cause a breach of the peace, disorder in that area, then like anyone you could be arrested. Laying flowers is not a crime.’

No, but armed burglary a crime. and building a shrine to a career criminal who invaded the home of an elderly couple — right opposite that very home — is a deliberate provocation, virtually guaranteed to cause a breach of the peace.

We are led to believe that the owner of the fence involved won’t make a formal complaint to the police because he is afraid that his house will be burned down. so why haven’t Vincent’s supporters been arrested?

If his fan club want to pay tribute to him, let them do it at his funeral, at his graveside — not in the street where he met his end committing an aggravated burglary. Where is it written that every death has to be marked by an ostentatious public shrine to the departed?

this nonsense all began with the sea of flowers that marked the death of Lady Di. OK, so that was an extraordinary moment, which gave licence to an orgy of self-pitying vicarious grief.

Ever since, the streets have been littered with tatty, pop-up shrines to victims of everything from stabbings to road accidents. Everyone must be seen to grieve, at all times.

there’s a horrible monstrosity, composed of flowers, scarves, items of clothing etc, outside one of George Michael’s homes in North London, which has now become a permanent fixture. It looks like some Wham! fans have been fly-tipping. he didn’t even die there.

I’ve often written about the makeshift roadside memorials to deceased ‘gangstas’ and even a cow shot by police in Northumberland.

the most absurd was the Pray4Muamba malarkey, a shrine to an obscure footballer who wasn’t dead and went on to make a welcome recovery.

Now we’ve got one to an evil criminal who preyed on old people. But why do the police believe it is their duty to guard these hideous memorials?

here’s a question for deputy commissioner Mackey. should the family of the Westminster Bridge terrorist Khalid Masood, who was shot dead in the grounds of the houses of Parliament last year, be allowed to erect a floral tribute to him underneath Big Ben?

AND if any MP, or relative of one of Masood’s victims, including a brave police officer, attempted to tear down that memorial, would Mackey threaten

them with arrest? the same goes for the London Bridge terrorists. should they get a floral shrine at Borough Market?

What’s so special about henry Vincent and his family? Is it because they is ‘ Gypsies’ (their own description)?

almost certainly. since those we are supposed to call the ‘travelling community’ managed to get themselves classified as a ‘vulnerable ethnic minority’, the police have become scared stiff of tackling them.

so-called ‘travellers’ are justified in thinking that the law doesn’t apply to them, so rarely is it enforced against them. the authorities, and especially the police, are terrified of being accused of ‘racism’.

so they go out of their way to demonstrate the precise opposite. My guess is that’s what lies behind the knee-jerk arrest of Richard Osborn-Brooks and the threat to nick anyone who violates the shrine to henry Vincent.

this is the kind of country we’ve become. One in which you are automatically accused of being a murderer if you defend yourself and your wife against an intruder in your own home.

and also one in which the associates of a violent criminal are given a police escort to menace a peaceful community and law-abiding local residents are threatened with arrest if they dare to resist.

Makes you proud to be British.

They will be giving suicide bombers f loral memorials next